How To Improve Your Listening Skills

How good are your listening skills? Do you consider yourself a good listener? Do you know what it takes to listen actively and empathetically?

For those blessed with good hearing, listening is a primary sense and the audible environment shapes how we interact with the world. Considering how important hearing is, it is therefore amazing how bad our listening can be at times, and by that, I mean how well we focus our attention on what we are listening to.

Just think of the last time someone asked you, “Are you actually listening to me?” If you have a significant other I bet that it may have been days, if not hours ago!

Achieving a level of mastery of effective listening is not easy and does require skill. But these are skills, not character traits, and although some people may be naturally better at listening, everyone can learn the principles and improve through practice; this has certainly been my experience in learning to be a professional coach (although, as my wife will point out, there is plenty of room for improvement!)

Before looking at the skills involved in effective listening we need to answer the question: what is effective listening? Effective listening should have a positive impact, particularly on the speaker. First and foremost effective listening should result in making a person feel valued. Understanding is important, but secondary to this. Effectual listening should give a person space to think, to explore their feelings and construct what they want to say.

To achieve this level of effectiveness there are a few key skills that can really make the difference: providing the right environment; focused attention; empathy; and active listening.

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The Right Environment

The right environment is one that allows the person to feel at ease and gives them a platform to think and speak. This environment is physical, emotional and intellectual.

The physical environment should be comfortable and free of distraction or undue pressure for both the subject and the person listening. This is why it is often good to take someone away from his or her immediate work environment.

The demeanour, tone and body language of the listener helps to create the right emotional environment. Maintaining eye contact while listening, keeping an open posture, keeping mostly silent but giving occasional encouragement helps with this. Avoid fidgeting or looking at your watch. Completing people’s sentences or guessing words for them will also undermine the supportive environment you are creating. Most importantly of all, don’t interrupt!

The questions you pose to whomever you are listening to help to ensure the right intellectual environment and these combined create what Nancy Kline defines as the Thinking Environment (1999), where there is a sense of attention, ease and appreciation.

Focused Attention

Once a good listening environment has been created it is then important to give the person focused attention. They need to feel that they are being heard and as the listener, you need to be sure you are hearing what they are saying. This is harder than it sounds because as Stephen Covey notes, the problem is:

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply” (1989: 239).

To overcome this you need to mentally close off invading thoughts, comments and answers that you might have.

I am a solution-orientated person so I have often struggled with the deluge of ideas, experiences and comparisons that can come rushing in when someone is speaking. Knowing that the power of coaching is allowing people to come up with their own solutions I have developed strategies to deal with this. One mental technique I use is visualising shutting a door on each invading thought to actively close them out, so I can re-focus on what is being said.

Empathy and emotional intelligence

Once you have the right level of attention to what is being said, the next step is to connect with the feelings that are being expressed. As Daniel Kahneman observes, it’s very hard to distinguish between what a person believes and what they say they believe (2011). Therefore we need to understand the emotive context of their language.

To understand the emotional subtext to the words being said we need to listen to the other person’s viewpoint and start to comprehend things from their perspective. This is something that requires emotional intelligence as defined by Salovey and Mayer (1990).

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What does it mean to actively listen?

The combining of the right environment, focus and empathy creates the conditions for active listening. Bresser and Wilson describe active listening as the highest level of listening (2006) and Julie Starr states that active listening is a fundamental skill within coaching (2008). When active listening is being used then the listener has a fuller understanding of what is being communicated, can recall what a person has said and, when appropriate, reflect, paraphrase or respond to the speaker.

When actively listening to someone I find it is possible to get into a state of flow where there is an increased level of energy and focus. Using the steps of creating the right environment and then tuning into people’s feelings quickens this process. Continual practice is helping me – and can help anyone – achieve this state more frequently and for longer. I also find that a period of preparation beforehand facilitates this state more quickly. Equally, time for reflection after a conversation can help me critique my listening with a view to be even better the next time around.

You can always be better

Even simple skills require mastery but the good news is everyone can get better at both. We can all employ active listening that makes people feel valued. We can strive to use incisive questions that challenge assumptions and deepen understanding. Through this, we can all be part of unlocking people’s potential. Knowing this inspires me to keep practising these skills and helping people become more effective at achieving their goals.


