A facial expression that conveys an emotion. It is used a lot during inclusive strategy sessions, where diverse opinions are valuable but team size can hamper rather than facilitate good communication. Brief discussion on what was different and the aims of active listening. Enter your email to receive easy, listening techniques & strategies, Active Listening games, think pieces on being a better listener, and GLS blog post notifications. Active listening. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA, Contact a Commons librarian if you would like to connect with the author. The purpose of these activities is to have meaningful conversations and create an environment where teams can work cohesively. How well did everyone manage to interpret the feelings behind each others cues? They might be up to their ears in work, or their colleagues complaints might seem trivial. By empathizing, we not only build better relationships, but we show that we are available as key job resources social support for those around us to reduce the negative impacts of our job demands (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. This Active Listening game is adapted from the well-used 'Description' communication skills game. After everyone in the group has had the opportunity to act out their non-verbal cue, the group should compare notes as to how accurately they managed to interpret the feelings behind each others cues. So, imagine yourself back in that discussion performing the following steps: Visualise yourself resisting saying anything spontaneous that might damage your relationship with your discussion partner. It only takes three iterations to uncover some very personal beliefs. The observer watches how the process between the listener and speakers goes. Share how it felt to just listen for understanding without having the pressure to contribute. After fifteen minutes of discussion, the watchers and talkers switch circlesthose who were listening before now sit on the inner circle for a fifteen-minute conversation. Active Listening as Advocacy online course. 7.8) Difficult Customer Role Play. (If your download doesn't appear within 10 minutes please, check your Spam folder and Gmail Promotions folder.). Follow-up question: Reflecting on that situation, what could you have done to better understand that cue? Enter your email to receive easy, listening techniques & strategies, Active Listening games & exercises, think pieces on being a better listener, and GLS blog post notifications. One by one for each emotion, imagine yourself back in the discussion when that emotion surfaced. Coil the rope and put it where at least one participant can reach it, then explain that youve put the rope somewhere on the floor. With active listening, the speaker is given the time and space to speak as much as they want. Dont make the pictures too detailed. Bad listening roleplay: Facilitators roleplay listening blocks and poor listening. The participants are divided into groups of 5. Here are four training activities, suggested by Caroline Cooper, that will help you to develop active listening in your contact centre. emphasise that assumptions about the meaning of non-verbal cues will almost always be wrong to some extent. Occasionally, a speaker will say how they feel. This listening skills game concludes with a group discussion on the difficulties of communicating with others, on Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties, and on how to use those strategies in real-life work situations. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/blog/silence-the-secret-communication-tool/. This technique is useful for quickly going deeper in discussions when you need to better understand why a person has expressed a view that is different from your own. The exercises in this worksheet can be done in groups of two to three. Youll be using your imagination to rehearse the act of listening. Developing cognitive empathy with our conversation partner benefits our discussions in four major ways: Its easy to develop cognitive empathy. Armed with their handouts, talkers begin to engage with the topic. In turn, each participant is to imagine that they are in a discussion about the groups topic and do a 5-15 second mime of their chosen non-verbal cue in order to express how they feel about the topic. Otherwise, the idea is identicalinformation gets misinterpreted thanks to noise, but we can improve our verbal communication and listening skills to minimize this risk. Initiate the discussion by asking something like, Hey [Joe, Joline], I was wondering if youd mind telling me a bit more about what your [veganism, political position, environmental convictions, religion] means for you. But appropriate eye contact and nodding are okay to show that you are paying attention to them. What were some of the differences? Special thanks to C. B. Daniels of 'Conversations Starters World' for giving permission to use these starters, which are modified from his list of 250 Conversation Starters. Nonetheless, were often inclined to view it as awkwarda gap to be filled or avoidedrather than a chance to listen. Card Pieces. You will need a volunteer for this exercise. Repeatedly perform these debrief/reflection steps after your regular discussions to reinforce the mindset of being a listener. Examples include Omit the Obvious, Train of Words, and Blindfold Walk. Participants collaborate in between turns to improve their reproduction of the drawings - collaboration is vital