This post deals with one of the most difficult parts of the listening process. That is, the ability to acknowledge empathetically the feelings of the speaker. This is an important aspect of listening since it emotionally connects the speaker to the listener. When you’re able to do this effectively the speaker gets, at a very deep level, that you’re listening, and that you understand. It’s a minimum intrusion into the speaker’s conversation. It is always a short phrase like, “really scary” or “you’re hurting.”
Acknowledging empathetically is a key listening skill that takes practice. Some listeners have the skill more naturally than others. Regardless of your skill level empathetic acknowledgement can be developed and enhanced with practice. I suggest it is worth the effort.
Checking for completion is another important aspect of the listening process, since we tend to take a pause in the speaker’s conversation as our cue to speak. That is because many times as a listener, if we’re not careful, we are rehearsing our response, or we already have our response, and we are just waiting to get it out.
In the listening process it is important to resist responding before you check to see if the speaker is complete by asking a simple question. The question could be “is that it,” or “are you finished,” or” is there anything else.” When the speaker responds with “yes that is it”, then you know you can go to the next phase of the listening process which I will cover in the next post.
