Five good listening styles you DO want to have …

Last month I shared with you a blog post titled “Ten bad listening styles you DON’T want to have …” (you can find that post by clicking here). Today, let me share with you five good listening styles you DO want to have and nurture to be an effective listener:

ATTEND
As a good listener, you want to “attend” to the talker, meaning you “look, listen, and track.” To do this, we make eye contact with the talker to help ensure purposeful listening on our part and “track” with them, meaning to keep our attention on the content of what they are saying while they speak while also noting their tone, facial expressions, and body language.

ATTUNE
This means we’re entirely “tuned in” to what the talker is saying instead of thinking about how we want to respond or letting our minds wander to other things. Stay tuned in to your talker!

ACKNOWLEDGE
To be an active listener is to occasionally “acknowledge” what your talker is saying so they know you are tuned in and tracking with them. We do this various ways such as a slight nod of the head, responsive facial expressions, and the occasional brief comment such as, “That must have been fun!” or “That must have been difficult!” or “Wow!” or “Oh no!” Acknowledgements should be so brief that they don’t interrupt the flow of the talker but fit in as an acknowledgement of what they’re saying.

ASK
When someone is talking, let them talk. Put another way, when you’re a listener, your job is to listen and not talk or interrupt. However, there is one time when a short interruption is appropriate, which is to ask a brief, concise question ONLY about something they said and ONLY to clarify for your understanding. For example, someone might say, “It is critical that I get this project done by the weekend but I really don’t even know where to start!” If you don’t know what project they’re referring to, it would be appropriate to ask, “Which project are you referring to?”

ABRIDGE
When your talker has finished speaking, you can check to make sure you have clearly and accurately understood what they said by abridging their comments to check for accuracy. We do this by saying, “Let me be sure I understood you correctly. It’s my understanding you said …” and then state for them an abridged version of what you understood they said. If you have misunderstood your talker, your providing an abridged version of what they said gives them an opportunity to correct anything you may have not understood correctly.

Conclusion
Let me encourage you to take the information in the post about the 10 bad listening styles you DON’T want to have, add these five listening styles you DO want to have, and combine them to refine your listening skills. Your talkers will appreciate just what a good listener you are!

Scotty