There are some obvious objective reasons – the listener gains more insight, there are fewer miscommunications, details are clarified sooner, etc.

However, from my own personal experience I believe the underlying reason active listeners are more successful is because the recipient of your attention – a client, a peer, your boss, your spouse – FEELS like you care about their needs. They then respond more positively to you and your ideas. Happy clients leads to more successful careers.

Thanks for summarizing the why’s and how’s to being an active listener!

In other words, when the “active listener” repeated a lot of the phrases the speaker (attendee) used or summarized using identical, uncommon words, the speaker would get annoyed.

There are three things that I do to minimize this affect.

First, I play “thesaurus guy” and try and not re-use any precise or uncommon words. By substituting alternative words, I can demonstrate understanding without regurgitating.

Second, I try and focus more on summarizing – or re-articulating the concepts, at a general level. Re-characterizing someone’s point at a more general level that the one they made it at helps both to clarify my understanding, and to give satisfaction to the speaker that I understood what she said. By attempting to generalize, it feels more like evaluation and extension of the concept than merely repetition.

Third, I sometimes try and use analogies. The best analogies describe the uncommon in terms of the familiar. This is similar to the second technique, although I am “testing” the concept by moving laterally instead of vertically.

Let us know if these techniques work for you!

Thanks very much for chiming in! Great to have someone with exhaustive experience validate the list for our readers. I really appreciate it – and thanks for reading too.

Good points about the challenges of doing it all at once, and I love your suggested favorites. I find that I do a lot of summarizing, restating, and probing. And probably not enough of being quiet. I need to take Malcolm’s advice to heart and WAIT.

Thanks again,
Scott

Trying to do all of them at once can be tiring, so I would recommend that you pick a few (1-4) and try them out. Get a feel for how they work with your audience and what you get out of them. Truth be told, some people respond well to some of the techniques better than others. Reflecting and Summarizing can sound to some people as if you are being repetitive or patronizing.

My favorites are Acknowledging and Being Quiet. You’d be surprised how much information you can glean when you let the other person have some space in the conversation and confirm to them that you are hearing them.

The Best Laid Plans I LOVE this post and wonder if I will actually be sitting in an airport with a delayed flight while you read this as I am currently enroute to Portland. I wholeheartedly agree with Christine Kane…

I LOVE the acronym. I’m typing it again to help me remember it. WAIT – why am I talking.

Awesome.