Active listening: techniques and exercises to develop skills

Active listening is a useful skill for establishing deep contact with your interlocutor and effectively finding a joint solution to issues. This is a difficult communication skill that can sometimes cause confusion. For many people, listening is a passive reception of information from people around them.

The attitude towards contact with an interlocutor was accurately described by the American satirist Mark Twain: “Most conversations are a monologue in the presence of witnesses.” But this position becomes a trap, falling into which we misinterpret the meaning of the conversation. The dialogue ends with misunderstandings, unpleasant feelings, and problems in relationships. How to avoid this?

Active listening - what is it?

When talking to someone, we are often not fully mentally involved in the process. Our brain is busy with abstract processes:

• strong emotional experiences;
• thinking about personal problems;
• subjective assessment of the interlocutor.

These are familiar communication scenarios that seem normal. We listen, but we don't hear! This is how a passive approach to contact with people is expressed, becoming the cause of many difficulties. Active listening is the complete opposite of how you normally communicate. This is a process of conscious interaction in which attention is focused on the thoughts and feelings of the interlocutor. There are no background noises in the head, and no extraneous processes (for example, assessment of appearance).

We are absorbed in the moment here and now, so we direct the conversation in the necessary direction to obtain a lot of useful information. It will not be distorted by our subjective mental filters. In addition, by learning the technique of active listening, you can send signals of interest to your interlocutor. They will become a strong foundation for fruitful relationships in the future.

Reviews and comments

Do you know how to listen to your interlocutor? And is this necessary in general, because if a person wants to convey some information, he will do everything possible to do this. Share your thoughts.

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Key words:1Profiling

Active Listening Technique: Basic Principles

No matter how eloquent the speaker may be, we can only get the most from the information presented if we learn to listen correctly. This is precisely the goal of active listening. The main factors contributing to its development:

1. Accepting the interlocutor as he is. It represents careful control of emotions and subjective assessments, which can greatly interfere with understanding what is heard.
2. Make eye contact at eye level. It consists of resisting the temptation to look at foreign objects or the clothes of the interlocutor. It's better to look into your eyes.
3. Asking questions. It represents an appropriate clarification of meaning, serving as confirmation of sincere interest in the subject of conversation.

The technique of active listening is used in psychology. Psychologists describe it as the perception of information “with the whole body.” Active listening has been scientifically proven to help us better understand people's situations. When communicating with clients, specialists use techniques for participating in dialogue that help more accurately determine their condition. Deep immersion, establishing trust, and analyzing the patient’s condition provide effective assistance. These points explain the second name for active listening - empathic.

The book “Miracles of Active Listening” will help you study more deeply the technique of establishing contact between active listening and argumentation. The author is a famous Russian scientist, popularizer of science, honored psychologist Yulia Borisovna Gippenreiter. She was the first to introduce the concept of active listening into our culture, described what it includes, and how it significantly improves the quality of life.

Interpersonal distance

Those who are more interested and determined to reach agreement sit closer to the interlocutor, while others sit further away. However, too close a location (up to 0.5 m) is perceived as intimate; distance from 0.5 to 1.2 m - for a friendly conversation; social distance (1.2–3.7 m) - for business relationships; public distance (more than 3.7 m) - to exchange a few words or no contact at all.

Usually a person intuitively positions himself at the appropriate distance. However, some adjustments taking into account the above will make it possible to use this resource more efficiently. After all, you need to think not only about your own convenience, but also about the convenience of your partner, about giving the conversation the right tone.

Women are more comfortable with their interlocutors being fairly close together. Elderly people and children also prefer to stay closer than middle-aged people, young people, and teenagers.

Interlocutors of equal status are comfortable with closer proximity compared to the situation when they are talking with a person of higher status.

Based on how the interlocutor is positioned (close or far, at what angle), one can make a preliminary judgment about his attitude towards his partner.

Effective Active Listening Techniques

There are many ways to turn passive listening into active listening. In addition to the above basic factors, there are three more techniques that are also worth familiarizing yourself with. They help you quickly understand the process.

Thus, active listening is a technology that almost always includes two components:

• clarifying the true meaning of the conversation;
• displaying signs confirming the value of dialogue.

Feeling his own importance and genuine interest in the conversation, the interlocutor becomes more open. This contributes to fruitful mutually beneficial communication, the establishment of trust, and strong relationships. Such results are valuable in any area of ​​life (communication with family members and friends, cooperation with partners and colleagues).

A powerful enhancer of all active listening techniques and techniques is empathy. People who know how to feel the state of others are able to quickly establish positive contact and use any techniques appropriately and delicately. Therefore, to increase the effectiveness of using the selected techniques (from the list below), it is important to work on the level of empathy.

Let's take a break

After your opponent has finished his story, you should just remain silent for a couple of minutes. Such a pause will allow you to better digest what you heard and separate emotions from the true subject of the conversation. For the person speaking, such a break will allow him to rest a little, remember something important and say it. Often, using this technique helps him open up even deeper after a short break.

