Active listening is a crucial skill for effective facilitation, coaching, and servant leadership. Highly skilled active listeners not only reflect and restate what the participant has shared, but more importantly, they also highlight why the participant said it. By addressing both the content and the underlying motivation, active listeners foster deeper understanding and create a stronger foundation for meaningful engagement.

Be sure to reflect not only the speaker’s main point but also the underlying rationale—the ‘because’ behind their message. When done naturally and effectively, active listening serves multiple purposes:

• Often, the participant is formulating thoughts on the spot and your playback helps them to further develop the thought process. The act of communication affects the content being communicated and shared.
• Participants experience being heard by others—listened to, since they will listen to you, the leader.
• Separates the arguments and opinions from the people or contributing participants so that everyone joins in.
• To reflect effectively, everyone needs to understand the underlying reason(s) supporting each participant’s contribution.
• You express an attitude of servant leadership—openness and listening.

“Talking is what I do, but listening is my job.”
— Ryan Seacrest

Four Steps Comprise Active Listening

People don’t care what you know until they know that you care. By definition, active listening requires four discrete activities.

1. CONTACT—Connect with the participant who is contributing. You frequently establish contact with eye contact, open posture, and nonverbal responses that signify acceptance (not necessarily agreement).
2. ABSORB—strive to take in all aspects behind the spoken message, implicit and explicit and nonverbal “intonations”. Do not judge or evaluate, the positive or the negative.
3. REFLECT & FEED BACK—mirror, reflect, or give feedback on what has been heard and WHY the contributor claims to be pertinent and valid.
4. CONFIRM—Obtain confirmation from the speaker that you represent the participant’s message accurately. If not, have the contributor repeat their message from the beginning by restating their viewpoint and the evidence to support it (facts, examples, observations, experience, statistics, etc.).

Feed Back

“To listen with understanding means seeing the expressed idea and attitude from the other person’s point of view, sensing how it feels to the person . . . This may sound absurdly simple, but it is not.”
—Dr Carl R Rogers

 

Providing feedback and reflection is a critical element that sets active listening apart from passive listening. Reflection, which can be both verbal and non-verbal, ensures that listeners not only hear but also understand the speaker’s message as intended. In contrast, passive listening often involves moving from one statement to the next without offering any confirmation or clarification.

To practice active listening effectively, aim to capture participants’ input verbatim and provide feedback using one of these three techniques to confirm understanding.

Three Reflection Techniques

1. Synthesize—shape the numerous fragments of multiple participants into a whole, working through their stream of consciousness, many times with participants speaking over one another.
2. Summarize—communication frequently occurs without foresight. Often more words are used than necessary. When you summarize, boil it down to its essence, core message, or causal link. Optimally isolate the key verb and noun components first. Participants rarely argue about verbs and nouns. They frequently argue about adjectives and adverbs (ie., modifiers).
3. Paraphrase—stating, repeating what the participant(s) said in fewer words. Do not substitute your own words without carefully securing confirmation from the participant. Always preserve the original meaning and intent.

When providing reflective feedback, depersonalize the content with your choice of words or rhetoric. Do NOT say ‘You said . . . ‘  Rather, feedback on their statements with integrative rhetoric such as, “We heard . . .”

Strive for completeness when providing reflection. Next, avoid the general ‘Does everyone agree with THAT?’ by replacing content for the impersonal pronoun “that”. For example, ‘Will you support the claim that torture can be consciously objectionable?’ works better because participants are clearer about the precise content being reflected.

Why Active Listening Works

Active listening is powerful because it fosters relationships and builds stronger connections between participants. By modeling active listening, you set an example for everyone in the room. It forms the foundation for clarity and significantly increases the likelihood of mutual understanding.

When we confirm our understanding of participants’ input, we gain a clearer and often deeper appreciation of the assumptions that shape their perspectives and decision-making. In other words, active listening allows participants to better see the world through each other’s eyes.

Most people understand that listening is a critical skill, but few recognize the subtle difference between standard active listening and truly superb active listening. The key to mastering it lies in focusing not just on what is being said, but on why it is being said.

Active Listening Tip: Challenge the Why

Most listeners focus on what the speaker says. However, our most important active listening tip is to go deeper: listen and reflect on why the speaker is saying what they are saying. Often, participants talk about symptoms (e.g., ‘This hurts’) instead of addressing underlying causes (e.g., ‘I’ve been working 70 hours a week’). To foster deeper discussions, challenge them to uncover the root causes behind their statements.

WHY is the Cause (or, the “Because”) of the WHAT

The WHY becomes apparent during personal conversations. You might ask yourself (while someone is speaking to you) why they are telling you about a particular fact or story. Determining the motivation for the speaking is as important, if not more so, than what is said.

Many of us already know this about our children. Consequently, when a teenager says “I hate you,” they don’t really hate you. 

Rather they say it because . . .