for excelling in this game. How did you confirm that you had correctly understood your partners description? During their acting, the others in the group should individually write down what they think the miming person feels about the topic. [3]. Theyre not simply warm-up activities! | Powered by WordPress. Why? How might you create some listening and feedback approaches based on this? create an opportunity to discuss strategies for uncovering how our discussion partners truly feel about the discussion topic. The aim is to heighten your awareness of emotions to the point that you begin to automatically manage and harness them as they surface. When we give attention to our relationships as well as the task(s) at hand, we create trust and collaborate more effectively. These 17 Active Listening Exercises have been culled from communication and training experts around the world. Happily ever after: The use of stories to promote positive interventions. This is a companion resource meant for use after completing the Listen Up! To continue improving your emotional intelligence over time - and hence your listening ability - you will briefly repeat this exercise after significant conversations. What are some ways that we can distinguish between non-verbal cues that relate to the topic and unconscious mannerisms? Unlike critical listening, active listening seeks to understand rather than reply. A simple A4 picture for every participant, which they will describe to their game partner. Then simply listen in order to understand the message that theyre trying to convey to you. Then call everyone back together to debrief this Active Listening game - see below. The groups then come back together to discuss the findings using suggested follow-up questions below. Have paper and pens available for the participants. Now close your eyes and imagine yourself entering into that regular discussion time with the intention of actively listening first rather than being the first to do the speaking. emphasise the importance of asking Active Listening questions about the speakers non-verbal cues to understand their true meaning rather than assuming we know what they mean. Perception of emotions is a key component of Mayer and Saloveys emotional intelligence framework and covers the ability to read others non-verbal cues as well as their potential moods (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Crediting the source(s) of course. After 4 minutes, the participants will switch roles. What is the strangest dream you have ever had? Step 2: After the five-minute role play is completed, the speaker spends two minutes giving feedback to the listening partner on the effective listener skills used. Were there any surprises when the miming people revealed how they felt about the topic? Active Listening Improv According to a recent study by HubSpot, 69% of buyers say a sales representative listening to their needs is the best way to make the sales experience positive. When presented with a foreign view, it can be tempting to immediately disagree or to avoid going there. [1]. Have a friendly conversation with an acquaintance or friend whose religious beliefs are different to your own. How did you come to that view?, Emotion - Confusion. Great simple and applicable source on communication topic. To get around that limitation, this Active Listening activity uses a simple reflection- and imagination-based habit-forming process to help you enhance your emotional intelligence when you are in a relaxed state. promote collaboration. How did they cope? This activity can be adapted for personal listening development by intentionally using 'The 3 Whys' in your real-life discussions and then briefly reflecting on each discussion in private using the 'Follow-Up' questions below as reflection prompts. Identify someone who has a belief that is different to your own. Ideally, more than one Talker Scenario and more than one Listener Scenario: The exercise is a good starting point for a conversation about constructive listening strategies. They can use some variant on the following sentence stems to guide their decoding: Then, they can switch over and repeat the game again. So, you will need to enlist a volunteer. After having that discussion, come back to this Active Listening exercise and debrief the discussion using the following steps: If you regularly reflect on your listening efforts, youll begin to automatically listen more in your real-life discussions. Enjoyed it. In large organizations especially, we may only bring a part of ourselves to the workplace. Because communication is so multi-faceted, weve included a selection of different activity types. They can be one-on-one or team exercises, but the goal is the same: they help us develop our interpersonal skills and improve our capacity to relate. CCSG is a structure, and it involves: C: Characters It can be adapted for training workshops by splitting participants into pairs. I think this is an excellent resource with a great outcome. You can read more about my story here. Did others help them? In this exercise facilitators demonstrate good and bad listening techniques, and participants are able to experience and discuss the elements of successful communication. Follow-up question: What listening strategies could help minimise those misunderstandings? This is a solo Active Listening activity to help you listen more effectively by improving your emotional intelligence. 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