Please clarify

Sometimes the interlocutor misses many important and interesting details in his story. Showing attention to them is a great way to emphasize the value of the information coming from him and his sincere interest in it. Also, this technique of active listening will help avoid omissions and strengthen trusting relationships, forming a complete picture in your imagination on the topic of the conversation.

Developing the idea

Sometimes a person deviates from the essence of the conversation or cannot find the exact words to continue the topic. In this case, the technique of active listening to develop the main idea of ​​​​the conversation will be an excellent assistant. It is necessary to return the speaker to the main thread of the dialogue and delicately develop it with him.

Making a message

A technique that helps you delicately give feedback. Depending on situational features, it can be implemented in two options:

1. Reporting perception. The listener shares his impressions of the partner or directly from the conversation that took place. This approach is especially valuable for strengthening connections between children and parents and spouses.
2. A message about self-perception. In this case, the listener describes his internal state after the conversation and the changes that have occurred.

Whatever the message (positive or negative), it is important to express it in a calm, friendly tone. Rudeness, aggressive accusations and other negative forms of expressing feelings instantly nullify the effectiveness of active listening.

Talking about emotions

This technique of active listening involves open communication about the internal state of the interlocutor, expressing a desire to support or help. For example, when the speaker becomes very upset during the conversation, this technique is implemented with the phrase “I see how difficult and painful it is for you to talk about this...”. Helps demonstrate sensitivity, which often forms the basis of trusting relationships.

Making comments about the conversation

The technique allows you to express the final result of the successful (or vice versa) development of the conversation. Provides commentary on achieving a common understanding of a topic. If this has not been achieved, the remark may reflect a problem of misunderstanding. This is how the next stage of its effective resolution is formed (after the exact formulation of the subject of the dispute or misunderstanding).

Rules of touching

You should not touch your interlocutor if he is in a bad mood or an unpleasant issue is being discussed.

People react especially painfully to arrogant and familiar movements: patting on the shoulder or cheek. Adults usually perceive this as extreme tactlessness.

By capturing the positive emotions of your interlocutor with your touch and repeating the touch to the same place at the end of the conversation, you can strengthen your partner’s affection for you after the end of the conversation. (This technique is described in more detail in the chapter on neurolinguistic programming, which talks about anchoring.)

Active Listening Techniques

Active listening techniques are different from techniques. They are based on the development of the skill of understanding the meaning of a conversation deeper than words convey. It was mentioned above that the ability to empathize plays a huge role in the successful implementation of active listening and argumentation techniques. It is this that underlies modern methods, manifesting itself at three basic levels:

1. Empathy. It consists in the manifestation of the same emotions that possess the opponent. For example, when he cries, the listener also has tears in his eyes.
2. Sympathy. It manifests itself in the form of an offer to help the interlocutor when he finds himself in a difficult situation.
3. Sympathy. Represents a persistent favorable, friendly attitude towards the speaker.

Using methods is a way to penetrate into the inner world of another person, when the conversation is not limited to words. It becomes capacious and informative, but also requires great psycho-emotional costs. Although they fully pay off in the subsequent formation of strong, trusting relationships.

The basic methods of active listening were formulated by the leader and creator of humanistic psychology, Carl Rance Rogers. They are as follows:

1. Sincere, deep participation in the inner world of the speaking person.
2. Open expression of feelings.
3. Lack of characteristic roles limited to formal actions.
4. Stable fulfillment of obligations towards the interlocutor.

A special place is given to empathic silence. This method involves no comments to allow the other person to speak from the heart. But silence is accompanied by nonverbal signals that make the interlocutor feel interested in his situation and the person as a whole. They include head shakes, gestures, and facial expressions appropriately used in the communication process.

Smile

Don’t just smile, but smile at your interlocutor. A smile works wonders. We've all heard about people who made a career for themselves thanks to a beautiful smile.

The secret of smiling is this: actions are more expressive than words, and actions are more credible. A smile is an action that means “I treat you well. I like you, I feel good with you, I’m glad to see you.” A friendly disposition usually gives rise to a reciprocal disposition.

In many countries, employees are required to smile at the visitor - this makes it easier to resolve issues. Often in foreign offices there are signs addressed to clients: “Smile!”

Representatives of some professions are specially taught to smile: television announcers, actors, politicians, diplomats.

The outstanding teacher A. S. Makarenko wrote that through constant exercises in front of the mirror, he developed about a hundred different smiles, appropriate in different situations. His example is a lesson to others! This science is seriously studied in business schools. In particular, special mirror cards have been created with the image of a wide smile, which students, looking at their reflection, try to reproduce.

It has been established through observation that gloomy faces age faster. Gloomy people have a gloomy mood, which does not inspire favor with others.

