How to Become a Better Listener: 6 Things you Need To Know
The main ingredient of the coaching work that we do with our clients is…
Listening.
Who is the best listener you know? Really think about this. Now think about how they make you feel?
When I think about what it’s like to be with the best listeners in my own life, the feelings I associate with them are:
Feelings of being accepted and valued just as I am, flaws and all.
The feeling of having room to breathe and the chance to work out what I truly feel and think about things rather than running off an old script or a sense of what I am meant to be feeling or thinking.
The main feeling though, I think is of not being alone and of having that genuine sense of connection to another person who cares.
The feeling that someone is genuinely present and available to us, and that our lives matter to them is a gift we can give as well as receive.
There are some pretty straightforward routes to becoming a better listener.
By becoming a better listener to friends, family, colleagues, even strangers, we can:
Create and strengthen relationships
Avoid misunderstandings and therefore minimise conflict and social stress
Improve our emotional intelligence
Acquire insight and wisdom about the human condition
Experience the positive emotional benefits of altruistic behaviour
Expand the network of people who will feel motivated to support us when the chips are down
When we reflect how good it feels to be listened to and all the benefits it delivers, it seems strange that it is something that we aren’t all taught how to do.
Fortunately, though, we can teach ourselves by practising a few straight-forward principles.
Listen with your eyes
Good eye contact is about giving enough but not too much.
We all have different levels of social confidence and preferences when it comes to social intimacy, so it might be more helpful to think of good eye contact as ‘good enough’ eye contact instead.
It can be uncomfortable to hold the gaze of another person if it’s something we’ve not practised doing much before.
A strategy that can help is to soften our gaze and direct it at one of their eyes for four seconds, then move our focus to the distance just beyond either one of their ears for four more.
The person who we are listening to will be taking in all sorts of visual communication from us as they speak. A non-verbal way that we can signal openness and trust to them is to have an open posture i.e making sure our arms and legs are un-crossed. It might just feel like a comfortable way to sit but it can appear as defensive, or a barrier.
Being rigidly upright can also be received as a barrier, so a subtle forward or sideways lean if we are sat down can be of reassurance, as can gently tilting the head or letting it rest on a hand.
Good eye contact also helps us to notice what is being expressed on a person's face and makes it easier to notice their gestures.
Does their body convey tiredness or energy? Does excitement or frustration show up on their face?
All of this gives us important data that teaches us more about what they are experiencing.
Get out of the way
Interruption is the arch enemy of active listening. It instantly devalues what the other person is saying by preferencing what you have to say.
People who are naturally quick thinkers or speakers often trip up on this one.
Paying attention to your breath to help you slow down is really helpful if you’re one of these people.
People’s thoughts need time and space to unfold and become clear. Every interruption interrupts that process.
Silence is the servant of active listening.
Leaving enough space for silence marks the difference between a good listener and an excellent one. Always jumping in with a question or response straight on the tails of what someone has just said overrides the important function that silence serves.
Resist the temptation to fill the gaps even if you find them uncomfortable. This allows what's important to emerge and it also signals to the person you are listening to that they are important and worth as much time as it takes.
Be a know-nothing
Becoming a better listener involves getting better at noticing when we are passing judgement.
When we listen to someone, quite naturally we measure their thoughts and actions up against what we’d think we’d do, and assume our solutions are the obvious answer.
Every thought we have about what someone ought to do is a form of judgement.
Although we can’t prevent this from happening, when it does, we can choose to label it as unhelpful to the listening process and to bracket it off to one side.
Judgements sometimes carry an emotional charge, so if you notice you’re a bit activated by something they’ve said, slow down the pace with them by reflecting back more (see below) and slowing both your speech and breathing.
This helps maintain a horizontal stance of acceptance towards the person, instead of inwardly placing ourselves above them, which is a guaranteed way of us losing true contact.
Seeing the world through their eyes, and understanding their emotional experience won’t happen when there’s judgement lurking.
People are able to pick up on nonverbal cues, sometimes the really subtle ones. We often know when judgement is being passed on us by something as small as a twitch of the eye, and the instinctive response is to then close up, withhold and withdraw.
So shelve your pesky judgements as soon as you spot them to keep the space between you as trusting and open as possible.
Stay in the Moment
Because the speed of speech is slower than the speed of thought, when we are listening to someone, our thoughts can skip ahead, rehearsing our own response to what the person is saying.
The trick is to stay in the moment, fully listening to what they are saying as they are saying it.
The moment we start planning what we will say next, we’re no longer fully listening to them and the quality and intensity of our presence deteriorates.
As staying focused isn’t always easy, try repeating back in your head the words they’ve just said to stay close to what they are saying whenever your attention starts to drift.
Instead of pre-planning your response, take a brief pause when they’ve finished what they’re saying to collect together your thoughts.
Remember to keep your phone out of sight too. Even when it is switched off, research shows that its very presence can subtly distract our attention.
Encourage more
Whether it is with the nod of your head or an ‘uh-huh’ here and a ‘mmm yes’ there, encouraging the speaker to continue is one of the pillars of active listening.
We can encourage more by asking open questions too i.e questions that can not be answered with a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
Asking What, Where, How, When, Who questions can open the doors to new trains of thought.
Try to avoid asking ‘Why’ questions though, as these often create an emotional response of being placed on the spot and can feel invasive, or a little bit like an interrogation.
Another question to ask to encourage more from the speaker is now and again to ask: “And what else?”
It usually pays to ask a couple more questions than you feel you need to help someone to truly open up.
Repeating someone’s last few words back to them and giving little summaries of what’s just been said is another great way to encourage more. It also reassures the speaker that they’ve been heard.
When you reflect back, try starting your sentence with “So…” .For example:
SPEAKER: “I’m running around juggling so many things that I’m starting to feel really stressed and it’s affecting me. I’m finding it really hard to concentrate at work at the moment.”
LISTENER: “So you’re finding it really hard to concentrate at the moment.”
Aim for Improvement not Perfection
Breaking listening habits of a lifetime isn’t going to happen in a couple of weeks.
Becoming a better listener is an incremental process, so if you make a conscious effort to apply some of the above strategies in even just 5% of the conversations you have, gradually over time you will find yourself becoming better and better at listening.