Active Listening

Aim- To familiarize the participants with an understanding of the process of active learning,
identifying the blocks, and equipping them with active listening skills through various
exercises.

Basic Concept:
What is Communication? Communication is the process of conveying information and
meaning. Effective communication involves the ability to transmit and receive information
with a high probability that the intended message is passed from sender to receiver. It
involves the sharing of information between individual or groups to reach a common
understanding in order to accomplish organizational goals and objectives.
“Interpersonal communication is a complex, situated social process in which people who
have established a communicative relationship exchange messages in an effort to generate
shared meanings and accomplish social goals” (Berger, 2012).

Is Communication an Important Leadership Skill? There is little doubt that communication

skills are at the heart of effective leadership. Leadership is about influencing others and
building relationships, which are based on communications. There is a positive relationship
between communication competency and leadership performance.

Planning a communication message: Communication is ‘transactional’ which means that the

process is cooperative; the sender and the receiver are mutually responsible for the effect and
the effectiveness of communication. All forms of human communication have at least five
basic elements (S-M-C-R-N): a source, (S-sender) who shares the message by encoding it, a
message (M), a channel (C- channel or medium- phone call, letter, memo or face to face
communication), a receiver (R), who receives the message by decoding it, feedback: response
from the receiver after decoding it; and Noise (N): distractions in the field. The basic
communication model is given as below:

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 While planning to send a communication, the following questions need to be answered?

● What is the goal of the message?

● Who should receive the message?

● Who will send the message?

● When will the message be transmitted?

● Where will the message be transmitted?

Listening vs. Hearing: To be communicatively competent, we must be able to receive

messages as well as send them. For this listening is very important. Listening involves the
process of making sense or ‘meaning’ of others’ spoken messages. Listening is the ability of
the listener to make a conscious effort to understand the speaker's message. It requires focus
and attention and may come naturally to some more than others. Listening also requires the
listener to resist the urge to comment or ask questions and understand the speaker's
perspective without judgement. It is an essential skill that improves and builds human
relationships.

Listening is not the same as hearing. Hearing is a physiological process that occurs when
sound waves are processed by the central nervous system. Listening is a complex, interactive,
multistage process and involves the following:
❖ Receiving the message from sensory input (speech) from the sender.
❖ Interpreting and absorbing the meaning of what we have heard.

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 ❖ Evaluating or judging this information through critical thinking.
❖ Responding to the speaker by giving feedback of some kind.

Active vs Passive Listening: An important distinction is made between active and passive
listening. Effective listening is active rather than passive. Passive listening is one-way
communication in which you do not provide feedback and may or may not understand the
message. Listening to the TV, radio, is passive listening. Passive listening is more of
recording and not very accurate. Even if the speaker provides them with a clear message and
makes their delivery interesting the retention of the communication a few days later will
always be incomplete and usually inaccurate.

Active listening, on the other hand, is genuine two-way communication. You are listening
intently, thinking about the information to make sure you understand it, and providing
feedback to the speaker to clarify what you don’t understand. One tries to absorb as much of
information presented as possible.

Active listening requires:

1) intensity: The active listener concentrates intensely on what the speaker is saying and tunes
out the thousands of miscellaneous thoughts that create distraction.

2) empathy: Empathy requires you to put yourself into the speaker’s shoes. You try to
understand what the speaker wants to communicate rather than what you want to hear.
Empathy demands both knowledge of the speaker and flexibility on your part you need to
suspend your own thoughts and feelings and adjust what you see and feel to your speaker’s
world. In that way, you increase the likelihood that you’ll interpret the message in the way
the speaker intended

3) acceptance: You listen objectively without judging content. It’s natural to be distracted by
what a speaker says, especially when we disagree with it. When we hear something we
disagree with, we have a tendency to begin formulating your mental arguments to counter
what is being said. Of course in doing so, we miss the rest of the message. The challenge for
the active listener is to absorb what’s being said and withhold judgment on content until the
speaker is finished.

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4) willingness to take responsibilities for completeness: The listener does whatever is
necessary to get the full intended meaning from the speaker’s communication. Two widely
used active listening techniques are listening for feelings as well as for content and asking
questions to ensure understanding.

