Problem of Active Listening

Lesson 6

Speech Skill: Listening

The Speech Problem

Assuming that you truly want to communicate with others, listening is the most important speech skill of all. Unfortunately, it’s also the speech skill that is practiced the least.
Remember the joke about the psychiatrist? There he is, in his office, with a patient on the couch. While the patient pours his heart out, the psychiatrist is thinking about his upcoming dinner.
That’s the way it is with most of us, much of the time. We’re thinking about other things instead of listening to whoever is speaking to us. There’s a grain of truth to the adage, “in one ear and out the other”, except that often the information doesn’t even enter the one ear in the first place.
It will sound strange to refer to this as a sloppy speech habit, but it is. We’re wired to listen; we just don’t bother doing it all the time.
Because we can get away with it. Most of the time, the speaker won’t know we’re not listening. As long as we continue to face him, keep a suitable expression on our face, and don’t do something blatant such as belt out a show tune, how will he know that we’re actually somewhere else entirely? He won’t.
But you do. And you’re the one that has to make a commitment to truly listening. In other words, I want you to become an active listener. To listen actively, you need to change from being a passive target to being a contributor to the communication.

Make this one change, and you’ll improve your communication skills a thousand fold.

Three Techniques For Active Listening

1) Setting The Stage For Listening – Stop whatever else you are doing. Turn to face the speaker and make eye contact. If you’re standing, your arms should be held loosely at your sides.

If you’re sitting, place your hands in your lap or loosely along each arm of the chair. Whether standing or sitting, do not cross your arms, which sends out a negative message. If you’re sitting, your legs should also be uncrossed. Lean slightly towards the speaker. You want your body language to send the message that you are receptive to the speaker’s message.

2) Appropriate Advancement – As the speaker speaks, make appropriate comments that advance the conversation. Just saying “um” or “ah” here and there won’t do it. You need to show the speaker that you’re actively listening to what he’s saying by making statements or asking questions that show that you’ve been paying attention. Like the next technique, summarizing, this active listening technique works well in both face-to-face and communication situations where the speaker can’t see you.
3) Summarizing - This is a particularly powerful technique for showing the speaker you’ve been paying attention whether you’re in a face-to-face situation or listening over the phone.

You can use it during conversation by saying something such as, “You were saying that...” and simply restating the speaker’s last point. Its most powerful use is at the end of the conversation when it’s “officially” your turn to respond. Start by saying, “You said that...” and then summarize the speaker’s key points, closing by adding an action statement, something you will do as a result of what the speaker has said.

For example, “You said that you don’t feel that I’ve been listening to you because I keep facing my computer screen when you’re talking and don’t seem to have anything to add to the conversation. From now on, I’ll give you my full attention when you speak to me.”

Speech Exercise: Practice Active Listening

You will need a partner for this exercise. Return to the list of topics we used for the Tell-Me Game in Speech Lesson 2.
This time, you are going to be the listener instead of the speaker. Have your partner choose one of the speech topics and speak impromptu for two minutes. Your task is to be an active listener and apply the three active listening techniques above. (Don’t forget to set the stage properly!)
Perform this exercise at least three times, using different speech topics and working up to a speech time of three minutes.

The Benefits of Active Listening

When you listen actively, people communicating with you will:

• Feel more confident that they’ve actually communicated a message to you.
• Feel more positive about you and the message you’re communicating.

Speech Lesson 6 Homework Assignment

After you’ve practiced the exercise on and linked to this page, you need to continue practice being an active listener.
Concentrate on this speech skill this week by trying to apply the three techniques of active listening to every conversation you have.
Set up a session with your Speech Monitor or with the partner that you first did your Active Listening practice with for the end of the week and go through the Active Listening exercise on this page one more time. Ask him or her to evaluate how you are performing each of the three active listening techniques explained in this lesson.

That’s it, we’ll wrap up the course, Cheers.

