Do you realize how much of your life you spend talking and listening? Almost everything we do involves communicating with other people. It’s how we deal with problems. Listening to someone else’s story and then explaining your own is the only fair way to sort things out. It’s how you get involved in the world around you. It’s how you learn about things and get yourself organized. No matter what you want to get out of life, you’ll always do better if you put your communication skills to work. As with any other skills, the more you practice, the better you get. Explore the history of communication in these funny animations.
One of the most important communication skills is active listening. Active listening is not easy and requires a certain set of skills. Here is some advice on being a good active listener:
- Concentrate on what is being said (don’t read, shuffle papers, or otherwise nonverbally communicate a lack of interest).
- Listen to all facts and don’t interrupt. Wait until the speaker has concluded his or her statements. When someone is talking for a long time, it is sometimes helpful to either take notes or ask the speaker to stop so that you can feed back what you have heard.
- Listen for key words of interest on which to comment and ask questions. This communicates that you really are interested and want to hear more or better understand what you are saying.
- Be objective. Hear people as they are, not the way you’d like them to be.
- Hold back personal judgments until the speaker has presented his or her ideas.
Listening requires courage because you may hear things that you’d rather not (especially about yourself). Active listening means staying in the "here and now," focusing on the current issues, and not getting sidetracked on what happened previously or the way you’d like things to be. The magic starts to occur in a conversation when you are able to let the speaker know that you are really paying attention. You do this by acknowledging what you heard the other person say. You can accomplish this in various ways:
- "It sounds like you’re saying . . ."
- "Do I understand you to mean . . .?"
- "Let me make sure that I understand your point. Do you mean . . .?"
Acknowledging what you heard does not mean that you agree with what you heard. The reason that many of us skip this step is that we believe that if we state what we heard the person say, then we have agreed with that person. Providing feedback simply communicates that you respect the speaker and are showing that respect by trying hard to understand your point, even if you do disagree with it.
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