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Active Listening and the Art of Engaging your Audience

As a presenter, one of the hardest things to master is to engage your audience in a manner that focuses on your message, absorbs the information, and responds thoughtfully. In the era of smartphones and short attention spans, engaging your audience can be harder than ever. But not impossible! To understand how to reach out to your audience, you need to make them actively listen to your message. In other words, you need to understand and master the art of active listening and use it to engage your audience.

What is Active Listening?

Active listening involves the listener carefully understand, remember and thoughtfully respond to what they have heard. The technique of active listening entails conducting engaging conversations without judgment. Active listening can help individuals objectively understand the information and respond after carefully considering the context and non-verbal cues. The latter might include cues such as the pitch of someone’s voice or body language.

Active listening is a soft skill that is common in different professions. Some examples of active listening include people delivering training, conducting counseling sessions, or involved in dispute resolution. However, that’s not to say that the technique is limited to a few professions only. Active listening is one of the most prized skills that can also help you in your career and personal life. The implications of active listening can even go beyond one individual, as it can be great for supporting two-way communication. Such as during a presentation session when a presenter is looking to engage an audience actively.

Main Components of Active Listening

Since active listening involves considering both the verbal and non-verbal cues, the main components of the technique require carefully considering the context, mood, remembering the message, and responding to it accordingly. The main components of active listening require an individual to actively comprehend, retain and respond to what is being said.

Comprehension is the first step towards understanding the speaker. This involves taking into account both verbal and non-verbal cues to understand the message. As a speaker, it´s important to constantly check for understanding and ask probing questions to the audience to reveal if the message is coming across correctly.

It is only natural that the listener will forget what is being said as the conversation or presentation moves forward. This is why the listener needs to retain information by note-taking or retaining the gist of the message. Creating a PowerPoint presentation that can later be distributed or even shared in advance can be helpful for the audience.

Responding is the process of carefully replying to what is being said. This validates the speaker in what would otherwise be a passive conversation. Encouraging further communication, especially if the response is empathetic, can also be an active part of clear comprehension from both parties.

3 As of Active Listening

The 3 As of active listening include attention, attitude, and adjustment. If you are looking to enhance your active listening skills, you need to focus on these three aspects. Understanding them will also enable you to help engage your audience.

1. Attention

When it comes to barriers that prevent someone from being an active listener, attention plays a major role. Many people complain about being unable to sit through a 2-minute YouTube video, let alone a lengthy PowerPoint presentation. Enhancing your attention and focusing on the message is the first A of actively listening to a conversation.

Using Attention as a Presenter: As a presenter, you can reduce distractions by asking your audience to avoid interruptions from email or notifications on their smartphones. Alternatively, you can make them actively engage in your presentation by allowing them to view your slides on their handheld devices using a shared link. PowerPoint has a built-in feature called Office Presentation Service that is accessible from the Slide Show tab. It enables online sharing of your presentation slides. There are also third-party services that can be used to engage your audience with polls, quizzes, and feedback options.

2. Attitude

Passive conversations often result in people missing a lot of non-verbal cues. On the contrary, active listening entails understanding these cues to understand better what is being discussed. Your attitude towards a conversation determines whether you can actively understand the conversation or have psychological deaf spots preventing you from being an active listener. People who might consider the conversation ‘a waste of their time’ would find it hard to make the conversation meaningful.

Shaping the Attitude of your Audience: As a presenter, you will have to shape the attitude of your audience by showing them why the presentation is worth their time. Please don’t wait too long before reaching out to your audience, or they might end up with the wrong attitude towards your presentation. You must start with an impact, grab audience attention and ensure you have something they might find valuable. For example, a pitch deck that drags on how great your company or idea is likely to fall on deaf ears. The potential investors need to know how the venture might be worth their money and the Return on Investment (ROI) for them.

3. Adjustment

When listening to someone, we don’t know what the other person would say. This means that we need to be flexible, considerate, and patient to listen to the speaker actively. Putting aside personal biases and judgment. Enabling the speaker to complete their side of the message without interrupting them due to a negative attitude.

