Life Coach Training

Module 6 – The Art of Listening

Listening is the most fundamental component of the coaching relationship.  When you listen, you are valuing what they have to say.  When you value what a person is saying you are expressing acceptance and belief in that person.  Growth accelerates in a relationship where the person feels accepted and valued.

 

The power of listening is another concept that is counter-intuitive.  For most people, just listening and not injecting advice or solutions ever so often makes them feel inadequate and as though they look foolish.

 

That might be true if listening was hearing, but it’s not.

 

Hearing is passive.  Listening is active.

 

Listening is not something that just happens (that is hearing), listening is an active process in which a conscious decision is made to listen to and understand the messages of the speaker.

 

Listening is engagement and exploration.  It’s an actual learned discipline that we consistently have to practice and refine.

 

In communication, 38% is through certain vocal elements, and 55% through nonverbal elements (facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc).  That means only 7% of communication is actual words.

 

Let’s talk about 2 different categories of listening techniques – outward and inward.

 

OUTWARD LISTENING TECHNIQUES

 

Outward listening is all about body language.  These techniques can be practiced and can be utilized immediately to improve our engagement with people.

 

Open posture

 

Imagine that your body is communicating the degree of openness in your heart towards the person.

Crossed arms or legs close the body down and give a nonverbal message of disinterest. When we close ourselves off in this way, we are saying ‘I am hiding something’ or ‘I do not really want to be here in this conversation with you.’ If you see this body language in others, it conveys a clear message which you will understand on a subconscious level.

 

Lean in

 

If you go to a restaurant and look around the tables, you can tell me couples who are tuned into each other as they are leaning in, mirroring body language.

 

When you lean back, you may be relaxing, but the nonverbal message again, is one of disengagement or disinterest.

 

If the verbal messages are at odds with the non-verbal messages, this is referred it as ‘inconguence’ and will create tension in the communication, sometimes a problem with couples as, generally, women are better at picking up these non-verbal clues than men.

 

Eye contact

 

If that person is looking away, it would appear as though they are not interested in the words of the speaker.  Stay engaged with your eyes.

 

Be self-aware if you’re not blinking enough or if you staring too long.  Give breaks by looking down contemplatively, but don’t look away to another part of the room.

 

Relax

 

If you look relaxed, the person you’re talking with is likely to feel relaxed too.

 

Nodding & Short Verbal Expressions

 

Nodding your head and short verbal expressions of “uh-huh,” “yeah,” “exactly,” are really great signs of engagement.

 

But be cautious of using them:

 

• If you’re not really actively listening, you might unintentionally agree with something you shouldn’t

• If you’re not self-aware, you may use them so much that the person knows that you’re not listening

• Sometimes these cues can be terribly distracting

 

Facial Expressions

 

Your face doesn’t lie very well.

 

Smile when it’s appropriate as a gesture of approval.  But be self-aware because big teethy smiles can make people feel uncomfortable and smiles that look like smirks suggest that you are condescending or don’t believe what they are saying.

 

You are highly encouraged to bring a friend to observe you from a distance outside of earshot.  They can tell you how you come off just based on your non-verbal cues and can help you make adjustments.

 

INWARD LISTENING TECHNIQUES

 

Silence the conversation in your head

 

Have you ever had a conversation with a person who seemed like they were listening to you and as soon as you finished what you were saying, they responded with something that forced you to say: “Actually that’s not what I said.  What I said was…’”

 

This actually happens often when we talk to people there is typically a conversation that is going on in the person’s head that you are speaking with.

 

If there is conflict in a relationship or negative assumptions, it can make matters even worse.  When there are negative assumptions, the person who is supposed to be listening is actually busy gathering a defense.

 

All our lives we’ve been told to listen, but we have never been taught how to listen.  So we’re always competing with the conversation in our head that creates a distraction.

 

When we are distracted by these conversations we lose more than a word here or there.  We miss the heart of the person.  We miss the motivations of the person.  We actually will miss the very solutions that are proceeding from the mouth of the person.

 

It is doubtful that one can ever totally eliminate the conversation in our heads, but we can at least be aware of the triggers of the conversations in our head so that we can minimize the distractions and silence some of it.

 

• Just listen to the person without trying to problem solve.

• Don’t start preparing your response while the person is still talking.

• Catch yourself if the person says something that triggers a personal task that you need to take care of.  Take a moment and write the task down so that it’s out of your mind

 

KINESTHETIC LISTENING CAN BE HELPFUL

 

Often people will go to meetings with a paper and pen and only jot down a few random words.  Those meetings are either completely unproductive or those people have amazing memories.

 

When it comes to listening, we can enlist the support of what we can call kinesthetic learning.  In simple terms we’re talking about intentional note taking.

 

Try this:

 

Get out a piece of paper and a pen and try to write the Pledge of Allegiance while singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

 

What was the degree of difficulty?  High, right?

 

When we’re listening to people, we don’t have to write everything they say, but, one thing is for sure, when you are taking notes, you can’t engage to conversations at once!

 

SHUTDOWN THE DISTRACTIONS

 

This might mean not taking notes on your computer or iPad simply because emails or certain apps will be reminders of other tasks you need to take care of.

 

Your phone – even on silent mode – will still be calling out to you.

 

Shutting everything down and putting it away – out of sight, out of mind – is probably the best way to effectively shutdown the distractions.