If you’ve attended training, coaching or mediation with me, you’ve heard me talk about the critical importance of active listening. Whether it’s a difficult conversation, a collaboration or a debate, part of the human condition seems to be to jump in to respond or persuade before taking time to really show we are listening.
This episode of one of my favourite podcasts, Hidden Brain, explores research that confirms the positive impact of active listening on the quality of our interactions. The more we employ active listening, the more we can depolarize discourse about difficult topics.
Thorough and active listening doesn’t mean agreeing.
Some active listening techniques to try out are:
- physical attentiveness
- thoughtful questions to dig deeper into a topic
- summarizing and paraphrasing what the other person said
- refraining from responding or reacting and trying to persuade the other person of the merit of your own position
One of the most striking points from this podcast for me is hearing how the research shows that thorough, active listening of another person actually leads the other person to temper their own positions – on their own. Think on that. In a polarized world, depolarization comes not from attempting to persuade each other why each side is right, but in engaging in active listening to really understand where the other person is coming from.