Active Listening

active listening is different than listening.

Active listening involves some pieces that let thespian her know

that you are actually listening.

So you may be like me when I'm talking to

my best friend on the phone.

Sometimes he'll stop and be like hair.

You still there?

I guess at first I'm here.

Why would he ask that?

Because I was not engaging an active listening right?

So if you find yourself being one of those people

where people have to check in to see if you're

still paying attention, we need to work on your active

listening skills.

In fact, were not born with active listening skills.

Nobody is thes air skills that we have learned and

acquired. Some cultures teach these more than others.

I would say American culture does not really teach active

listening. So to understand the word, listen better.

I like to look at the Chinese word for listen,

which is all of that.

Obviously, we need the years to process that auditory sound,

which is hearing we often use the word hearing instead

of listen in English, which is the wrong word.

Hearing is just the physical process of sound and turn

your ear doesn't mean that you understood any of it.

You need the mind to think about the message that

you just received.

You need the eyes to see the message.

Part of your message is always nonverbal.

We need the focus, the attention, right?

You're not paying attention.

You're only going to get part of the message, and

that's pretty useless.

We need to get the whole message on that.

Lastly, that we have a heart to feel what is

being said by the speaker.

And this is a big part of what we don't

really teach.

An American communication were very masculine culture, and we tend

to belittle any kind of emotions and our communication process.

Also, let's talk about some bad listening habits again.

This is the pseudo listing, right?

Like here.

You paying attention if you don't actually know what was

just said, right?

Nope. I wasn't listening.

They can tell you like a green off and just

crossed through.

And you're like, huh?

Yeah, like you've had these people you're talking to and

you can say anything and they just keep nodding because

they're not really listening.

That is so rude.

Don't pretend to listen.

If it's not a good time for you to talk.

Say, I have a lot going on right now.

Or maybe there's a time that I can call you

back. That's better on defensive Listening is listening to everything

as if it's an attack.

Eso automatically like What do you mean?

What do they really mean when they say that?

And it is true that people often mean more than

they say that that doesn't necessarily mean that it's negative

or that it's attacking you on, lastly, stage hogging.

So we all know these people that we, when we

talked to them, no matter what we say on the

conversation, always comes back around.

To them.

It feels like they're waiting for their turn to talk

rather than listening.

So stage hogging is a very selfish way of listing.

And while we do want to respond in conversation, the

response doesn't have to be about me, which is what

makes it stay talking.

All right, so these are all three things we don't

want to do.

Pretend to listen.

Listen defensively or stage Hogar just like wait for our

turn to talk.

So there are some skills that we can engage in

that let the speaker know that we're listening without doing

any of those other things.

So the 1st 1 here is rocking, which we can

do nonverbally by nodding our head or going like this

with our hand, but also that nonverbally we can say

go on or right.

So, like anything that doesn't really interrupted the speaker but

encourages them to keep speaking, rocking is a very good

tool toe.

Let them know that you're still there and still have

a poles, but without interrupting the story of whatever it

is they're telling you on.

This one is very important.

And it's something that we don't really talk about an

American culture.

And that's feeling reflections.

If your wife is mad at you because you didn't

take out the garbage right really mad, she's probably not

really not about the garbage.

There's probably something else that's going on, right.

We see this a lot when we work in customer

service, people may be unduly upset with you, like Wow,

that was a major over reaction for the wrong food.

Showing up at the table.

They probably have something else going on.

There's usually something else going on, but even when we're

not upset, right?

We're really happy.

We're excited or bored or whatever it is, acknowledged people's

feelings in the conversation.

And this is not something that Americans are comfortable with

or do very often.

So if you're telling your story, your friend might say,

Well, you sound really excited and you're like, Yeah, I

am And it feels good when you hear them say

that but a really good active listener is going to

slide this feeling reflections in all over the place in

the conversation and a speaker it makes you feel really

hurt. Even though Unite might not realize what the listener

is doing that's making you feel so hurt.

It's often these feeling reflections that are really connecting the

speaker and listener and so on that note.

Empathy not sympathy, right?

So I I I'm understanding your feeling, not feeling sorry

for your feeling, and so we can just simply acknowledge

what we're hearing in the conversation.

While he's some really sad you said excited.

You sound worried, but make sure that your tone matches

what you're saying.

You don't want to say, Well, you sound really sad

today, like that sounds really disconnected right So we want

to make sure the tone matches the fueling that were

saying that we're hearing in the conversation, and there's never

a bad place to put a feeling reflection.

That's why I put this at the beginning of our

skill sets.

We want to get his many feeling reflections into a

conversation as we possibly can look at it like the

feeling reflection challenge.

And you might also hear these refer to is just

reflections. I'm another skill that's helpful is paraphrasing, so they

may have told you really long story.

This is how you can summarize the key things you

heard so they know that you got it or we'll

revisit this.

But they're asking for advice.

Paraphrasing can be very helpful that they feel stuck.

They don't know what to dio paraphrase what they just

give them a recap of their story.

A lot of times, people just need to hear things

out loud that they already have going around in their

head. So again we'll revisit advice.

At the end of this lecture, clarifying questions had also

be very helpful.

But we don't want to ask nosy questions.

There's a difference asking why or what happened next, right?

These air kind of nosy questions, and it may be

that the speaker doesn't feel like talking more.

You might.

Somebody might be feeling really upset myself when I'm upset.

I want to tell the story about three times after

that. It just makes me more of set to talk

about it more.

So don't assume that your friend wants to keep talking.