• “*&# frustrated”
• I didn’t get my way
• I don’t have the power to influence you or change your opinion
• “*&# embarrassed”
• I’m going to hurt you because your words hurt me
• I feel hurt, don’t you understand?
• You never let me get my way

The Active Listening Difference

Without trying to become a psychologist, keenly listen for the why, especially when:

• A workshop participant is angry and/or confrontational
• A participant waxes on about something seeming irrelevant or just waxes on, and on
• A participant becomes abnormally active or withdrawn

Our curriculum advises you to confirm what the speaker says, but as the facilitator, it’s equally important to uncover why the speaker made their contribution. Understanding both the what and the why ensures deeper insight into their perspective.

The why holds the key to the most critical message, as consensus and actionable next steps are built around addressing the root cause, not just the symptom.

For meeting participants to own the solution, they must also own the problem. Therefore, effective facilitators drop the first-person singular terms “I” and “me.” They stop offering solutions and quit judging participants’ contributions. Instead, they challenge participants to make their thinking clearer.

1. Hence, with interactive listening, ask open questions to start the information flow:

• • “And then what?”
  • “Tell us more about . . .”

2. Body language interactive listening remains sensitive to:

• • Direct eye contact
  • Involved posture: Lean forward and don’t fold your arms
  • Use pleasant, encouraging facial expressions.
  • Smile

3. Instead use neutral encouragement:

• • “Hmm”
  • “Interesting”
  • “No kidding?”
  • “Really?”
  • “Wow”

4. Interactive listening permits challenges with add-on comments, comparisons, and analogies:

• • “What makes that different than the (XYZ deal)?”
  • “Sounds like trying to hold off the flood by putting your finger in the dike . . .”

5. Stress clarification questions:

• • “Because?”
  • “How will that impact . . . ?”
  • “Huh?”

6. Conclude comments and conversation with a summary:

• • At the end of the conversation, summarize the important points and ask for confirmation that you understood the other party, not that you necessarily agreed with everything said.
  • “Your position on the matter . . .”

7. Therefore, don’t debate the issue:

• • Focus on understanding the other person’s point of view so that you can provide thorough reflection.
  • Listen intently while the other person talks.

8. Rather, restate and ask for confirmation:

• • “Let’s see if we understand that correctly. We heard that…”

9. Hence, silence or minimal speaking during interactive listening:

• • Silence lasting three to five seconds will encourage the participant to say more.

10. Most importantly, take notes:

• • Note-taking usually honors the speaker and encourages information flow.
  • Take notes, not dictation; stay in the conversation; maintain eye contact.
  • Use their words (verbatim) not yours
  • Remember, if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.

How Well Are You Listening? The Best Listeners Make the Best Managers

Digital technology is great for giving people a voice, through social media, cloud-based communication systems, blogs, and numerous other tools. Yet what value is a voice unless there is an ear that is really willing to hear it? Let’s take a look at how we can all become better listeners and in the process, better managers.

Improving your listening skills

The first step to becoming a better listener is to stop multitasking. We all lead busy lives, but no conversation is truly effective if you’re distracted by your laptop or phone. Close the computer, silence your phone, and offer the speaker your full, undivided attention. This simple act of respect sets the foundation for meaningful communication.

The second step is to practice active listening. Remember that most communication is non-verbal—how something is said often carries more weight than the words themselves. This is why humor or tone can be easily misinterpreted over email or text. Whenever possible, opt for face-to-face conversations, where body language can be observed and understood. Even a basic awareness of non-verbal cues can significantly improve the quality of your interactions.

Lastly, be patient. Some people take time to articulate their thoughts, and it can be tempting to rush them, interrupt, or finish their sentences. Resist this urge. Allowing others to express themselves fully not only builds trust but also deepens the conversation, leading to better outcomes.

Adding value to your business

Employees who feel genuinely heard by their managers tend to be happier and more motivated, resulting in higher performance and engagement. They are also far more likely to share valuable ideas, innovations, and concerns, fostering a culture of openness and continuous improvement.

In today’s increasingly competitive business environment, a happy and motivated workforce provides a significant competitive advantage. When your organization invests in its most valuable asset—its people—it can unlock untapped potential and drive success.

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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools and methods daily during the week. While some call this immersion, we call it the road that yields high-value facilitation skills.

Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)

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With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference

• 20 Prioritization Techniques = https://foldingburritos.com/product-prioritization-techniques/
• Creativity Techniques = https://www.mycoted.com/Category:Creativity_Techniques
• Facilitation Training Calendar = https://mgrush.com/public-facilitation-training-calendar/
• Liberating Structures = http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls-menu
• Management Methods = https://www.valuebasedmanagement.net
• Newseum = https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/
• People Search = https://pudding.cool/2019/05/people-map/
• Project Gutenberg = http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
• Scrum Events Agendas = https://mgrush.com/blog/scrum-facilitation/
• Speed test = https://www.speedtest.net/result/8715401342
• Teleconference call = https://youtu.be/DYu_bGbZiiQ
• The Size of Space = https://neal.fun/size-of-space/
• Thiagi/ 400 ready-to-use training games = http://thiagi.net/archive/www/games.html
• Visualization methods = http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html#