References

Brasser, F and Wilson, C (2006) What is Coaching?, in Passmore, J (ed) Excellence in Coaching, London: Kogan Page

Covey, S R (1989) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, London: Simon and Schuster

Kahneman, D (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Kline, N (1999) Time to Think. London: Ward Lock

Salovey, P and Mayer, J D (1990) Emotional Intelligence, Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9, pp185-211

Starr, J (2008) The Coaching Manual. Harlow: Pearson Education

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!

How Do You Create The Best Thinking Environment?

How do you create a thinking environment where people can be at their best? This would be somewhere they can think effectively and creatively, experiment and fail, reflect and learn, address challenges and make the best decisions.

Does this describe your working or learning environment? It could do and arguably should do.

Nancy Kline, author of Time to Think, has spent years researching and developing just how to make spaces where people can thrive. The principles that she has identified come together to make what she calls the ‘Thinking Environment’.

“Thinking for yourself is still a radical act.”

Nancy Kline

What is the Thinking Environment?

The Thinking Environment is Kline’s concept of how to help people think better and is made up of ten components. These are:

  • Attention
  • Equality
  • Ease
  • Appreciation
  • Encouragement
  • Information
  • Feelings
  • Diversity
  • Incisive Questions
  • Place

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How do you apply the principles of the Thinking Environment?

The individual aspects of the Thinking Environment can be explained and applied in the following ways:

Attention

We should be great listeners and give people our full attention. That is because great hearing leads to generative thinking, it is, as Nancy Kline says, ‘an act of creation’.

We need to actively listen to what people are saying, not interrupting or just thinking about what we want to say next. Giving people our attention demonstrates our respect for that person and gives them and their thoughts worth.

“The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking.”

Nancy Kline

How can you improve your attention and listening skills?

Here is an exercise to help you develop better attention and active listening:

  • In pairs take turns to listen to each other speak. It can be on any topic of the person taking the thinking/speaking turn.
  • As a listener, when a thought comes into your mind visualise closing a door on that thought so you can return your attention to the speaker’s thoughts rather than your own.
  • The listener should try not to say anything, or even make any noises until the person has finished talking.
  • The thinker/speaker should be concise in their thoughts, where possible, and then let the listener know when that wave of thinking and sharing is done.
  • When the thinker has finished speaking don’t comment unless asked to. Otherwise just ask “What more do you think, feel or want to say?”

You can learn more about listening skills by clicking on the link and reading the post Are you really listening?

Questions for reflection:

  • When was the last time you listened to someone in conversation without interrupting them?

Equality

We are all different, we have different experiences and backgrounds, roles and responsibilities, strengths and weaknesses, thoughts and ideas; but we are all equal in worth. In a Thinking Environment, everyone is valued equally as a thinker and everyone’s thoughts are given equal worth. It is not a hierarchy or even a meritocracy; this is giving space for people to think as true equals.

This means that everyone gets their turn to speak, and while they do, everyone else listens. This helps to stop talkative people dominating the conversation and encourages quieter folk to speak.

How can you develop more equality in your meetings?

  • If you are more senior in position or experience then you can help create equality by modelling the behaviours in the Thinking Environment and being open in sharing your feelings and thoughts.
  • At the beginning of a meeting or thinking session let everyone check-in. Pose a simple question and then go round all participants and give them a chance to share how they think or feel. Questions might include:
    • How are you doing/feeling today?
    • What is most on your mind right now?
    • What would you most like to think about or discuss today?

Question for reflection:

  • Do you really believe that the people in your meeting/session are of equal worth as people and thinkers?

Ease

You cannot think well in a rush. If there is too much pressure people can tip into a ‘fight or flight’ response where fear, automatic responses and defensiveness can cloud or even block good thinking.

We need to develop ease in ourselves; it is a way of being as well as an absence of doing. Being calm, focussed and un-hurried will promote the best thinking in ourselves and others.

A space where people experience ease gives them the psychological safety to think, work and be at their best (Duhigg).

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How can you create ease?

