Active listening is the art of non-defensive and empathic listening. Almost all difficult situations can be avoided if you practice the art of active listening, listen to understand, not to agree or to disagree.

Stephen Covey wrote about this in one of his principals from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”.

What stops us from listening?

Our interaction with others would be so much better if we could just understand that that we many barriers created in our minds from listening to others. Well, first of all, psychologists say that we have between 50 000 to 70 000 thoughts daily!

This means that we’re so busy with our own thoughts, that we won’t have the time to listen to others! Well, not unless we stop listening to ourselves and start to listen attentively to the other person will we ever get to understand what the other person is saying.

Now the other thing that also stops us from listening to others are our perceptual barriers, things like education, prejudice, past experiences, judgemental, different opinions, different interests, past decisions, and just being plain old dogmatic.

Then of course, there’s the other thing that we do quite unconsciously, which is called, ‘already always listening!’ And that’s to ourselves, not to the other person.

Other filters include deletions, distortions and generalisations. Let me share a story with you to illustrate…

There were four ladies having a day out at the Botanical Gardens. A black cat shot past them, and the first lady remarked to the others, “Wow, did you see that black cat shoot past!”

The second lady said, “What black cat?”

The third lady said, “Black cat? I thought it was a squirrel!”

And the fourth lady said, “Black cat? Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Aren’t they all the same?”

The second lady deleted, the third lady distorted, and the fourth lady generalised. We can see this happening in our everyday lives in different situations!

Another barrier to listening is that you are busy thinking about something else or you are busy formulating a reply without listening empathically to the other person.

As a listener, when you can reduce your world, and expand the speaker’s world by asking open questions, you will get a far better idea of where they are coming from. Give the speaker the right to express themselves.

Watch your EGO taking a parent like attitude in assuming that the speaker is not right, or that they should have done that, or that they are wrong, or that they haven’t got all their facts with them.

Listen to understand, not to agree or disagree. You cannot fill your cup of understanding until you put aside all preconceptions.

Three steps to Active Listening:

1. Attentive body language – lean forward, have good eye contact

2. Ask open questions – open questions include, “tell me more”, “what made you do that?”, i.e. questions that your speaker can’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to.

3. Reflect back – state in your own words what the speaker is saying, to show that a) you’re listening and paying attention and b) you’re getting the message correctly

TIP: To develop listening skills:

1. Stop talking
2. Put the person at ease
3. Don’t interrupt, especially if the person is upset
4. Empathise genuinely
5. Paraphrase to ensure understanding
6. Ask open ended questions
7. Use silence. Think before you reply
8. Allow reflection – become a sounding board for your staff. It eases pressure.

Renee Descartes, the French philosopher, said, “I think, therefore I am”. In active listening, let’s take on the mantra, “I hear you, therefore I understand you!” The world of communication would be far different and create better understanding!

Here’s to you in all your future interactions with others!

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