Barriers to effective listening

1. Distractions (Physical and mental): All the stimuli in the environment that keep you from
focusing on the message both mental distractions as well external distractions. These include
furniture placement, environmental noise such as sounds of traffic or people talking,
physiological noise such as a sinus headache or hunger, and psychological noise such
as stress or anger.
2. Communication apprehension: This is the anxiety caused by having to talk with others.
Bodily experiences associated with communication apprehension can range from "butterflies"
in the stomach to cold hands, dry mouth, and racing heart rate.
3. Defensiveness: This is an excessive concern with protecting oneself from being hurt. People
usually react defensively when they feel threatened, such as when they believe that others are
evaluating them or trying to control or manipulate them.
4. Motivational Distortion: Motivational distortion occurs when people hear what they want to
hear instead of what is actually being said.
5. Information overload occurs when a person is exposed to more information than he or
she can process.
6. Lack of feedback
7. Day dreaming: daydreaming is allowing your attention to wander to other events or
people. it is a time when you stop listening and drift away into your own fantasies.
8. Rehearsing: rehearsing is when you are busy thinking about what you are going to say
next, so that you never completely hear what the other person is telling you.
9. Filtering: filtering is when you listen to certain parts of the conversation, but not all.
it is the intentional distortion of information to make it more favorable to the
recipient. common filters include: attitudes; expectations; values; self-image;
interests; past experiences; prejudices; memories; beliefs; and assumptions.

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 10. Judging: judging is when you have stopped listening to the other person because you
have already judged, placed labels, made assumptions about, or stereotyped the other
person.
11. Lack of comprehension of nonverbal symbols: The same non verbal communication
may mean different things in different cultures. Contact cultures engage in more
gazing and more direct orientation when interacting with others. Arabs and Latin
Americans interact with others at closer distance than Americans.
12. Narcissistic listening: This is self-centered and self-absorbed listening in which
listeners try to make the interaction about them by interrupting, changing the subject,
or drawing attention away from others.
13. Aggressive listening is a bad listening practice in which people pay attention to a
speaker in order to attack something they say.

Enhancing active listening

To develop these skills and characteristics, it helps to be aware of some verbal active
listening techniques, and nonverbal techniques.

Verbal techniques:

● Encouraging: This conveys interest in what the speaker is discussing. This involves

the use of noncommittal words with positive tone of voice. E.g. “I see…” “Yes…”

● Clarifying. The receiver can ask for clarification to ensure that s/he has understood

the message. We clarify by asking specific questions: You referred to an AO—can

you explain what an AO is?

● Restating, paraphrasing, or “mirroring.” In these techniques, we restate, paraphrase, or

“mirror” what the speaker said, using the speaker’s or your own words, so the speaker
can verify that you have correctly understood. Paraphrasing refers to restating the
message but with fewer words. The speaker says: “I think I am going to leave him;
Example of paraphrasing: “What I hear you saying is that you are going to ask for a
divorce.”

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 ● Acknowledging. When you acknowledge, you let the speaker know that you have

understood and heard the message and that you appreciate the speaker’s point of view.
Your comment can be neutral and noncommittal. I understand that you believe all
graduate assistants should speak perfect English.

● Summarizing. Similar to restating, this is a way of reviewing progress in a

conversation. You touch on the main ideas or conclusions, not all the individual
points you discussed along the way. You restate the main ideas very briefly and set
the tone for the next subject or conversation. This can be very useful when you are
discussing several different issues. OK, so we agreed that I’ll work your shift on
Thursday evening and you’ll work mine on Friday morning.

● Framing. Use framing to see if the speaker is open to hearing your ideas and to draw

suggested solutions from the speaker. So you don’t like your college major—do you
think this may be why you are getting poor grades?

Non verbal techniques

In order to be a competent communicator we should be able to listen to what others say. But
simply listening to their words is not enough. Nonverbal cues can support or modify verbal
messages. A slight hesitation, a fleeting frown, or a nervous laugh can change the meaning of
the words "I love you" into "I have some doubts about our future."

Showing active listening through non verbal communication conveys the message that you
are interested and listening, encouraging the speaker to tell you more. The SOLER model
(Egan, 1986) is a guide for using non-verbal communication while listening in some sectors
of western society.
S: Sit
O: Open posture
L: Lean towards the other
E: Eye contact
R: Relax

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Exercises on Active Listening