Effective Listening (Part 2)

Today, let's continue to talk about how you can improve your listening skills, thus making you a more powerful communicator.

Ask a question, then keep your mouth shut. This sounds so simple, but in practice, it's one of the hardest things about being a good listener. You will feel the desire to butt into the conversation at many points, but don't. However, if there are parts of the message you don't understand, ask for clarification. Think of yourself as an interviewer. Think Barbara Walters perhaps; she's excellent at listening and questioning.

Here are some tips for asking effective questions, beginning with the cardinal rule?

Ask open-ended questions. Questions that can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no". Such as "How could we do this?" or "What do you think?" Your objective is to get the other person to talk as much as possible.

You might think "Why" is a good question to ask. It's certainly open-ended, and probes for reasons and motivations. But "why" can be intimidating. It puts people on the defensive. So don't ask "why"? Ask "How come?"

Very often, a lot of useful information can be gleaned from imaginary scenarios. Ask "What if?". Start with plausible scenarios, then as you get better at questioning, try slightly more incredible ones. If you're skilful enough, seemingly preposterous scenarios can elicit the most truthful responses, or give you deeper insight into the person's psyche.

Make the other person feel comfortable by demonstrating you care about their feelings and understand where they're coming from. Offer alternatives - "Which way would you prefer?", "How do you feel about this", and so on. And repeat back what they say. This is a great technique to prevent misunderstandings and convince that person that you really are listening.

Listening sounds like a simple thing, but it takes a lot of work and practice to really do it well. Effective listening and negotiating involves suppressing your own reflexes and responses, and creating an environment which allows the other person to express himself without feeling threatened.

Try out these listening tips. You'll begin to realise just how important listening really is in effective communication.