Adjusting Your Presentation: Presenters can often end up with at least a part of the audience that will never be satisfied with their presentation. You might also come across people looking to intimidate you because of their habit of being trouble mongers. In such a case, you need to be flexible as a presenter to enable your audience to give you the same leverage. Enabling you to engage people actively when listening to you. You can learn more about how to do this from our previous article about the importance of understanding the 20/60/20 Rule to engage your audience.

Why Active Listening Matters in a Presentation

Active listening has immense importance for presenters. This not only includes listening and responding to your audience effectively but also ensuring that your audience actively listens to you.

To Avoid Death by PowerPoint

Death by PowerPoint is a common phenomenon where text-heavy slides and boring presentations lead to uninterested, passive listeners. Therefore, active listening is essential to avoid this conundrum and deliver a presentation that remains meaningful and encourages call-to-action.

To Retain Audience Attention

Carrying a conversation forward is a two-way street. You need to not only speak but ensure that your audience is heard and their opinion valued. Two-way active listening is important to ensure you can retain audience’s attention during a presentation.

Keeping the audience’s attention is important in any presentation, as losing their focus can lead to them tuning out or becoming distracted. This can be done by using engaging visuals and stories, keeping your speech concise and on-point, and avoiding unnecessary distractions.

To Prevent a Passive Audience Response

No presenter wants to deliver a pitch deck that results in zero investor interest or a presentation at the workplace that yields no positive response from colleagues. By being an active listener and engaging your audience, you can prevent a passive response and turn it into something positive and meaningful.

To Prevent and Placate Dissent

Some would say that it is easier to step on a cultural minefield to offend someone than to remain likable by most people. Be it the ‘woke culture’ or the need to cater for multiculturalism. You need a group of active listeners to ensure your message isn’t taken the wrong way due to a miscommunication or that you can placate dissent by adjusting your tone.

To Encourage Call-to-Action

Most presentations come with some form of call-to-action. Even if it is to encourage the audience to think about a subject and form their own views. To reap the fruits of your final act, you need to ensure that you and your audience have been actively engaged in a meaningful conversation. This can not only encourage call-to-action but also help you win the respect of your audience.

Active Listening Techniques for Presenters to Engage their Audience

Now that we have discussed active listening in detail, it’s time to discuss engaging your audience using active listening techniques.

Focus on Audience Comprehension

Contrary to what you might expect, even the most well-versed audience might be least interested in a meaningful presentation. Short attention spans, handheld devices, and lifestyle marred by digital technology overuse are some of the many reasons that retaining your audience’s attention is harder than it was for our predecessors. This is why you need to remain focused on the level of comprehension of your audience. You might need to keep your presentation interactive by using brain teasers, conducting polls, or opening up the floor for a few questions before moving on with the next part of your presentation. These methods can help you gauge if your audience is actively listening to you.

Make Your Words Memorable for Audience Retention

There are many techniques you can use to make your words or phrases memorable during a presentation. You can apply the rule of three, the 10/20/30 rule, PechaKucha approach, and other methods for this purpose.

Actively Engage and Respond to Questions

Many times, no one seems to be interested in asking a question until you encourage at least one individual to do so. This often results in people actively looking to ask questions, even unnecessary and unrelated ones. To encourage active listening during a Q&A session, you should be patient even with the questions that seem irrelevant and respond to them. If you think you have a ruckus, you can begin asking counter questions to encourage active listening and preventing trouble mongers and passive listeners from asking questions to follow the bandwagon.

Learn from Feedback and Assessment

Few presenters actually rely on feedback—even fewer look to dig deep into the available data to analyze it. Several tools can gather audience feedback, including web apps like Mentimeter or Participoll and clickers used to gather instant audience feedback. Learning and assessing feedback is essential to understand how to engage your audience and improve your own active listening skills.

