How to listen?
Focus your attention on the person who's talking.
Easy in theory, harder in practice. It takes an effort to block out both internal and external distractions. A headache? Did something happen at home earlier that still bothers you? Are you hungry. Those are internal distractions that takes away focus.
Likewise, there are external distractions such as emails, phones, other people talking, room temperature, a dull speaker or other external factors that influence your ability to listen.
Try to eliminate as many of these distractions as possible before you start, and be mindful of the others, try pushing them aside if they come into your mind.
If you can’t get the distractions out of the way, perhaps you should re-schedule the meeting to a time where you can focus properly, if possible.
Remain mostly silent.
Not completely silent, but remember that you’re there to listen. Use emotion mirroring, maintain eye contact, some encouraging words such as “aha”, “go on”, “tell me more” could be used to keep the person talking.
Sometimes you can paraphrase or use open ended or clarifying questions.
Maintain a neutral frame of mind.
Bias or judgement doesn’t help you in listening to what the other person is saying. Quite the opposite. Keep an open mind.
Listen with your eyes.
Remember that a lot of the communication is nonverbal. Look at the posture of the person speaking, what are they doing with their hands, where are they looking, do they seem uncomfortable. Don’t over-interpret nonverbal communication, but pay attention. Sometimes people say one thing with their words and something else with their body. Try to clarify, using techniques mentioned.
Use reflective statements.
Listen to what the speaker has said, then try to understand the idea, and offer it back to the speaker in your own words. This is to confirm that you’ve grasped what the speaker tried to convey. Try to use “I-messages” such as “I think you’re saying… “ or “I believe your point is..”.
Summarize.
Just as it sounds. Summarize the key points, just to make sure you got it all.
This concludes this brief series on listening. If you have any comments, criticism or anything you'd like to bring up. Feel free to let me know.
Previous parts here: part 3, part 2 and part 1.
[Image from allisonmseward12]