Open Your Ears (and close your mouth!)
Earning a PhD is an exciting and triumphant accomplishment, and a ton of work! Several of my clients are in various stages of their doctoral programs, and I always enjoy hearing the stories of their triumphs and encouraging them through their barriers.
I earned my PhD more than 10 years ago in a program that I adored. One of the things that was most valuable to me came as a surprise. I chose a program that was a pioneer in asynchronous (and synchronous) online learning. As an extroverted person with a flair for persuasive, expository conversation, in person seminar classes were often both fun and invigorating for me. As a result, I began my online experience with trepidation. I really like to write, but I was nervous about how I would succeed without my superpower “gift of gab.” Nearly everything in class was based on written communication amongst students. Yikes!
As it turned out, learning in this way was one of the best experiences for my learning and development. By reading the responses and work of my classmates I learned to be a better listener. Without the chance to respond immediately in class discussions, I was able to savor reading and digesting what my classmates were offering. Doing so encouraged me to slow down in my in-person conversations, as well.
When we are in a rush, it’s easy to listen to the speaker with our mind turned towards planning our response – we are interested in figuring out what we’re going to say to the person. It’s not that we don’t value what they have to say or that we aren’t paying attention. We just are in a give-and-take conversation and we’re planning what we’re going to share next.
Administrators and busy bosses find that they use communication skills to inform and persuade more often than to actively listen. And as a result, your active listing muscle may not get flexed as often as it used to. And it may even have atrophied!
One of the things that clients often say to me is that they want to show their employees how much they are appreciated. Employees will often reflect that the thing they appreciate most about a good boss is feeling “seen” and appreciated for who they are. Active listening can do all these things at once.
If you’re interested in re-engaging your active listening muscle in working directly with your staff, you just need to wake up those rusty active listening skills. Next time you are in a 1:1 with a staff member or are walking with a colleague, ask them about a topic they know well or activity they enjoy, and deliberately practice listening to the answer – not to respond, but to learn. You’ll be surprised how quickly those skills come back to you – and how enriched the conversation becomes.
Don’t forget these key Active Listening tenets:
Maintain Eye Contact and Open Body Language. Be sure to use open welcoming body posture and facial expressions that convey connection.
Paraphrase and Reflect – Don’t forget to say: “so what i’m hearing is…”
Pause Before Responding – Wait 2-3 seconds before responding to be sure they are finished and you’re not interrupting.
Ask Open-Ended Questions – Respond with: “can you tell me more about that?” and “what are your ideas on how to improve this?”
Acknowledge and Validate Emotions – Recognize the feelings behind the words: “I can see this is really important to you.”
Staying in active mode isn’t easy even for people who do it all the time. As a full-time professional coach, I engage my active listening skills far more frequently now than I did as a full-time on campus administrator; it’s just the nature of the work.
And remember active listening is a skill we practice … it’s never finished developing.
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