Listening Actively

To listen actively, you must concentrate intensely on what the speaker is saying

Many communication problems develop because listening skills are ignored, forgotten, or taken for granted. Active listening is making sense of what you hear. It requires paying attention and interpreting all verbal, visual, an vocal stimuli presented to you. Active listening has four essential ingredients: concentration, empathy, acceptance, and taking responsibility for completely understanding the message.

To listen actively, you must concentrate intensely on what the speaker is saying and tune out competing miscellaneous thoughts that create distractions. Try to understand what the speaker wants to communicate rather than what you want to understand. Listen objectively and resist the urge to start evaluating what the person is saying, or you may miss the rest of the message. Finally, do whatever is necessary to get the full, intended meaning from the speaker's message--listen for feelings an content, and ask questions to ensure you understood.

ACTION POINT: Take responsibility to listen actively to completely understand what is being said.