Final Words

Active listening skills can help you in the workplace or personal life and enable a deeper understanding of the conversations you engage in daily. Miscommunication, conflict, and lack of empathy are often associated with a lack of active listening. When translated to presentations, the same can spell ruin for you as a presenter and your reputation. But before you can engage your audience, you need first to ensure you are willing to comprehend, retain and respond empathetically. Doing so will help you encourage a similar response from the other side.

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How to Practice Active Listening: 16 Examples & Techniques

Do you wonder if you could be better?

Good listeners can stay present and engaged with what is being said. This article will describe a listening technique called active listening. It’s useful in building therapeutic relationships and creating empathy.

You will learn the benefits of active listening and how it makes you a better communicator. And we will provide a list of the skills needed and techniques to learn exactly how to practice this. Finally, we’ll go over common pitfalls that keep us from being good listeners.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Communication Exercises (PDF) for free . These science-based tools will help you and those you work with build better social skills and better connect with others.

This Article Contains:

What is active listening 3 principles, is it important in communication 4 benefits, active listening skills you can foster, 7 techniques to train your active listening skills, 3 counseling exercises & activities, 3 worksheets to practice active listening, questions to ask others: 3 examples, possible barriers & psychology tips to overcome them, 3 courses for training on effective communication, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

Often, while we are listening, we are thinking of how we will respond. We might get distracted and miss some of what was said. We may not be paying much attention to the nonverbal communication cues of the speaker.

Active listening requires the listener to pay close attention to what is being communicated verbally and nonverbally. The listener is encouraged to interpret not only the content of what is being said, but also the emotions present and the body language.

In order to achieve this, the listener must be willing to devote energy to the task. They will need to have an excellent attention span and honed empathic abilities . Active listening has even been referred to as the “measurable dimension of empathy” (Olson & Iwasiw, 1987, p. 104).

There are three main components of successful active listening (Rogers & Farson, 1987):

• Listen for total meaning When someone is conveying a message, there are two meanings to gather: the content and the feeling or attitude underlying the message. An active listener is not only tuned in to the information conveyed, but also how it is conveyed and any nonverbal cues present.
• Respond to feelings After listening, when a response is appropriate, the listener should respond to the feeling of what was said. In this way, the speaker feels understood and empathy is established.
• Note all cues Nonverbal cues include tone of voice, facial or body expressions, and speed of speech. All of these taken together can convey a much deeper meaning than merely the content of what was said.

Carl Rogers’s take on active listening

Psychologists Carl Rogers and Richard Farson (1987) are responsible for defining the concept of active listening. They describe the skill as vitally important for effective communication. For Rogers, the ultimate goal of active listening was to foster positive change (Rogers & Farson, 1987). This change can occur in the context of a client/helper relationship or in the context of a group.

Rogers described three important principles in effective counseling: empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard . Active listening is a tool that fosters and supports these principles.

Empathy is demonstrated in active listening by the listener reflecting the thoughts and feelings of the speaker. These thoughts and feelings are believed, supported, and respected. They are not dismissed or challenged.

Rogers stresses that in order to be successful in active listening, the listener must be authentic in their care. This reflects the principle of genuineness. Active listening can’t be faked.

Active listening requires true feelings of respect toward the individual speaking. The listener accepts and supports the speaker regardless of the content of their words. This illustrates the principle of unconditional positive regard.

It is also a skill that will benefit the listener in their life outside of work.

Whether at work or in casual conversation, active listening can provide a safe and empathetic space for a speaker, fostering feelings of trust.

Active listening in counseling

Active listening has been shown to be a vital skill in counseling. Empathy and empathic listening foster the therapeutic relationship , and the relationship between therapist and client has been shown to be the one of the most crucial and stable predictors of client success (Martin, Garske, & Davis, 2000).

Another benefit of learning active listening as a counselor is that it may increase self-efficacy . Levitt (2002) examined the impact of teaching active listening to counseling students and found that this skill created greater levels of confidence in the students and helped to reduce their anxiety as new counselors.

