Active Listening: the Swiss Army Knife of Communication

Imo, your suggestions are more for intermediate/advanced active listeners that need to interact with folks in their job (e.g. bartenders, reporters, middle managers...).

Still, I feel being repetitive (e.g. 'It sounds like XYZ...is that right?') is better than nothing. Sometimes, training wheels aren't bad when learning how to ride a bike.

E.g.

"I think Trumps approach to immigration will help increase jobs for Amercians and help the economy"

"OK sounds like you are for stricter immigration enforcement. I actually disagree for various reasons, but I am interested in knowing why you see this as helping the economy. Maybe I am missing something in my analysis"

It can land as awkward, un-natural, yeah even 'fake' when it's being used by somebody who is just learning it and is practicing, though after time it will lose those qualities. If people you know are using this on you, they might need to own that they're trying something different to get you into a comfort zone before pressing on.

No kidding here.

There are many roads to birthday parties from people you don't like who also don't like you. There will be many uninspired gifts.

If someone used that conversation template with me I'd wouldn't interpret it as an authentic discussion. At best I'd think it was therapy speak or they'd read some self-help "how to influence people" book.

Like any tool though, knowing when and how to use it is the way to get the most out of it.

I don't think I've ever applied it as described in the article or those sessions, but there were a few things from then that I've found to improve how I engage with people (when I remember).

- ask questions regularly

- make sure your questions are open-ended and can't be answered with a yes/no

- avoid saying stuff like "you are like this" or "this is like that". It's safer to say things, particularly difficult things, from one's own perspective, e.g. "I think that".

For example, Kids are great at rambling off information for attention. Active listening is a skill and isn't the default.

Even if someone is listening, active listening is hearing what the partner says and attempting to intuit why they would think that and what assumptions they are making that may be different from your own.

And lowercase active listening, IMHO is genuinely being interested in the experiences of the person talking that your line of questioning disarms the subject into sharing stories that add personal, “cultural” context to their choices which could be considered taboo.

i'll usually just tell them why i'm trying to manipulate them into thinking about the problem in the way i want (in kid friendly language) and they're perfectly fine with it. people don't really seem to mind being manipulated like that, they really just hate not understanding what's going on or being lied to.

First, let me describe myself. I'm not always great at explaining my thoughts to others in a meeting. The output peripheral bus has a lower clock speed than the CPU, if you catch my drift. If I'm not the one driving the meeting, I try to wait until I have a decent amount of context before offering my own thoughts. Most critically: I don't speak unless I have something important to say, because time is scarce and talking AT ALL is a very high effort activity for me.

I really don't mind the occasional interruption or clarifying question. But if someone is constantly interrupting me every other sentence, it seems obvious to me that they either think their opinion is more important than mine, or they just like to hear themselves talk. In either case, the constant interruptions mean they don't actually care what I have to say, so there's no value in me trying to say it, and I just stop talking until they are done and let the conversation end naturally.

I also see interruptions as going hand in hand with collaboration and engagement. I guess it’s a personality thing. I’m adhd, INTJ, family hails from a part of the US northeast that is known to be direct and blunt.