Active Listening – A tool for business communication
19 Mar 2007
Active listening is a vital communication tool for all business managers to develop and be comfortable using. It reflects back to the speaker that what they are saying is important and the listener will find that they retain more information about the conversation.
There are several key strategies when thinking about active listening. They are:
• Ask open-ended questions
• Reflect back or paraphrase
• Empathise
• Listen more than talking
Asking questions, which are open-ended, allows the person you are meeting with to start to feel comfortable. It also helps to build rapport. When asking questions the manager should encourage the person to clarify and elaborate what they mean and should use questions to search for facts.
The technique of reflection is a method of responding back to what the person has told the listener. Reflection should include both verbal and non-verbal feedback. Verbally, the listener should restate and clarify what the person said by using the same words. This reinforces that what was said was important and was heard. Non-verbally the listener should be reflecting back the person’s body language.
Empathising is about understanding and responding back the other person’s feelings and emotions. It doesn’t mean that you agree with what they said, but it just means that you are able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.
The key to active listening is to listen more rather than speaking. Because the goal of the process is for the other person, rather than the listener, to take responsibility for the conversation and for any problem it is important that the listener lead the conversation but not dominate it.
These skills can be learned, practiced and mastered. Developing People Limited offers Active Listening training as part of an overall management training programme but it can also be completed on its own. For more information please contact Developing People on 02380 695929.
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