Buzzwords & Slang

Lesson 5

Speech Skill: Slang (Colloquial)

The Speech Problem

We live in a world littered with acronyms, buzzwords and slang speech. Right now, for instance, people are leveraging everything all over the place. A friend recently told me that she’d leveraged her portfolio. I thought she was talking about stocks, but she meant that she had a job interview. This was just a personal, minor misunderstanding.

But acronyms, buzzwords and slang can cause misunderstandings that cost time and money when we’re trying to do business.

As business people and professionals, we need to be sure that we’re speaking the right language to the right people at the right time. Both slang and buzzwords are types of informal, trendy language; both obscure meaning.
Slang is “informal language consisting of words and expressions that are not considered appropriate for formal occasions; often vituperative or vulgar” or “the characteristic language of a particular group” (Hyper Dictionary). So on the one hand, your listener may not understand what’s said because he isn’t a member of the selective group that knows that lingo; on the other, he may understand it very well but be offended by it.
Another problem with using slang speech to attempt to communicate is that many of us tend to get trapped in slang time warps. Unless you live in a house with teenagers or are currently attending a post-secondary educational institute, the slang you’re trying to use is probably hopelessly out of date.

(Remember the phrase, “far out”? Or “lame”? If you do, don’t admit it to anyone!)

Buzzwords are “stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition” (Hyper Dictionary), or, if you prefer, “important-sounding words or phrases used primarily to impress laypersons” (BuzzWhack.com). Currently, for example, every business under the sun is including the word “solutions” in their marketing copy and conversations, to the point that the word is just a meaningless filler.
Speech Exercise: Business Buzzwords to Avoid

Shorthand Can Short change Your Listeners

Acronyms are abbreviations formed from the first letters of each word of a phrase that are sometimes used as words in themselves. They’re popular because basically we’re a lazy bunch and using a set of initials rather than writing or saying several words saves effort. Some common ones are:

• ASP - Application Service Provider
• B2B - Business to Business
• BAU - Business As Usual
• BAFO - Best And Final Offer
• RFP - Request for Proposal
• ROI - Return on Investment

What works as shorthand in the office doesn’t necessarily translate when you’re speaking with customers or clients. Perfectly appropriate acronyms you use in-house may just be gobbledygook to clients.
It's not that acronyms should never be used; just that you should use them selectively. To make it easier on yourself, set up and follow a rule never to use acronyms when communicating with customers and/or clients, no matter what form the communication takes. Clarity is worth the price of convenience.

Speech Exercise: Adding Acronyms

Return to the list of acronyms above and add at least five different acronyms – preferably ones that you are in the habit of using. As the purpose of this exercise is to start focusing on the acronyms in your speech, you may find it easier to add to the list throughout the week as acronyms crop up when you’re communicating.

The Benefits of Cutting Slang, Buzzwords and Acronyms

When you cut these from your speech, your listeners will:

• be less likely to feel alienated or offended;
• be more likely to comprehend the message you’re communicating.

Speech Lesson 5 Homework Assignment

First, complete the exercises on and linked to this page. Just by doing this, you’ll become more aware of the kind of empty language that you want to eliminate from your speech.
To help you cut slang, buzzwords and acronyms from your speech, keep a Speech Diary. Each day, as you communicate with others, be aware of what you’re saying and write down any instances of slang, buzzwords, or acronyms that you use.
If you do this conscientiously, by the end of the week, two things will happen; you’ll have a list of the empty language that you personally use, and the number of times you use particular instances of the slang, buzzwords and acronyms that are weakening your communication will decrease.
Enlist the aid of your speech monitor again this time, asking him or her to tell you whenever you use slang, buzzwords or acronyms instead of real, meaningful words.
If you’re curious about what new buzzwords are being bandied about, or hear one that you don’t know the meaning of, Macmillan Dictionary has an ever-growing library offering definitions of everything from “alpha pups” through “zombience”.
And just for fun, check out this Ultimate A-Z Marketer's Buzzword Bible from Wordstream.
In the next speech skills lesson, you’ll learn why what you don’t say is just as important as what you do say, as you work on Active Listening.