Active listening in the workplace

Kubota, Mishima, and Nagata (2004) examined the effects of an active listening training program on middle managers, finding positive results. In workplaces, a large portion of stress experienced by employees comes from interpersonal relationships.

The study showed that teaching managers who learned active listening skills were better able to support employees with mental health issues, providing a safe environment for them to share their difficulties without judgment. This led to calmer behaviors and more success (Kubota et al., 2004).

Can active listening skills even work through text conversations? Perhaps so. A unique and interesting study looked at the application of active listening to written communication online (Bauer & Figl, 2008). This case study was examining soft skills among computer science students and to see if active listening could come across in instant message conversations.

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Active listening requires a skill set that differs from typical everyday listening. Not only are you using the principles of empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard, but you must also develop certain skillful ways of interacting.

It’s useful to begin with the body language of the listener (Robertson, 2005). How do you know when someone is listening to you? Maintaining eye contact and appropriate facial expressions is important to convey empathy and attention. As with all aspects of active listening, these indicators shouldn’t be forced or faked. They are simply a reflection of your genuine attentiveness.

It also helps to remove distractions from the environment. Depending on the context, you may desire to set up an environment that conveys peace and quiet. If you are in a public place, putting away distractions or moving to a quieter location can also be helpful.

Another skill is following (Robertson, 2005). To actively follow what the speaker is conveying, you allow space for them to speak, reducing or eliminating questions and giving space for silence .

In a non-active listening situation, there may be quick back and forth, many rapid questions, or people may talk over one another. With active listening, the speaker is given the time and space to speak as much as they want. And they are encouraged to continue.

A third skill is reflecting (Robertson, 2005). This is the skill of repeating what you heard the speaker say, but avoiding parroting it back verbatim. You are trying to capture the essence of what they said and reflect it back to them. You may also try to capture the feelings that are conveyed.

This is always done without expressing judgment and with the goal of understanding. It may even be useful to ask if you have it right before asking them to continue.

Each technique is listed with an example and an explanation of the use.

Use the below suggestions to help your clients improve their listening.

Practicing with a partner

For counselors in training, it is important to practice active listening with a partner. One partner shares a story of something emotional that happened, and the listener will practice the following techniques:

• Demonstrating listening through body language and nonverbal responses
• Reflecting back the content of what the partner shared
• Reflecting back the emotions that the partner shared

It’s important to check in with your partner after you’ve reflected to be sure that it’s accurate.

Mindful listening group practice

In many ways, active listening is a mindfulness practice. The listener is trying to stay focused on the present, with what is being shared. And they are working to accomplish this without judgment.

Here is an excellent activity to practice mindful listening in a group.

• Have the group sit in a circle.
• Offer an ice breaker question or prompt, such as something they are grateful for today.
• Rather than go around the circle, ask participants to share spontaneously when they feel ready.
• Invite them to notice if they are thinking about their answer, rather than listening.
• Ask them to be present with the person who is sharing.
• Challenge them to notice if they are uncomfortable with the silences.

Mindful listening alone

At any moment, you can drop in and practice mindful listening. Simply stop what you are doing, close your eyes, and try to see how many sounds you can hear around you and within you. Notice if there are judgments arising and try not to attach to them. Stay with the flow of sounds for as long as you can.

Listening Accurately

This worksheet offers a five-step process to improve your communication skills with another person. It would be a useful tool for working with couples or anyone who would like to hone their listening skills.

The five steps are:

• Step in their shoes.
• Fact-check your interpretation.
• Give your full attention.
• Clarify what they’ve said.
• Clarify what you’ve said.

500 Years Ago

This creative exercise helps both the listener and the speaker develop their empathy by imagining themselves in someone else’s place.

The listener is instructed to pretend that they have come from the past, 500 years ago. The speaker is trying to explain something to them and must use language that they can understand.

Using Small Rewards

In working to create a therapeutic alliance, nonverbal communication is key. This worksheet lists some “small rewards,” subtle but powerful nonverbal gestures that the therapist can use to let their client know that they hear them and are following along.

