
When it’s done correctly, both the sharer and listener will have opportunities to ask questions, provide feedback, and work together to reach a mutual understanding.Īs a result, it’s an effective communication tool for reducing the crossed wires and miscommunications that can send projects and teams veering off track. The very point of active listening is to boost comprehension.

Active listening offers a number of advantages: 1.

That isn’t inherently difficult -but it does require much more of a conscious effort than the passive approach most of us normally take. – Alfred Brendel Why is active listening important?Īctive listening is about listening to understand rather than just to hear. The word ‘listen’ contains the same letters as the word ‘silent.’ When your coworker is finished, you quickly summarize the gist of the process and your plan for what you’ll do next and when you’ll take over. ✅ Active listening: As the colleague breaks down the process, you ask clarifying questions to dig deeper into any confusing steps. You just need to get through this meeting. There are a few steps that are unclear, but you figure that you’ll sort it out later. You follow along quietly and politely (while mentally making the rest of your to-do list for the day). 🛑 Passive listening: A colleague is walking you through the steps of a process that you’re going to take over. You wait until they’re finished before paraphrasing the details of the conflict and asking some follow-up questions.

✅ Active listening: You remove your hands from your computer keyboard, silence your phone, and turn to fully face your direct report. You listen to their side of the story while simultaneously clearing out old emails, occasionally butting in to offer some advice or encouragement and prove that you’re paying attention. 🛑 Passive listening: Your direct report has stopped by your desk to vent about an interpersonal conflict that’s happening on your team. Here are a couple of examples of what it can look like in the real-world. How do we build the self awareness to ensure we don’t fall into a default approach of passive listening, where we tune people out, give half of our attention, or simply wait for our own turn to speak? In Inside Atlassian What are examples of active listening? But keep in mind, this step is not about judgment or agreement, just comprehension. Rephrasing key points also helps you process and retain the information you just heard. Providing feedback that signals your attentiveness to the speaker. Research shows that up to 55% of communication is non-verbal, so it’s important to not only listen, but observe.ģ. Observing verbal and non-verbal messages from the speaker. That gives you an opportunity to switch gears to the new topic – and away from whatever you were previously working on.Ģ. For example, in a one-on-one conversation, you may simply ask what the other person would like to talk about. Preparing to listen by orienting yourself to the anticipated topic. More than that, we must convey to the speaker that we are seeing things from his point of view.” The 3 steps of active listeningġ. “It requires that we get inside the speaker, that we grasp, from his point of view, just what it is he is communicating to us. In the book, they describe active listening like this:

The term “ active listening” has been around for a while and was first used in a book written by psychologists Carl Rogers and Richard Farson. It also helps you, as the listener, to engage with and understand the message more effectively.
ACTIVE LISTENING EXERCISES FULL
Beyond just hearing them, you’re giving them your full attention while signaling to the speaker that their message is being received and comprehended. Think of active listening as the most engaged and committed form of listening to another person. Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would have rather talked.Īctive listening means listening to someone else with the intent of hearing them, understanding their message, and retaining what they say.