  • If you are leading a meeting or session make sure you embody calm. Be on time, not flustered or distracted by other things. Take some time beforehand to make sure you are at ease with yourself.
  • Remove electronic devices during meetings. Phones, laptops, and tablets can all be stored away, switched off or put on silent at the very least.

Question for reflection:

  • When was the last time you were in a meeting where you felt really engaged? How did you feel at the time?

Appreciation

Our minds latch on to negatives much more quickly and strongly than positives, about five more times in fact. Therefore it is important to give five times more positive remarks to a person than negatives or criticisms.

Being a good critical thinker does not mean to need to be critical of others. Challenge is often used as an excuse to undermine a person, rather than bring clarity to an idea.

How can you better show appreciation?

  • Think about the positive things about who the person is, rather than just what they are doing. Appreciate something, some value, trait or characteristic that you admire in that person and share that. For example “I really appreciate your honesty” or “I love the depth of your concentration.”

Question for reflection:

  • How many times today or yesterday have you shown your appreciation to someone else? In the same time period how many times did you correct or criticise someone?

Encouragement

Competition can be useful at times, but not so much when you are trying to think. Thinking is not a zero-sum game. A sense of competition will reduce the ease and the sense of equality. Competition increases threat and forces a retreat back to the fight or flight, win-lose mentality. This comes at the expense of taking risks, being courageous in thinking, and losing focus on the idea, team or vision.

How could you encourage people to think better?

  • When listening, whether in conversation, a meeting or another context, try not to share the thought or experience that pops into your head when the other person is speaking, unless they ask (unbidden) for your thoughts.
  • When it is your turn to speak, pause and ask yourself, will what you want to say help to further generate good thinking or will it create a sense of competition?

Reflection question:

  • Can you think of a recent conversation or meeting where you shared something to show that you had a similar (or better) idea or experience? Who benefitted from this?

Information

Thinking and good decisions are based on having accurate information. If we have incorrect information our thinking and decisions will be flawed. The input of timely information improves our decision-making cycle (see the OODA loop).

Even as listeners, there are times when we need to provide information for a thinker. If we deny someone the information they need we undermine the quality of their thinking.

Quality information helps to break down wrong assumptions and perceptions. As Kline says, it ‘dismantles denial’.

How do you provide better information?

  • When someone asks for advice don’t tell them what to do or what you think is best. Rather, present your thoughts in a less directive way such as saying “In my experience…” or “I have read/heard that…” instead of “You should…” or “The best way is…”

Feelings

Many people think that showing or sharing feelings within a work context is abhorrent. For someone to show real joy or, even worse, tear up, can feel counter-cultural or cringe-worthy. But if we suppress our feelings our minds us busy doing just that, rather than thinking well.

This does not mean that every meeting needs to become a hullaballoo but giving space to express feelings allows people to get them out and then, after a space, to move on. So allow freedom for feelings; there may be a few tears, but hopefully a lot of laughter and good thinking too!

How do you help people express their feelings?

  • Practical point: have some tissues on stand-by!
  • If you take the courage to be authentic and share your feelings, the people you are with are more likely to share theirs.

Reflection question:

  • When was the last time you had to suppress your feelings in a work context? How did it change the way you could think or act?

Diversity

We live in a diverse world full of complex challenges and wicked problems. The best thinking environments reflect this and have a diversity of thinkers. Alternate backgrounds, experiences, cultures and points of view all help the creation and shaping of ideas. The other components of the Thinking Environment ensure that everyone from every background can freely share without fear of discrimination.

Many teams build through choosing people who are a good fit for culture or chemistry but this can often be at the expense of the best ideas.

How to do get develop better diversity in your teams and meetings?

  • When selecting people for a team, think more about good character and competence and worry less about chemistry or culture fit.
  • When conducting meetings consider bringing in people from outside your team to encourage different viewpoints, ideas and challenges.

Refection question:

  • Is your team really diverse, or is it more of an echo chamber, with few challenges or new ideas?

Incisive Questions

The best questions are the ones that help a thinker overcome a blockage in their thoughts and allow them to carry on generating ideas and solutions. We all have to make assumptions in order to make decisions but not all of our assumptions are correct. This is where incisive questions come in.

Incisive questions are questions that cut to the heart of the matter and bring release. Incisive questions free the mind from limiting assumptions and help re-frame challenges and establish new liberating statements.

