Active Listening

Active Listening is a tool that is used in business and in organizations as well as by counselors to help understand what other people are really saying. Dr. Thomas Gordon first used the term “Active Listening” when he introduced his book on Parent Effectiveness Training. Active Listening refers to listening for both facts (content) and feelings. If someone said, “The guest speaker didn’t show up”, you might hear the anger in the person’s statement, but unless you reflected it back that person may feel you don’t understand the situation. So if you say, “You’re really angry (feelings) about the speaker not showing up (facts),” the person feels you understand the situation and how s/he feels about it. Also s/he will tell you if you reflected the wrong feelings—“No, I’m not angry, just shocked”—and you can reflect that clarification. This is the basic premise of Active Listening, which allows real communication to take place. The parent who yells at their child who asks for all thirty-one flavors of ice cream might try, “You’d really like all thirty-one flavors.” This doesn’t mean the child is going to get that request, but because you understood the feelings, compromise is more likely. The president of the chapter might say “You sound upset (disappointed, angry, etc.) about ________” and the member then feels you understand both the problem as well as his/her feelings about the problem.

Most of us did not grow up with good listening skills nor are most people trained in counseling techniques. As a result, we may feel exhausted or ‘burned out’ by others. Active Listening helps us to help others and not become exhausted in the process. When we are officers in an organization sometimes a member may sound like they are complaining but may just be offering a suggestion. Active Listening is the tool to use: “You sound upset about the change in procedure.” Then listen as they talk and then ask them for their ideas.

Real communication is very hard to achieve. We tend to judge, evaluate, to approve or disapprove before we understand what the other person is saying, before we understand his frame of reference. Our tendency to judge is a major barrier to communication. We begin to make progress towards real communication when we try to see from the other person’ point of view, to sense how it feels to him. (Can you imagine a triple Piscean astrologer telling his triple Taurus client, “Money isn’t important” or the triple Gemini counselor telling triple Cancer, “A move would be good for you and any house is a home!”) One person’s solutions may not fit the other person’s problem. Advice never works as we each have our own solutions to our problems.

Who Owns the Problem

The first step in Active Listening is to decide who owns the problem. If you are upset or angry, you own the problem. You need to say “I’m upset about that missing report I asked for last week” or “I’m hurt that you didn’t let me know what was going on at that special meeting,” not “You lied to me”-this only makes others defensive. You need to accept responsibility for your feelings if you expect to affect change in yourself and be a good model for others.

If you decide the problem belongs to the other person and you choose to be helpful, as in the astrologer/client/member relationship, the two sentences you might use are:

1. 1.“It sounds like you’re upset about ________.”
2. 2.“What have you thought about doing?”

You have said to the other person “I hear it as your problem but I’m willing to listen while you work your solutions.”

An example might be a member who says, “This organization just doesn’t have interesting programs anymore.” Try Active Listening: “It sounds like you’re disappointed in our programs.” S/he may reply, “Ya, we need some different speakers or something.” You then allow the other person to talk further about the situation as you remain silent. Then you can say, “What have you thought about doing? S/he might say, “I have a whole list of suggestions I could give to your program chairman and maybe I can help on the program committee. And thanks for letting me help.”

Another major challenge is that 90 percent of people listen autobiographically (What’s in it for me?) while only 10 percent listen emphatically (What’s in it for the person I am talking with? How can I help them?) Therefore, we need to consciously focus on the other person.

Some tips:

1. Allow people to finish speaking before you start. Count to 2-3 under your breath to make sure they are done.
2. Ask open-ended questions….then keep quiet while others answer, even if they have to think for a few moments.
3. Encourage the speaker to go on with verbal responses such as “Tell me more.” “ What can I do to help you?” “What suggestions do you have?”.
4. Give positive nonverbal feedback such as an affirmative nod, a smile, turning your body toward the speaker, keeping your legs and arms uncrossed and leaning toward the speaker.
5. Give others their moment in the sun. Resist the urge to share (tell!) how you did something bigger, better or more often.