The worksheet invites the practitioner to listen to a five-minute segment of their session and see how often they were using these nonverbal cues. There is space to reflect on how better to incorporate them and consider why there may have been trouble.

How to actively listen to others – Scott Pierce

Active listening starts with refraining from questions. It’s important that the stage be set by allowing the speaker enough time and space to speak.

Start with reflection

Begin with reflections and try to capture the feeling of what was said. A reflection mirrors back what the person just said and tries to capture the meaning or the tone.

For example, let’s say a friend comes to you about a fight she had with her husband. She describes how the argument got heated, and they ended up sleeping separately. She is feeling worried about the state of their marriage.

A reflection restates what she said: “Things got really heated last night – so bad you didn’t even want to be in the same room.” Or “You’re feeling really worried because this fight felt so intense.”

The first example is a reflection of the content of what was shared. The second reflects the emotions. These types of reflections validate the speaker and help them feel heard and understood.

Asking questions

Only after reflection has been done will it be time to ask questions. The types of questions are important. The purpose of questions during active listening is to continue to move the individual toward self-discovery.

Open questions are vital for this step. Open questions can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. They invite introspection. Powerful questions stimulate curiosity in the listener and encourage conversation. They reveal underlying assumptions and invite creativity. They don’t change the subject or close down the conversation.

The point of an open-ended question as part of active listening is to learn more and continue to connect with the speaker. It is not to drive the conversation in a particular direction.

Here are three examples of closed questions vs open questions to ask, given the above situation. Remember, your friend just told you about a terrible fight that she had with her husband, and she is upset.

Closed question: “Did you make up?” Open question: “How are you feeling about the fight today?”

Closed question: “Did your kids hear you?” Open question: “How does it feel to share this with me? Have you thought about talking to anyone else?”

Closed question: “Are you going to leave him?” Open question: “What sorts of responses or solutions are you considering?”

You can see that the open questions invite conversation and show compassion , whereas the closed questions seem more like information gathering.

When practicing active listening, practitioners should also self-monitor for judgments that might come up while the person is speaking.

If these judgments aren’t monitored, they may cause criticizing, labeling, diagnosing, or even praising in a way that leads the speaker (Robertson, 2005).

The goal of active listening is to create a safe environment for the individual to speak freely. Any of these responses may lead to defensiveness, distrust, or shutting down.

Another barrier is suggesting solutions (Robertson, 2005). Although it may seem well meaning, the urge to suggest solutions often comes from a discomfort with what the speaker is saying. While it may seem supportive, it creates an imbalance of power in the dynamic. The speaker is left feeling unheard, and they are disempowered to create their own solutions.

A third barrier is avoiding what the person is sharing. This may manifest as diverting the conversation away, logically arguing, or even reassuring. Again, while reassurance seems comforting, it often shuts down or ends the conversation for the other person.

A wonderful example of the comparison of empathetic and other responses can be found in Brené Brown’s video below about sympathy versus empathy.

Active listening is a straightforward skill, and taking a short course is the perfect way to learn how to do it effectively. While it is possible to learn it simply by reading, it’s always helpful to see it in action and practice with other people.

If you are hoping to learn active listening to improve your workplace as a manager or a leader, these courses would be great for you.

Udemy offers thousands of short courses on everything from programming to cooking, and this course on active listening has over 10,000 downloads.

LinkedIn Learning offers courses for businesses, including one on effective listening . Your team can take a listening assessment, address challenges that they have, and learn effective listening behaviors.

A wonderful course for in-depth active listening training is offered by Voice of Health (VOH). VOH is an online peer-support community that offers free training for anyone interested.

17 Exercises To Develop Positive Communication

17 Positive Communication Exercises [PDF] to develop help others develop communication skills for successful social interactions and positive, fulfilling relationships.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Our Positive Psychology Toolkit© has excellent resources for learning how to listen more effectively and empathetically. One such tool is the exercise Listening Without Trying to Solve .