How do you ask incisive questions?

  • When someone feels they cannot do something ask, “What are you assuming that is stopping you from…?”
  • Then ask, “Do you think it is true that (state assumption)?”
  • If not true, then you can ask, “What are your words for what is true or liberating instead?”
  • Then, using the liberating assumption that has just been expressed, you can ask “If you knew that (insert liberating assumption), how would you (insert outcome)?”

Reflection question:

  • Can you think of a time you thought you could not achieve something due to a false assumption?

Place

Our physical environment is important. The revolution in the workspace, led by companies like Google, is a testament to this fact. The place we choose to live and work in gives us a sense of worth.

The environment where we choose to meet, think or discuss has a huge effect on how well we think. Picking a good space affirms to people that they matter and encourages courageous thinking.

How do you choose the best place to meet and think?

  • Try to find somewhere away from the normal working environment, especially away from distractions such as phones, computers etc.
  • Try going for a walk, especially if you are just in a pair. They are many advantages to thinking while walking and you can find out more by reading The Surprising Power of Going for a Walk.

Reflection question:

  • Does the place where you usually think or conduct meetings support all the components of the Thinking Environment? If not, can you think of somewhere that could?

Thinking Environment Infographic

Here is a great info-graphic poster (created by Lita Currie of 3Stickmen), that summarises the 10 elements of the Thinking Environment.

“Until we are free to think for ourselves, our dreams are not free to unfold.”

Nancy Kline


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References

Currie, L (2019) How to Think Better and Help Others Think Better Toowww.3Stickmen.com

Duhigg, C (2016) What Google Learned From its Quest to Build the Perfect Team, New York: The New York Times

Kline, N (1999) Time to Think.London: Ward Lock

Kline, N (2015) More Time to Think. London: Cassell

Kline, N (2019) Time to Think Website, https://www.timetothink.com/thinking-environment/

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!

How to Give the Gift of Generative Thinking

Leading people is all about telling people what to do right? And helping people solve their problems is down to good advice, yes?

Well, no; on both counts actually.

Both research and practice have shown that while instruction and advice can be helpful (in certain circumstances) generally there is a better approach to assisting people to think and make good choices. More than 20 years as a leader and 10 years as an executive coach has certainly taught me that. Not only that, my experience as a parent has also shown the limitations of a purely directive approach to managing and decision-making. These things are not just limited to our business interactions. This is about basic communication skills.

The thing that has helped me most in turning this understanding into adopting a better approach has been the work of Nancy Kline. She has over three decades of research into independent thought and the barriers to quality decision-making. Her book, Time to Think, has impacted me more than anything else I have read in the past 5 years. It is also the book I recommend the most both professionally and personally.

Nancy Kline developed a framework called the Thinking Environment. This is made up of ten components: attention, equality, ease, appreciation, encouragement, information, feelings, diversity, incisive questions,and place. All these elements are important for facilitating quality thinking but, in my experience, there are three things that people struggle with the most and one thing that is more important than all the rest. These are:

  • Attention – truly listening without interruption
  • Incisive questions – knowing what to ask and when
  • Information – sharing facts and experience, not advice

And the most important thing is the first. Attention.

The most empowering thing to assist people’s thinking

How many times have you been challenged with “Hey! Are you listening?” The scary thing is that you are likely to hear that from the people you care about the most. What does that say about how we appreciate the people we love? That is what attention demonstrates. It is an affirmation of our feelings for the other person. And that is because giving attention requires effort.

Sound is going in our ears all the time but that does not mean we are really hearing. That is the difference between passive and active listening. To truly give attention to someone, we must actively focus on that person and what they are saying. That means no distractions and no interruptions. Empathetic listening goes even further. We must engage our emotional intelligence to pick up on non-verbal cues. We need to engage our intuition and feelings to relate to what is being communicated, not just what is being said.

Interrupting people damages quality independent thought on several levels. Firstly, it is rude. Cutting in on someone expresses that you think what you have to say is more important than what they have to say. You may not intend to communicate that but it is what most people will feel. Secondly, an interruption also cuts into someone’s thought flow. At the very least it will cause a break in thinking and very likely whatever is said will push the flow of thoughts in a different direction.

