Active listening

Being quiet while another person speaks is not necessarily listening. Speech averages about 150 words per minute, or 2.5 words per second, while a listener can often understand familiar language accelerated toward 600 words per minute when pitch is preserved. That spare mental capacity makes it easy to drift away, rehearse a reply or interrupt. Active listening uses the capacity to examine meaning instead.

When to use it

• Use active listening whenever you need information and the social or work setting allows questions.
• Apply it when learning, gathering evidence, deepening understanding or simply giving attention to someone with something worthwhile to share.

Origins

Psychologist Carl Rogers established the foundations through person-centred counselling, emphasizing empathy, genuineness and respect for another person's capacity for self-direction. Rogers and Richard Farson described the term and practice in their nineteen fifty-seven paper Active Listening, published by the University of Chicago's Industrial Relations Center. Their listener sought to understand both content and feeling and checked that interpretation instead of merely waiting to reply.

What it is

People sometimes suppress a genuine question because they fear looking foolish, assume they should know the answer or believe everyone else already understands. Earlier experiences—such as being told at school that a question is stupid because the explanation has already been given—can reinforce the habit.

Active listening replaces passive silence with disciplined understanding. The listener summarizes, paraphrases, asks and checks, reducing ambiguity, partial understanding and preventable misunderstanding.