Listening for Understanding: 3 Key Listening Tools
Practice active listening, levels of listening, and strategic questions as tools for a deeper understanding of how to build greater awareness, trust, and alignment.
Tools Summary
Active Listening
Active listening begins with the foundation of respecting the speaker, and a desire to understand their perspective and viewpoint. In 1957, Carl Rogers and Richard Farson coined the term active listening and it later was popularized by Gordon Model and the P.E.T. program.
It requires the listener to give their distraction-free attention and focus. The active listener is looking for both the content and the context of the message. This action conveys to the speaker a level of respect and sincere interest in understanding.
Levels of Listening
Start to enhance your listening skills by adjusting your level of listening for any given situation. Dr. C. Otto Scharmer, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, presents 4 levels of listening:
Downloading, listening from habits. Reconfirming what you already know – confirming your opinions and judgments.
“What do I hear or assume?”
2. Factual Listening, listening from the outside. Listening with an open mind, suspending habits of judgment. Looking for information, data, and any disconnections.
“What is the data or information? What are the objective facts?”
3. Empathic Listening, listening from within. Listening with an open heart to see the situation through the eyes of another. Tuning into another person’s view to gain an emotional connection.
“What is the speaker’s perspective?”
4. Generative Listening, listening from the source. You listen for the highest future possibility to show up while holding a space for something new to be born. This connects to see who you want to be.
“What becomes possible?”
Strategic Open Questions
The type of questions you ask impacts the response you receive. Asking more strategic open questions can increase your awareness and allow you to better practice active listening.
Open questions start a conversation and create a learning opportunity. Closed questions limit responses and awareness. Open questions embrace the other person with curiosity and desire to understand, furthering your practice of active listening.
How to Apply
Active Listening
To practice active listening start by considering your intentions and mindset. Plan ahead to take the viewpoint of the speaker, and reserve judgment. Seek to understand.
Practice awareness of the content and the feeling behind it. You could do this by taking notes during a conversation, discussing your observations live to find shared understanding, or debriefing on what you learned after.
If you think you observe a feeling, confirm and validate it. “How are you feeling?” “Thank you for telling me you feel frustrated.”
After listening, instead of moving on to another point, restate what you hear for clarification and to ensure understanding. “I think I am hearing… is that correct?”
Levels of Listening:
Supercharge your listening by navigating through the 4 levels of listening:
Downloading - what did they say?
Factual - what are the facts?
Empathic - how are they feeling? How are you feeling?
Generative - what becomes possible?
Strategic Open Questions:
Consider these questions to create more impactful conversations that are directed by the other party:
Consider more open instead of yes or no questions:
Practice “What is your timeline?” vs. “Do you have a timeline for this?”
Avoid Lists:
Practice “What’s your plan?” Vs. “Do you want to go with plan A or plan B?”
Avoid presenting the solution
Practice: “What stakeholders do you want to loop in?” Vs. “Shouldn’t you check with marketing first?”
Avoid assuming emotion- never state emotion unless they do.
Practice “How are you feeling?” Vs. “Why are you frustrated?”
Example
Imagine active listening in action and consider how you can practice in your next meeting or conversation with a team member. An example of this tool in practice looks like starting the virtual project update meeting with your inbox and collaboration tools closed, and your phone on silent.
As the meeting starts, you are listening to a team member to understand what they are working on, and their perspective on the progress or roadblocks they are facing. You listen to how they are feeling about the work. Listening actively in all four levels.
Before the topic changes, you take an opportunity to ask for clarification to be sure there is alignment such as “it sounds like this project will be delayed by a week, is that correct?” The speaker has a chance to clarify or confirm before moving on.
As you two discuss this, you ask strategic questions to invite the team member to further engage in the conversation such as “what stakeholders do you want to loop in about the project changes?”
This approach creates a more productive conversation between you two where you avoid any miscommunication.
Measuring Results
Where are you experiencing increased alignment, learning new things, or achieving better results?
Notice where you recognize the context and fuller meaning of the message. Consider how this grows your connection with the other party.
Practice using more strategic questions, and observe the different responses you receive.
Practice closing your inbox/phone and any other tools that would distract you from a conversation.
Notice what the results are of conversations when you are focused, distraction-free, and listening strategically.
Sources
Rogers, C. R., & Farson , R. E. (2021, March 3). Active listening. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books/about/Active_Listening.html?id=Vz1SzgEACAAJ
Scharmer, O. C. (2015, November). The Four Levels of Listening. Threefold Consulting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLfXpRkVZaI.
