In modern life, many techniques and skills can greatly improve and facilitate your life. One of such useful skills is active listening, which consists in the ability to listen to the interlocutor with the correct external and internal reaction. This technique allows not only to arrange the interlocutor to yourself and be able to understand his point of view, but also to influence it. Thanks to this, the concept of active listening is now very popular in various spheres of life.
Types of active listening
There are different principles of active listening, which correspond to three different options for this phenomenon:
- Active listening. In this case, you concentrate on information, specifying and asking it again so that the interlocutor understands that you want to understand everything that he says for himself.
- Passive listening. Sometimes a person needs to speak out, and in this case he should not interrupt, but listen in silence, occasionally giving in and letting you see that you understand him.
- Empathic listening. This kind makes you mentally stand in the speaker's place and try to imagine, experience his feelings, expressing it in words so that he realizes that you are able to empathize at the deepest level.
Usually, on this basis, the exercises for active listening also form. People are divided into pairs and within 2-3 minutes each of them works out these three ways of active listening.
Methods of active listening
For many, even such a simple device, as the ability to listen to the interlocutor, without interrupting it, is beyond its powers. But this is the basis of active listening and a sign of elementary courtesy. Consider the simplest manifestations from the field of active listening:
- easy inclination of the body to the interlocutor;
- regular nods during the speech of the interlocutor;
- flashes of the eyes;
- mimicry corresponding to the subject of conversation;
- assent to consent;
- explanations in the course of speech;
- a re-request at the end of the statement ("that is, as I understand it ....");
- summarizing ("in general, you decided ...");
- expression of empathy;
- empathy ("this upset you?"), etc.
The technique of active listening allows you to arrange the interviewee to yourself, convince him that you really care about his words and even allows you to influence his point of view, leading him to new conclusions, using only the information he gave you.