Not saying something is really, really hard to do. I get it; I have been coaching for years and still, every time, I must fight the urge to talk. That is because our brains are not inactive. What we hear from the other person sparks thoughts, ideas, and memories of our own. These thoughts bubble up and we want to share them. We want to because they are brilliant, thoughtful, helpful things to say, or at least we think they are! But that is just an assumption. Trust me. Hold onto those thoughts and don’t say anything.

Sometimes I do a simple mental exercise to help. When a thought comes into my head and I feel myself losing concentration I picture a door closing on my idea, locking it away, so I can focus and listen once again.

Even once the other person goes quiet, do not immediately say something. Not even a question. Many times, when coaching, there has been a long silence and I have been tempted to ask another question. Then suddenly the other person has started speaking again, revealing a new – frequently deeply – cascade of ideas that would have been lost if I had spoken too soon.

So, give people your attention. Listen, and most importantly don’t interrupt them!

The most powerful type of question you can ask 

When it does come time to speak don’t share your ideas, don’t even comment on what they have said. Even if they ask, “so what do you think?” you can turn the focus back to them. I often say something like, “I think you are doing a great job thinking this through, what more do you think or feel or want to say?” This generally releases another flow of thoughts and ideas.

If the thoughts do dry up then questions, rather than advice, is most helpful. And the best questions, the ones Kline refers to as incisive questions, are ones that identify assumptions. We all make assumptions in our thinking and decision-making. We make them so often that we often forget to see them for what they are: assumptions, not facts. It often takes someone else to challenge our thinking. Our assumptions might be reasonable but very frequently we feel unable to act because we have a false assumption that is blocking our progress.

These assumptions are often tied to our internal monologues. We often don’t do something because we assume we are not beautiful enough, rich enough, clever enough, brave enough or just not good enough. We all have some negative ideas around how we see ourselves or how we expect other people to judge us.

So, ask questions such as “what are you assuming that is stopping you?” and allow the other person to list their assumptions, as there are likely to be more than one. Then you can ask which assumption is the biggest blocker. Once identified the next question should explore whether the person thinks the assumption is true or not. Quite often, at this stage, people realise that the assumption is not true, or at least not limiting, and suddenly they are free to act.

All the advice in the world is not as powerful as seeing people released from these sorts of limiting beliefs. Seeing people liberated in this way and being part of facilitating that is one of the most wonderful things you can do. Ask any coach, counsellor or psychiatrist.

Provide critical information rather than advice

Once you have listened and – if needed – asked some pertinent questions, it may be that the other person needs some information. The temptation is to provide input too early in the conversation. But there is a difference between helping people think through issues themselves and keeping people in ignorance.

If the other person gets stuck in their thinking, and it is obvious that there is some information that the other person is missing, then it is time to speak. But frame what you say.

The most helpful phrase I use at this stage is to preface what I say with “in my experience” and then go on to share what I have in mind. Just because something has worked or not worked for us does not make it a fact. If there are resources and evidence that you can point people to then great, just hold back from saying something is true when it is just what you think. You run the risk of either undermining the other person’s accountability for their actions or worse, replacing someone else’s wrong assumptions with your own.

So, hold back, but if the other person needs critical information to carry on thinking well then share it. But caveat what you share, don’t tell the person what to do.

Share the gift of creative thinking and decision-making

People are amazing. Our brains are incredible. Individuals – of all ages, educations and backgrounds – can think through their issues and come up with creative solutions of their own.

Even if we (the listener) could have come up with the same solution, empowering people to think through their challenges is much more powerful than just giving advice. When it comes to motivation and taking responsibility for a decision, the self-generated idea is best. Ask any manager, parent, or coach.

All we need to do to help others to think generatively is to provide the environment that releases this creative ability. Most importantly we must:

Give attention: listen and not interrupt

Ask incisive questions, to challenge assumptions

Provide information if it is needed. But only fact or experience, not advice or opinion.

Therefore, three key things, but if you do just one, then give people your undivided attention. This is the gift that will most inspire quality thinking. So, the next conversation you have today, do your very best to not interrupt. Just listen.

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!