This exercise is done with a group. Individuals are paired off with one person as the listener and one as the storyteller. Each listener is given a card with instructions, half are told to listen without trying to solve and half are told to try to solve the problem as best as they can. Each pair is given five minutes for the storyteller to share a problem.

After sharing, the group returns together and discusses how it felt to be on the receiving end of a person who is working hard to solve the problem vs someone who is fully listening and empathizing. This is a powerful activity to show the effectiveness of active listening.

This checklist is a helpful tool for practicing active listening techniques. The checklist lists the techniques and then asks the listener to check back to see if they successfully used each one. There is space to write what worked well, what was difficult, and how to better incorporate unused techniques.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others communicate better, this collection contains 17 validated positive communication tools for practitioners. Use them to help others improve their communication skills and form deeper and more positive relationships.

Active listening is a skill that anyone can learn. It’s a vital tool for therapists and counselors to connect empathically with their clients. But it’s also useful for better communication with family, friends, and coworkers.

Practicing active listening can deepen connections in your relationships and help to create stronger and more lasting bonds. Try some of these exercises to improve your communication skills today.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Communication Exercises (PDF) for free .

• Bauer, C., & Figl, K. (2008). ‘Active listening’ in written online communication-a case study in a course on ‘soft skills’ for computer scientists. In 2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference (pp. F2C–1). IEEE.
• Kubota, S., Mishima, N., & Nagata, S. (2004). A study of the effects of active listening on listening attitudes of middle managers. Journal of Occupational Health , 46 (1), 60–67.
• Levitt, D. H. (2002). Active listening and counselor self-efficacy: Emphasis on one microskill in beginning counselor training. The Clinical Supervisor , 20 (2), 101–115.
• Martin, D. J., Garske, J. P., & Davis, M. K. (2000). Relation of the therapeutic alliance with outcome and other variables: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 68 (3), 438–450.
• Olson, J. K., & Iwasiw, C. L. (1987). Effects of a training model on active listening skills of post-RN students. Journal of Nursing Education , 26 (3), 104–107.
• Robertson, K. (2005). Active listening: More than just paying attention. Australian Family Physician , 34 (12), 1053–1055.
• Rogers, C. R., & Farson, R. E. (1987). Active listening. In R. G. Newman, M. A. Danziger, & M. Cohen (Eds.), Communicating in business today . DC Heath & Company.

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Active Listening Skills PowerPoint Presentation and Learner Activity Worksheet

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18 April 2020

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This is a 25 slide engaging powerpoint presentation that covers the important topic of Active Listening. It includes information on Body Language, Questioning, Paraphrasing, Facial Expressions, and best practice techniques. It is provided with a warm up group excercise and a lesson plan.

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EFFECTIVE LISTENING SKILLS

Jul 27, 2014

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Communication Skills. EFFECTIVE LISTENING SKILLS. Barriers to effective communication. Comfort of the language Lacking clarity Using stereotypes and generalizations Jumping to conclusions Using disconfirming responses Lacking confidence Lack of listening Skills . What is Listening?.

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Presentation Transcript

Communication Skills EFFECTIVE LISTENING SKILLS

Barriers to effective communication • Comfort of the language • Lacking clarity • Using stereotypes and generalizations • Jumping to conclusions • Using disconfirming responses • Lacking confidence • Lack of listening Skills

What is Listening? • To hear something with thoughtful attention : give consideration "We were given two ears but only one mouth, because listening is twice as hard as talking."

What is Listening?

Communication Skills Objective • to receive information • to understand effectively • to enhance clarity • to empathize Objective of Listening is…

Why Listen? • to receive information • to understand effectively • to enhance clarity • to empathize www.firstpersonality.com

Importance of Listening Communication Skills Listening – why is it important? Listening 45% Speaking 30% Order in which we are taught Order in which we learn Reading 16% Writing 9%

Types of Listening Active listening. You listen closely to content and intent. What emotional meaning might the speaker be giving you? You try to block out barriers to listening. Most importantly, you are non-judgmental and empathetic.

