Three Techniques to Improve Your Listening

The following three techniques can be employed with great success if used to enhance the effectiveness of communication.  Try and master these skills as it will greatly improve your ability to listen well and to understand the message the way it was meant to be understood.

Reflection

Reflecting entails, a reasonably accurate rephrasing of the other person’s emotional attitude. Now it is not necessary to state your observation explicitly, but your statement should none the less be based on something the person said or indicated.
Do not use reflection to judge. Reflection will enable you to test for underlying feelings.

Typical reflection will start with: “It seems to me…”

Asking Open-ended Questions

The best way to double-check your understanding of what a source has said is to ask questions in order to clarify and amplify. Ask the person to repeat or rephrase his remarks.

Ask for additional information to amplify a point. Keep your questions polite and to the point.

Open-ended questions assist in further exploration of what was said. It will help you to gain a better understanding of the situation.

Open-ended questions will typically start with:

• How…
• What…
• Tell me about…
• Please explain…

Paraphrasing

A technique to help you to check if you understood what was said. If you want to check if you understood clearly, you can shortly summarise what you heard and then as “Is that what you meant?”

Paraphrasing will typically start with: “What I hear you saying is…”