Give them that space on DSO only ask questions if

you genuinely need to clarify side.

You're really confused about what they just said.

If you're not really confused and trying to clarify a

point, it's better to avoid questions and just listen and

feeling reflecting paraphrase another type of question that we may

add on and this is more of a tool is

an open question.

So your friend is not really talking.

They seem really upset.

You can reflect.

Well, you seem really upset today.

Open question.

Do you want to talk about it?

So don't assume that they want to talk, right?

Don't say hey, tell me what's going on because maybe

they don't want to talk, But you could ask them

Hey, do you want to talk about it?

I'm here If you want to talk these air open,

inviting questions that leave the door open for them.

But don't make them feel obligated or make them feel

like you're just being nosy.

So how can we put all of these tools together

on these air couple useful situations that come up so

often? Your friends are going to tell you about a

situation and then say What should I do?

I need your advice.

I contacted you for advice.

So now, as the friend you're like Oh, gosh, Okay,

I'm on the spot.

I have to give advice that they called me for

advice that they want advice.

People don't usually want advice.

Um, And not only that, if even if they are

genuinely seeking advice, the best person to advise somebody is

themselves. People know their situation better than anybody else, better

than even their best friend.

And so when to not give advice is more true,

the closer you are to somebody even more so your

very best friend, your brother, your sister, your mom, those

are the people you really, really don't want to give

advice to.

Your advice is almost always going to be rejected.

if you If they do, take your advice and it

doesn't work out.

Good. Guess what?

You're to blame if you give them advice.

And it worked out well, they're going to keep coming

back for more advice.

So we don't want to set up that habit because

you may give advice that works out.

Well, once that's not going to keep happening all the

time. So just avoid the situation.

How do we avoid it?

They called you asking for advice.

What kind of friend are you if you don't give

advice? You're a good friend.

Good friends don't give advice.

So what can we do instead?

So your friends upset.

They're having a problem with their boss.

They don't know what to dio paraphrase.

All right, so you're upset with your boss because he

did these things.

And it sounds like you're really worried that if you

report him to human human resource is that you're gonna

have retaliation and problems.

Do you want to talk some more about your other

options? So right there we just paraphrase everything they said

we gotta feeling reflection.

And we opened the door to exploring other options besides

the one that they came up with first, which is

usually how the conversation is going to go, or they've

given you a whole bunch of possible solutions on they

want your advice on which solution could possibly be the

best one again.

Paraphrase all those solutions while solution one was done.

It a solution to solution three.

I hear you're really concerned about making the right decision

off those three options.

Which one are you leaning towards?

So again, paraphrase the options they had reflect that they

feel concerned about choosing the right one or whatever feeling

you're hearing and then open question.

Which of those options are you leaning towards?

People almost always have an idea in mind.

Already on the advice question is seeking validation that they

don't actually need.

So keep putting that back on your friend.

There may come a point where they are genuinely stuck.

If you've tried this strategy a couple times and they

have no solutions for themselves, you can introduce solutions through

an open question.

So, you know, it sounds like this is the situation.

I hear that you're feeling really stocks of paraphrase reflect

And now open question, right.

Well, what do you think about trying to talk Teoh

this person about it.

But again, introducing ideas is an open question.

Have you thought about is really a last resort when

they've exhausted all of their own ideas?

Right? Another common situation with friends is asking you to

judge their ideas.

I was thinking about this.

What do you think?

Is it good?

Is it bad we don't want to start judging?

It makes people feel judged as you can imagine.

So again, paraphrase the ideas.

Clarify if needed on details of an idea here.

There. Because sometimes when you ask people to clarify their

ideas, they start to realize on their own, like, Wait,

this one's really not that good.

Maybe this one sounds better.

Always reflected.

You haven't noticed?

We always put a feeling reflection in there and then

open question.

Right. So But I hear that you've mentioned these three

ideas. So it sounds like the number two is going

to have this complication in my hearing.

That right?

Yes. Uh huh.

Okay, Right.

So I hear that you're feeling really worried that you're

not gonna make the choice That's gonna end the best

for you.

Eso of which of these options do you think is

the best idea?

And they're going to tell you because they already have

an idea of which idea is the best idea.

They wanted to see what you were gonna say, and

they don't.

They don't actually need that validation again what they need

as a friend who's going to let them hear their

own ideas and their own feelings out loud.

All right, So, again, your job is the listener is,

to paraphrase, clarify if needed, feeling reflect always, always, always

get a feeling reflection and then, if necessary, an open

question to get more information into the conversation, I'd encourage

you to go home and try this with your friends

and family.

If you're not a feeling reflection person, the first couple

times you do it, they may be like, Well, it

was, Did you just say feeling so it might be

a little weird the first couple of times, but you'll

notice when you email me.

That's one of the first things I do is put

a feeling reflection in my reply.

Feeling reflections have improved my personal relationship with my family,

especially my mom tremendously s.

So I think that you'll find, especially if you're in

customer service.

This is a great way to de escalate the customer.

Are your active listening skills.

I hear that you're really angry about your food coming

out wrong.

Let me get the manager, Or can we come this

bill, but always feeling reflect.

Acknowledge that people are angry.

It brings them down 10 notches.

Acknowledge whatever emotion you are hearing.

I think out of this entire lecture, that's the most

important thing you can take away is feeling reflect.

And if I go out in practice, I wish you

the best of luck.

And I hope that you'll check out the active listening

video that I've included as a supplement in blackboard for

this lecture.

Active Listening

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