ACTIVE LISTENING

It has been said that the largest failure in communication is when we can’t remember what was said to us just a few minutes ago. Psychologists know that people are so busy formulating their next comment that they are barely aware of what was just presented to them. A general failure to communicate permeates business today.

TML's Active Listening course is an intense, half-day  session on the art of paying attention. After intense instruction in the benefits and pitfalls of communication, students will work groups during break out sessions to learn how to listen with a purpose.

Minimal Encouragement

The point of this session is to give each person the opportunity to learn how to use verbal and non-verbal encouragers and become a better listener.

Questions, Reflections, and Summarization

In this session the listener tries to concentrate on asking questions, reflecting back what the speaker has said, and at the end, summarizing what was said to reinforce what the speaker said and gain better insights into the areas of the conversation that were discovered to be unclear.

The 1-2-3 Pattern

Using active listening skills to understand what the speaker is saying and respond with factual or feeling content, and then check to see that he/she was understood.

Effective Confrontation

The listener will use questions that challenge a person’ point of view, causing the speaker to reconsider whether their point of view is valid. Students will learn to master tonal inflection and body language to keep the speaker from feeling threatened and abruptly ending the conversation. This is a sensitive form of listening that takes practice to use, but is a powerful tool to gaining understanding of the information being given.