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Communication in Teams
Listening Techniques
Effectively Communicating
Communicating with others always occurs in the context of the organization
you work for. Learning to understand this culture is essential for proper
development of a team. Clarity and effective communication is most important
when forming and maintaining a team.
Listening Skills and Relationship Building
Introduction:
It is important to develop effective listening skills. Questioning
and observing a team member, utilizing intentional coaching can facilitate
a team member's sharing of important concerns. Simply helping the team
member to talk is not enough. The more active the listening and the
responses, the more likely the team member is to continue exploring
issues in greater depth, and the more effective the communication.
Improving communication skills requires the capacity to "listen"
to both verbal and non-verbal messages. To maximize your communication
skills, you will need to become as neutral as possible. Specifically,
it is helpful to refrain from making judgments, resist distractions,
avoid asking too many questions, avoid giving advice, and stay focused
on the team member.
Listening is a process of:
- Receiving a message
- Processing a message (includes thinking about the message and considering
its meaning; errors can arise from a coach's bias or misinterpretation;
one may hear what he/she wants to hear)
- Sending a message (may be ineffective because of lack of skills; skills
can be mastered by the coach)
- Developing Listening Skills (See Table I)
- Clarification (asking open-ended questions that
help to clarify ambiguous words, phrases or statements, e.g., "What
do you mean by (ambiguous word)?" "Can you explain that
a little more?
- Paraphrase (deals with the content of the communication;
rephrasing content as closely as possible to highlight message that
was heard; describes a situation, event, person or idea)
- Reflection (deals with the feelings associated
with the content; serves to label feelings correctly and to encourage
further expression; refers to the affect part of the message)
- Summarization (ties the whole communication
together by restating both content [paraphrase] and feelings [reflection]
in an integrated manner; conveys the impression that team member
has been heard)
Active Listening Overview:
Table I. Definitions and Intended Purposes of Listening Responses
Response
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Definition
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Intended Purpose
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CLARIFICATION
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A question beginning, e.g., "Do you mean that...", plus
a rephrasing of the speaker's message.
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1. To encourage more elaboration.
2. To check out the accuracy of what is being said.
3. To clear up vague, confusing messages.
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PARAPHRASE
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A rephrasing of the content of the speaker's message.
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1. To help the speaker focus on the content of his/her message.
2. To highlight content when attention to feelings is premature
or self-
defeating.
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REFLECTION
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A rephrasing of the affective part of the speaker's message.
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1. To encourage speaker to express more of his/her feelings.
2. To have the speaker experience feelings more intensely.
3. To help speaker become more aware of feelings that dominate.
4. To help the speaker acknowledge and manage feelings.
5. To help the speaker discriminate accurately among feelings.
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SUMMARIZATION
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Two or more paraphrases or messages or the session.
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1. To tie together the multiple elements of the speaker's elements
of a speaker's messages.
2. To identify a common theme or pattern.
3. To interrupt excessive rambling.
4. To review progress.
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