Types of Listening Passive listening (Inactive listening). The definition of this is the old adage, “In one ear and out the other.” You hear the words, but your mind is wandering and no communication is taking place.

Types of Listening Selective listening. You hear only what you want to hear. You hear some of the message and immediately begin to formulate your reply or second guess the speaker without waiting for the speaker to finish.

Types of Listening Reflective Listening. This is active listening when you also work to clarify what the speaker is saying and make sure there is mutual understanding.

Types of Listening Empathetic Listening: Listening something with empathy is known as empathetic listening. Empathy refers to emotions. Eg: Listening to a sad event, we need to listen with sad emotions

Hearing Vs. Listening!

Differences Hearing is like breathing, it is automatic. It is physical Effective Listening is a skill which can be achieved only through Practice. It is intellectual.

Hearing Vs Listening • Listening is a conscious act • Listening involves hearing, receiving, comprehending and responding appropriately • Hearing is an involuntary, physical and biological act • There is no understanding or appropriate response

4 Types of Listeners • The Non-Listener HEARING • The Marginal Listener V/s • The Evaluative Listener • The Active Listener LISTENING

Advantages of Listening • Good Listening leads to positive attitude, cordial relations and better participation. • It helps us to understand the customer better • Helps you to build rapport with the customer and thus gain his confidence • It increases productivity • Provides valuable information for the purpose of decision-making.

Communication Skills What Good Listening Looks like... • The Listener keeps looking at the speaker • The Listener’s body is in ‘open’ position • The listener is smiling with a pleasant & encouraging expression • Listener looks relaxed but alert, neither tense nor slouching • Listener utters humming sounds

3 Skills for Good Listening • There are 3 levels to listening: • Attending skills • Following skills • Reflecting skills

Attending Skills Positive body posture Establishing eye contact Moving in response to the speaker Nodding and making receptive verbal signals.

Following Skills Demonstrating Interest Comments such as-”Really, I see……” Asking open-ended questions

Reflecting Skills Rephrasing what the speaker has said Reflecting emotions Reflecting implications LISTEN!! FOR THE WORDS AND THE EMOTIONS

Do we always Listen? If No, Then….. Why not?

5 Reasons why we don’t listen • Listening is hard work • Competition for our attention • Fast pace of Life • Speed differences in the rate of speaking and understanding. • Lack of training

Barriers to Listening • Noise • Physical Environment • Accent / Delivery of the Speaker • Assumptions • Self Esteem • Prejudices • Perception • Preoccupation • Lack of feedback • Questions • Paraphrasing

Qualities of a Good Listener • The Listener keeps looking at the speaker • The Listener’s body is in ‘open’ position • The Listener is smiling with a pleasant & encouraging expression • Listener looks relaxed but alert, neither tense nor slouching • Listener utters humming sounds www.firstpersonality.com

Tips to Good Listening • Listen carefully. Helps you to: • Understand • Comprehend • Evaluate • Careful listening will require a conscious effort on your part. • You must be aware of the verbal and nonverbal messages (reading between the lines). • Be mentally and physically prepared to listen.

Tips to Good Listening • You can't hear if YOU do all the talking. Don't talk too much. • Listen with empathy. • Be courteous; don't interrupt. Take notes if you worry about forgetting a particular point. • Avoid stereotyping individuals by making assumptions about how you expect them to act. This will bias your listening.

Tips to Good Listening • Listen to how something is said. Be alert for the emotions behind the words. • Listen without thinking about how you're going to respond • Make certain you give the customer to an opportunity to voice their opinions. Don't dominate the conversation. • Maintain good body posture

Final Tips to Good Listening • Maintain eye contact with the instructor • Focus on content than on the way that it is being said. • Avoid selective listening • Avoid distractions • Ask questions to stay active and interested. • Face the speaker • Maintain eye contact • Respond appropriately – say yes, nod, etc. • Do not be preoccupied with your own thoughts.

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