Exercises to develop active listening skills

To develop this useful skill, pair training is used. One of the participants plays the role of the listener, and the second - the speaker. Then they change places. On average, the duration of the exercises is 30-45 minutes. During this time, the following stages are implemented:

1. During the first 5 minutes, one of the interlocutors talks about personal difficulties, indicating the probable reasons for their occurrence. The partner interacts with him using active listening techniques.
2. A couple of minutes after the first stage are allotted to the speaker’s statements about what specifically in the listener’s behavior helped or hindered him from opening up in the conversation.
3. After this 5 minutes, the person speaking continues to share his thoughts. Now let’s talk about what character traits help him cope with the mentioned difficulties. His partner's task is to continue to use active listening, taking into account the errors identified in the second stage.
4. For the next 5 minutes, the listener summarizes what was understood from the previous two stories of the speaking partner. He only nods to indicate agreement with him or vice versa. When incorrect interpretations are identified, the former listener corrects them in such a way that the interlocutor agrees with him.

The end of the first round of lessons comes after the speaker from the pair can accurately formulate what exactly he was understood correctly, and where there was an erroneous interpretation. After this, the partners change roles.

Touch

Friendly touch is a powerful way to dispose, but only for close people. Touching a stranger who is not in the mood for intimacy can cause a negative reaction. This is explained by the fact that touching means invading a person’s personal space, so use this method with caution. Teenagers are especially irritated by the touch of adults. After all, they have a keen desire for independence, so they try to avoid “calf tenderness” as a symbol of childhood.

For adults, the touch of a loved one is desirable - they acquire special value for the elderly, who, thanks to this manifestation of affection, feel needed and important, to some extent lost with retirement.

By touching a child, we show him our love, and this is the most important value for him. It is especially important to gently touch the baby after he has received punishment from us.

It has been established that among touches, stroking a child’s head plays a special role: it turns out that it promotes the development of his brain.

Experiments with baby monkeys have shown the need for touch for their normal development. In the absence of their mothers, one group of monkeys was given a teddy bear to cuddle up to as if it were a mother. These babies grew up quite healthy. And those cubs who did not even have such an opportunity grew up mentally disabled.

Examples of active listening in practice

Examples of the use of active listening techniques are everywhere. At work, they are reflected in the form of improved relationships with the team. In the family they help overcome periods of crisis and conflict. Moreover, in any interaction, active listening manifests itself in two planes - non-verbal and verbal. The first involves facial expressions and gestures that make the contact deeper. In the second, these are phrases correctly constructed in accordance with the chosen technique. For example:

1. “What exactly do you mean?”
2. “I understand you perfectly!”
3. “This is really interesting!”

This also includes the question of how what the interlocutor is talking about happened.

Hearing and listening are not the same thing

And it's not just a matter of alternation. Think for a moment and answer the following question honestly. How often during, for example, the last month, when talking with a stranger or someone you barely know, did you pay more attention to what he was saying rather than thinking about your next response? So as not to be deceived, move on - try to remember what exactly he told you. In most cases, this will be quite difficult to do due to the underdeveloped habit of not just listening, but actually hearing the interlocutor.

The realities of the information space are such that technology, which is designed to provide more convenient and widespread contact between people, at the same time is sometimes an obstacle to true understanding. And this, by the way, is the basis of effective communication. The ability to listen is the basis for accurately receiving and interpreting incoming messages and interacting with the interlocutor. Today, many top companies even conduct special trainings for their employees, where they teach listening skills. And this is not an imaginary concern or a senseless waste of money, as it might seem at first glance. Developing this skill allows you to better understand clients and build cooperation more productively, avoid common mistakes and work conflicts, and expand the exchange of information, which promotes creative and innovative work.

For example, a staunch follower of the idea that the main thing for creating effective communication within a company is the ability to listen is the famous businessman Richard Branson. The founder of the Virgin Group corporation has repeatedly stated this in numerous interviews and speeches. Research also confirms this: active listeners have more friends and a developed networking system, they are more self-confident and better protected from the negative effects of stress.

Returning to the stated topic, about and “listen,” despite all the similarity of grammatical structures, are two different concepts. The ability to listen, as a quality necessary for anyone who strives for effective communication, includes both. And how to learn this is described below.

Punctuality

“Accuracy is the politeness of kings” - this aphorism perfectly reveals the role of punctuality. There's nothing worse than being late for a meeting. Shakespeare also said: “It is better to arrive 2 hours early than to be 2 minutes late.” The validity of this is easy to understand when it comes to missing a train. But relationships between people are no less important than losses from a failed trip.

The only way to avoid being late is to plan to arrive a little earlier.
Then in case of unforeseen circumstances there is a reserve of time. Moreover, the rules of ethics require that you arrive for a meeting on neutral territory 5 minutes before the appointed time. If you are receiving a high-ranking executive, it is recommended to appear in his reception area 10 minutes before the specified time. © Victor Sheinov. Power of influence: obvious and hidden influences. — St. Petersburg: Peter, 2021. © Published with permission of the publisher