Today I read an article on listening and how to do it better. They called it “reflective listening”. What is reflective listening? Reflective listening is most often used by therapists (remember the “how does that make you feel” questions?). But psychologists who have studied the technique say it’s a tool everyone should have in their back pocket in order to get the most out of our communication with others and therefore in our relationship with others. They say it can be useful at work, with our families and in many of our friendships by listening better rather than just rushing to provide advice, solutions or silver linings. Sounds a lot like men being from Mars and women being from Venus, right?
The method of reflective listening is actually quite simple: Especially if someone is upset, try to listen to what they’re saying and paraphrase it back to them. At first this might feel awkward, but researchers say the results could surprise you…and maybe even get you a punch in the nose. People who study the psychology of human interaction say that most of us are bad at listening. That has been a long-time observation, but is now especially so when a smartphone is always within reach. Open-ended questions can be a helpful starting point to get someone talking, but once you hear a bit of what’s going on, you need to advance the ball with a guess of how that person might feel, and phrasing it as a statement rather than a question. The example is that if a friend is stressed out by everything on their plate, you could say something like, “It sounds like you feel overwhelmed.” If your teenage daughter says she feels rejected by a peer, don’t rush in with all the reasons she’s wonderful, but rather try hearing her out and try to affirm the feelings, maybe with a reflection like, “That sounds lonely.”
So, why does this technique work? It turns out that feeling heard is a deep, human need. The famous comment that “You get me” turns out to be one of the greatest feelings a person can have. Professionals say that high-quality listening “increases feelings of respect, empathy, liking, and connection.” Reflective listening is effective because you can’t fake it. While someone could nod and make eye contact while their mind wanders, they have to really listen to the content of what the other person is saying to paraphrase well. It’s a technique I intuitively learned when making thousands of business calls on prospective clients. I always wanted to do three things on every call. First, I wanted to find common ground (interests, etc.) with the other person. Then I wanted to draw them out with some version of reflective listening so that I was forced to understand what they needed most or cared about most. Repeating their concern back to them as a statement is both affirmative and forces you to understand how best to serve them and become a trusted advisor, something every banker wants to be to their clients. The last thing I would always try to do was to leave them with something they didn’t previously know and to make that something relevant to them, it needed to be something that related closely to their expressed needs. My goal was always to make them want to agree to the next meeting and I felt that to do that required them to feel like I “got” them and understood their needs and that I always added value to them by giving them something from the meeting that was useful to them. Nothing is ever as useful as something that addresses someone’s most basic needs of the moment.
This reflective listening strategy also helps to avoid some common pitfalls, like offering unsolicited advice or suggesting that there’s a bright side to whatever is upsetting the person. No one likes unsolicited advice…they want advice that pertains to whatever is bothering them most. And no one ever wants to be made to feel like their concerns or needs are petty or irrelevant, which is what the “bright side” approach tends to imply. People do these things with the intention of helping, but trying to make the other person feel better by saying something like, “I’m sure it’s going to work out” is not really listening. Sometimes people want advice, but its always safer to subtly ask before providing it. You can do that by starting with an open-ended question like “What’s going on?” or “Is something bothering you?” From there, unless the person is completely shut down, you can begin to really listen. Always put your phone away and eliminate other distractions. There is simply nothing more off-putting to me than someone pretending to be in a conversation with me while referencing their phone…no matter what the reasons for that. It only makes it worse if you rationalize it by using an excuse that you need to do such and such on your phone, which always sounds like your problems are more important than understanding what is bothering the other person. If you aren’t able to listen to the person with undivided attention, tell them that it’s not a good time and suggest another.
It maters how close you are with the person you are listening to. If it feels awkward to paraphrase what a person is directly telling you, you can use a construction like, “It sounds like you feel disappointed.” Or it might feel more natural to just say “That’s disappointing.” Then, keep listening and adjusting your reflections depending on how your guesses are landing. It’s important that you stay connected to your own reactions to the conversation during the process. Often in relationships it can be difficult to listen because our defenses get activated. If Kim is upset with me about something I did, it might be hard for me to not to take that as a criticism. It might be important for me to take a pause to process my own reaction before returning to the conversation to hear her out on her concern. If I can stay in that more regulated, intentional place, I am more likely to be able to be reflective. The secret is staying calm and connected to the person you’re trying to communicate with…especially if its your near-perfect spouse…like Kim.
Listening is a skill. Whether its on a prospective business call or with your spouse. Remember, you making the sale is not what matters to the other person, and last I checked, that’s the person that holds the key to your making the sale. Intentional listening requires a certain selflessness. You have to suspend your own inner dialogue, and that’s never easy for us. We all want to address our own problems, but we have to realize that strong relationships help us do that over time and strong relationships are what help us most get our lives where we most want them to be. So, practice reflective listening and you’re more likely to get what you want and the world is more likely to be a better place.