Bus305: Practice Active Listening

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Practice Active Listening A! Active Listening Activity Pu rpose The purpose of this exercise is to give students the chance to practice active listening skills. You will practice listening and reect on the experience. For this assignment, you will not engage in a debate or even share yourviews. You will be 100% focused on listening and understanding. Unlike most discussions where the listener is preparing a response. you will not delivera response so you should be careful to keep your thoughts on the speaker and not your own thoughts. Background Active listening means assuming half the responsibility for successful communication by actively giving the speaker nonjudgmental feedback that shows you have accurately heard what he or she said. Active listeners make it clear from their behavior that they are listening carefully to what the speaker has to say. Active listeners put the speaker at ease. maintain eye contact, and show the speaker that they are listening by nodding and making short statements. Several strategies can help you be a better active listener: First, engage in immediacy behaviors, such as putting your phone away, turning off the TV, leaning forward and making eye contact, and using short words such as "yes." "uh-huh." and "okay." to encourage the speaker to continue and to demonstrate that you're listening. In group settings. that means not following the \"rule of three." which states that in a group of ve or six people, it's acceptable to look at your phone as long as three people have their heads up and appear to be paying attention. The "rule of three" is not active listening. Second. clarify responses by asking the speaker to explain confusing or ambiguous statements. Third. when there are natural breaks in the speaker's delivery, use this time to paraphrase or summarize what has been said. Paraphrasing is restating what has been said in one's own words. Summarizing is reviewing the speaker's main points or emotions. Paraphrasing and summarizing give the speaker the chance to correct the message if the active listener has attached the wrong meaning to it. Paraphrasing and summarizing also show the speaker that the active listener is interested in the speaker's message. Paraphrasing and summarizing give the speaker the chance to correct the message if the active listener has attached the wrong meaning to it. Paraphrasing and summarizing also show the speaker that the active listener is interested in the speaker's message. Exhibit 1 lists specific statements that listeners can use to clarify responses, paraphrase, or summarize what has been said. Immediacy Behaviors . Put your phone away. . Turn off the TV. Sit close and lean forward. . Make eye contact. . Use "yes," "uh-huh," "okay," and other short words to encourage the speaker to continue. Clarifying Responses . Could you explain that again? . I don't understand what you mean. . I'm not sure how... . I'm confused, would you run through that again? Paraphrasing Responses . What you're really saying is... . If I understand you correctly... . In other words... So your perspective is that... . Tell me if I'm wrong, but what you seem to be saying is... Summarizing Responses . Let me summarize.... . Okay, your main concerns are... . To recap what you've said... . Thus far, you've discussed... Source: Atwater, I Hear You, rev. ed. (New York: Walker, 1992).Source: Atwater, I Hear You, rev. ed. {New York: Walker. 1992). Active listeners also avoid evaluating the message or being critical until the message is complete. They recognize that their only responsibility during the transmission of a message is to receive it accurately and derive the intended meaning from it. Evaluation and criticism can take place after the message is accurately received. Finally. active listeners recognize that a large portion of any message is transmitted nonverbally and thus pay very careful attention to the nonverbal cues l[that is. immediacy behaviors) transmitted by the speaker. Good listeners are also empathetic listeners. Empathetic listening means understanding the speaker's perspective and personal frame of reference and giving feedback that conveys that understanding to the speaker. Empathetic listening goes beyond active listening because it depends on our ability to set aside our own attitudes or relationships to be able to see and understand things through someone else's eyes. Empathetic listening is just as important as active listening, especially for managers, because it helps build rapport and trust with others. Reecting feelings is also an important part of empathetic listening because it demonstrates that one understands the speaker's emotions. Unlike active listening, in which one restate or summarize the informational content of what had been said. the focus is on the affective part of the message. As an empathetic listener. one can use the following statements to reect the speaker's emotions: - So, right now it sounds like you're feeling... o It seems as if you're... a Do you feel a bit...? a I could be wrong. but I'm sensing that you're feeling... I Don't Agree, but I'm Listening Being a good listener is a critical part of effective communication. Without it, one is unlikely to be a good manager. Therefore. the purpose of this assignment is to help students develop their listening skills. And there's no better way to do that than to talk to someone whose views are quite different from the students'. In the best of situations. being a good listener is difficult. Because of perceptual lters, distractions, or daydreams. we retain only about 25 percent of what we hear. When we're talking with people who have very different views and opinions. it can be almost impossible to be good listeners. We tend to interrupt. jump to conclusions about what they'll say, and hurry them to finish their points (which we don't want to listen to anyway} so that we can \"correct" their thinking with our own opinions. someone whose views are quite different from the students'. In the best of situations. being a good listener is difcult. Because of perceptual lters, distractions, or daydreams. we retain only about 25 percent of what we hear. When we're talking with people who have very different views and opinions. it can be almost impossible to be good listeners. We tend to interrupt. jump to conclusions about what they'll say, and hurry them to nish their points (which we don't want to listen to anyway} so that we can \"correct" their thinking with our own opinions. Notes a bout learning Most people are very poor listeners. so having to restate or paraphrase what others have said before making their own point is a very different communication style for most people. Most people report that demonstrating active listening to others makes it clear that an individual has really heard them. People also report that they are much more likely to see themselves as agreeing rather than disagreeing when both parties use active listening skills, as seen in this exercise. People commonly say. "I thought our views were very dissimilar. But after listening to each other. we discovered how similar they are.\" This is usually much harder than it looks. The instructor can demonstrate this to the class by having one listening couple do a demonstration for the rest of the class in which person A makes a statement that person B must accurately reect before making his or her counterpoint. lnevitably, person B has some trouble accurately rephrasing what person A has said. In fact, ask the rest of the class whether person B's rephrasing was accurate. The instructor's experience might be that usually it's not. Give person B another chance. And if he or she still doesn't get it right. have person A make the original statement again. Then, to be fair, have person A rephrase person B's statement. This small demonstration usually shows the class that active listening is harder than it looks. After the demonstration, have all of the other listening pairs conduct the same exercise simultaneously. Usually this starts out loud. but then settles down into a predictable pattern where the listening partners are quietly listening and talking to each other. Listeners should respond to emotions before information and facts when listening. If someone is angry or upset, listening should catch that rst. Only after dealing with emotions should listeners move on to information and problems