what does it mean to listen and how do you do it?
Avalon Nuovo
This post is part of TED's "How to Exist a Amend Human" serial, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED customs; scan through all the posts here.
Listening may not exist the most exciting function of conversation, merely it's essential if you desire to have a meaningful exchange with another person.
Think nearly a time you felt misunderstood by somebody. Did y'all defend yourself? Correct them? Or only undo? Regardless of your response, you probable didn't feel comfortable with them.
Now think of how information technology feels to be understood — y'all tin can relax, you want to open, yous feel more than trusting. When you lot heed in a way that makes the other person experience heard, they are more probable to share information with y'all. And when you are actively listening, you are also more likely to take it in.
In my training as a psychologist, I spent a lot of time learning how to actively listen. I can tell you lot from years of feel that having a productive dialogue is not possible without active listening.
The 1st active listening skill is nonverbal attending
Nonverbal attention ways giving someone your full attention without speaking. Here are some of the nuts:
Keep your torso open to the other person. Try to be relaxed just attentive. If you're sitting, lean frontward a flake rather than slouching back.
Maintain moderate levels of eye contact. Look at the speaker but not similar you're in a staring contest with them.
Use simple gestures to communicate to the other person that you're listening and encouraging them to continue. Head nods are one way — simply don't do it continuously. Occasionally say "Mm-hmm" to communicate encouragement.
The final primal to nonverbal attention is staying silent. But remember: Y'all can't listen very well if you're talking. In fact, if you rearrange the letters of the word "mind," information technology spells "silent." I tin can't believe it took me twenty years of didactics to discover this, but information technology'south a useful reminder!
Offering somebody uninterrupted time to talk, even a few minutes, is a generous gift that we seldom requite each other. Information technology doesn't hateful you have to keep your mouth shut for hours and hours, but I encourage you to encounter how long you tin can simply heed to somebody without wanting to interrupt.
Some people find the most difficult part of listening is non talking. There'due south a deep humility in listening, because your focus is on agreement the other person rather than on saying everything that comes into your mind. Your aim is to empathise and help the speaker experience understood, and reserve your voice communication for what moves yous closer to either of these goals.
The 2d agile listening skill is reflecting
Reflecting means repeating or rephrasing central content or meaning from the other person.
A reflection communicates that you heard what the other person said. Rather than saying, "I hear you," you show you've heard them by sharing back what they said. Information technology also confirms that you have an accurate understanding of their thoughts.
If you lot're a footling off target, it gives them an opportunity to correct you. This can be useful if you didn't quite empathize what they were saying.
For instance, allow'due south say a friend tells you, "I just came from a PTA meeting, and I'm and then frustrated with charter schools! They're draining money from the school system which is already stretched, so nosotros don't have the funds to support students and teachers. Plus, they're weakening the teachers' union. I wish the lease schoolhouse parents would put all that energy into supporting existing schools instead of creating new ones."
If you said, "You think charter schools are ruining the educational organization," your friend could clarify, "Well, not exactly ruining it as much as creating challenges for the existing schools."
Now you may be wondering, "Won't that be weird to just repeat dorsum what they're saying?" Or you may retrieve, "They merely said information technology. How can it exist helpful for me to say information technology back?"
Reflecting typically feels more bad-mannered for the person doing it — i.east., y'all — than for the person hearing it. What I know, and what's supported by considerable inquiry, is that people like having their thoughts and feelings reflected back to them.
Just don't repeat them back word for word. Use fewer words and summarize rather than transcribe. I telephone call this "nuggetizing." Go at the asset of what they're saying, and say it briefly so you don't interrupt the period. Focus on something that seems meaningful to the other person; pull out an idea that gets to the heart of what they're saying. You lot could preface your reflection with one of these: "I hear that y'all're maxim," "Information technology sounds every bit though," "So…."
The crucial function of reflection is to help people experience heard, and to brand sure yous sympathise them. It'south more important for you to but be present than to exist brilliant.
The 3rd active listening skill is asking open-ended questions
As you listen, questions will pop into your head, and y'all'll want answers. While request questions is very appealing, they take the potential to interrupt the other person's thinking, shift the focus to your agenda, interfere with connection and derail a conversation.
To use questions effectively, keep a few things in mind:
Always attend and reflect before yous ask a question. Understanding the other person and helping them feel understood provides a strong foundation. If you oasis't communicated that you heard someone, they may not be inclined to open up to your question.
You might experience similar asking questions is how you best communicate your involvement. That may be true just if you attend and reflect first, a question says, "I'm interested in what you but said" rather than "I'm interested in your response to what I desire to hear virtually."
When you do enquire a question to promote dialogue, information technology's well-nigh constructive to use questions that are open-ended and cannot be answered simply with a "yes" or "no". For example, rather than request "Do you think public charter schools should receive the aforementioned level of funding as other public schools?" which can be answered "yes" or "no," you lot might ask, "How do you think public charter schools should be funded?" Open up-concluded questions promote elaboration and exploration.
Just as in reflecting, you desire to keep your questions elementary. Resist the urge to endeavour to guide or impress the other person with your exceptionally astute question.
I of my favorite and most curtailed ways to ask questions is simply to echo back a key give-and-take with an upward intonation. For case, if somebody says, "I just feel similar the world is so dangerous," you lot can say "Dangerous?" Past using the upward intonation, the word becomes a question. It says, "Tell me more than about how the world is dangerous."
It's important to stay neutral in both tone and content. Judgment and opinion tin come up across loud and articulate in your tone. Saying "Is that where y'all're going on vacation?" is more than contentious than "Tell me how you decided to go at that place for vacation" (which is a statement that's really a question).
It'southward besides important to recollect about when to enquire your question. Don't interrupt the other person simply to inquire something.
The terminal affair to proceed in listen nearly attending, reflecting and open-concluded questions is that these tools are intended to help promote understanding by developing greater connection. Connection is the almost important matter.
Then if the tools aren't working in a state of affairs or if you're able to have connexion without these tools, don't strength them. That said, don't underestimate them either. They're backed by research and feel, and they tin can help you to navigate the unpredictable, challenging waters of dialogue with others.
Excerpted from the new book Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Beyond the Political Divide, Skills and Strategies for Conversations That Work by Tania Israel, PhD. Reprinted with permission from the American Psychological Association. Copyright © 2020 by American Psychological Association.
Lookout Tania Israel's TEDxUCLA Talk here:
Source: https://ideas.ted.com/how-to-listen-really-listen-to-someone-you-dont-agree-with/
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