Communication in Teams
Effective (Active) Listening Techniques
In order to be an effective team member, it is necessary to learn to
listen effectively; this is a prerequisite to understanding and acknowledging
all team members. Failing to effectively listen can discourage self-exploration,
create a lack of task focus, or allow a strategy to be enacted prematurely.
Listening involves three processes:
Receiving a message
Processing a message
Sending a message
Processing includes thinking about the message and considering its meaning.
Barriers in processing a message occur when:
1. A person’s bias prevents them from acknowledging parts of the
message. This can happen when a person does not understand part of the
message or when they stop listening prematurely because they are busy
forming their response to the first part of the communication. Some biases
that people have that prevent them from hearing a message accurately can
be cultural, skill oriented or gender based.
2. A person hears what they want to hear rather than hearing the actual
message.
3. A person receives and processes the message accurately, but has difficulty
in responding with clarity because of a lack of communication skills.
(Source: Hamilton, Cheryl & Parker, Cordell, 1997. Communicating
for Results: A Guide for Business & Professions. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Publishing.)
Stages Of Effective Listening To Promote Communication (Langlois,1997)
1. Clarification is the utilization of questions to illuminate meaning;
it is often used after receiving an ambiguous message from another team
member.
2. Paraphrasing is a rephrasing of the content part of the message.
3. Reflection is a rephrasing of the speaker’s feelings, or the
affect part of the message.
4. Summarization is an extension of the paraphrase and reflection responses
that involves tying together and rephrasing two or more different parts
of a message.
How to Listen and Respond
Clarification
Clarification is listening for accuracy and purpose. The speaker expresses
themselves from their internal frame of reference, which can be vague
and confusing. Asking open-ended questions can clarify ambiguous words,
statements, or phrases. If you are unsure of the message being conveyed,
it is helpful to clarify the message. This allows the speaker to be more
explicit or to confirm the accuracy of the listener’s perception
of the message.
Steps in Clarifying
1. Identify the content of the speaker’s verbal and nonverbal message
2. Identify any vague or confusing parts to the message to check them
out for accuracy or elaboration
3. Decide on appropriate ways to clarify the message, such as “Could
you describe,” “Could you clarify,” or “Are you saying”.
4. Assess the effectiveness of your clarification by listening and observing
your team member’s response.
Examples Of Clarification
TEAM MEMBER: "Sometimes I just want to get away from it all."
TEAM LEADER: "Could you describe what you mean by getting away from
it all?"
TEAM MEMBER: "Well, I just have so much work to do....I’m always
feeling behind and overloaded. I’d like to get out from under that
miserable feeling."
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing is a rephrasing of content (not affect) used to make team
members aware that you understand their communication, to encourage elaboration
of a key idea or thought, and to help team members to focus on a particular
situation, event, idea or behavior.
Steps in Paraphrasing
1. Recall the message by restating it to yourself. "What has the
team member told you?"
2. Identify the key content by asking yourself, "What idea, situation,
person, or object is discussed in the message?"
3. Carefully word the rephrasing to insure that the response leads to
further discussion or increased understanding for all team members.
4. Stress important words and ideas that were expressed
5. Select a sentence stem for your paraphrase.... “It seems like...”
6. Assess the effectiveness of your paraphrase by listening to and observing
the team member’s response. Verbal and non-verbal messages will confirm
the usefulness of the paraphrase you have chosen
Examples of Sensory Words Used to Reflect, Paraphrase, and Clarify
Visual
see bright clear show focus colorful view glimpse picture “now
look” perspective
Corresponding Coaching Or Facilitating Phrases
It appears as though, As I see it, From my perspective, It looks like,
I see what you mean
Auditory
listen discuss yell should tell loud told noisy talk call hear ears
“now listen”
Corresponding Facilitating Phrases
Sounds like, As I hear it, What you’re saying is, I hear you saying,
You’re telling me that
Kinesthetic
feel relaxed touch sense pressure experience hurt firm pushy grasp “you
know”
Corresponding Facilitating Phrases
You feel, From my standpoint, I sense that, I have the feeling that
Reflection
Reflection is similar to paraphrasing except that it deals with the emotional
tone or component to the message (this is not dealt with when paraphrasing).
Reflecting feelings has five intended purposes: (1) it helps team members
to feel understood, (2) it encourages team members to express more of
their feelings (both positive and negative) about a particular situation,
person, or idea, (3) it helps team members to manage their feelings, (4)
it helps team members who express negative feelings about others, and
(5) it also helps team members discriminate accurately amongst various
feelings. Learning to deal with feelings is especially important when
a team member experiences intense feelings such as fear, dependency, or
anger. Strong emotions can interfere with a team member’s ability
to make a rational response (cognitive or behavioral) to pressure.
Reflection should be used carefully; reflection of feelings may be too
powerful in some situations, but it can be used to resolve an impasse
within the team. An outside member of the team such as a faculty advisor
or team coordinator may also use reflection effectively.
Steps in Reflection
1. Listen for the presence of feeling or affect words in the team member’s
message. These words usually fall into one of seven categories: anger,
fear, uncertainty, sadness, happiness, strength, or weakness. By recognizing
these words in communications you can expand your vocabulary for describing
emotions. Watch the nonverbal behavior while the verbal message is being
delivered, noting cues such as body posture, facial expression, and voice
quality. Nonverbal cues are more often a more accurate clue to a team
member’s emotional state because nonverbal behaviors are less easily
controlled than words.
2. Verbally reflect the feelings back to the speaker using different words.
The choice of words is critical to your effectiveness; it is necessary
to select words that accurately match not only the type of feeling, but
also it’s intensity. Avoid understatements and overstatements that
can make a team member feel ridiculed or intimidated.
3. Select an appropriate sentence stem, which matches your team member’s
choice of sensory words. After deciding on the appropriate lead in, it
is necessary to add on the context, or situation, around which the feelings
occurred (paraphrasing).
EXAMPLE: Team Member: “I just can’t make a presentation;
I get so anxious. I just never do well even though I practice.”
In this message, the affect is anxiety; the content is public speaking.
Reflect the affect, (“You feel uptight”) and the context (“whenever
you speak”)
4. Assess the effectiveness of your reflection. If you are accurate the
team member will usually affirm your response by saying “Yes, that’s
right” or “That’s exactly how I feel.” If the response
is off target, the team member will respond by “Well, it’s not
quite like that” or “No, I don’t feel that way.”
Summarization
Themes that one team member has expressed can be summarized. Usually these
themes are expressed in topics that the team member continually refers
to or brings up in some way. Summarization helps to tie together multiple
elements of team members’ messages and extract meaning from vague
and ambiguous messages. It can be used to interrupt a team member’s
incessant rambling or “story-telling.” It can also be used to
moderate the pace of an interaction that is moving too quickly, “providing
breathing space” for all members to understand the communication.
Summarization provides an effective way to review progress.
Steps in Summarization
1. Attend to and recall the message or messages by stating them to yourself
covertly
2. Identify any pattern or theme
3. Select an appropriate beginning for your summarization that uses the
pronoun “you” or the team member’s name
4. Select words that describe the theme and tie together the multiple
elements
5. Assess the effectiveness of your summarization by listening and observing
whether the team member confirms or denies the summary.
(Source: Langlois, Harold V., Challenges of Team Management, a course
for graduate students. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.)
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