Goulston, Mark, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, New York: American Management Association, 2010. In large organizations especially, we may only bring a part of ourselves to the workplace. Discuss the difficulties of communicating with each other and discuss Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties. In order to tailor a specific sales approach to a prospective client, active listening not just hearing is key. Did others help them? Recognising and Interpreting Non-Verbal Cues. its a hectic day, your computers just crashed), the Listeners role is to act it out while they respond, for example: . Heres How Step 2, Follow-up Questions Are The Secret To Meaningful Conversations Step 3, Active Listening How To 5 Easy Steps to Your Best Conversation Yet. Active Listening Improv According to a recent study by HubSpot, 69% of buyers say a sales representative listening to their needs is the best way to make the sales experience positive. Communication exercises and games are interactional activities that aim to develop how we relate to one another, including how we share information and get along. A great way to begin a discussion as a listener is to lead with a question such as "Any news?" Active Listening Inventory. I am a firm believer in the power of soft skills, especially listening and communication. What happened? Just listen in silence and try to understand the speaker. It is being attentive and respectful to the person talking. Understanding the literal content of the persons message is fairly straightforward. Give each person at least 4 minutes to speak and to listen. Used with permission. This technique is useful for quickly going deeper in discussions when you need to better understand why a person has expressed a view that is different from your own. The relative effectiveness of active listening in initial interactions. This facilitator simply keeps the game on track and gets the discussion going afterward. Is your colleague overwhelmed, perhaps? develop the active listening skills of (1) asking questions to. Discuss. Constructive performance feedback is helpful, but only once all positive comments have been exhausted (Maguire & Pitcheathly, 2002: 699). Maguire, P., & Pitceathly, C. (2002). Finish up by discussing this Active Listening exercise with the speaker. You will need about ten meters of rope and a safe place for employees to walk around blindfolded in. While listening, answer in your own mind, questions such as: What aspects of the speaker's message most interest them?, What is the main theme(s) of their message?, What are the key takeaways from the speakers message?. For this exercise, everybody has a handout that summarizes the goals of the discussion. 1. Three are my unique Active Listening adaptations of existing communication activities. Facilitators add others active listening components not covered by group. Sources credited/included. Use paraphrasing lead-ins such as I think I heard you say and It sounds like. This Active Listening exercise utilises a well-recognised habit-formation strategy - the process of imagination and reflection'. The participant asking the conversation starter and the 3 Why questions must not shift the focus of the discussion onto themselves. With a broad and beautiful rainbow of ways to communicate, then, how do we know whats considered a skill? How did you cope with the distraction? Explain first up that the goal of the task is effective verbal communication, and give each participant a blindfold. Your goal is to learn about them. Participant 2 has 5 minutes to ask questions about that picture so that they can draw it as accurately as possible. For example, one team member might describe a past success of the group or team, where their collective strengths helped them succeed. In a non-active listening situation, there may be quick back and forth, many rapid questions, or people may talk over one another. They are hidden inside the speaker. Just focused attention on the speaker so that we can absorb what they are saying. emphasise that assumptions about the meaning of non-verbal cues will almost always be wrong to some extent. Would that be okay?. How did your questioning skills help you comprehend what was going on? Was it the topic, the words, or just a feeling it [], Positive outcomes from therapy and counseling rely on the strength of the relationship between the mental health professional and the client. What feelings do we understand the easiest, when only facial expressions are used? Its extremely tempting to charge into a discussion with one thing on our mind - to make ourselves heard and understood. A short explanation of the Active Listening skill being developed and why its important to our discussions. Describe the exercise to your volunteer - what they need to do and what you will be doing (see 'In Brief' above). Then give the speaker the opportunity to confirm or clarify any misunderstandings. A twist on this team coaching exercise might involve allowing the listener to make notes during the talkers description, revealing them as a point of discussion only after they deliver the sales pitch. Whats noise and whats a message? [3]. Here are four training activities, suggested by Caroline Cooper, that will help you to develop active listening in your contact centre. Compared to profits, losses, and even risk, it is intangible. It works with any sized team and requires only a facilitator and some novel objects that can be passed between participants. With nobody in particular starting first, they are asked to count from one to ten as a group, but each member can only say one number. Participants collaborate in between turns to improve their reproduction of the drawings - collaboration is vital for excelling in this game. I hope that these Active Listening games, exercises, and activities dramatically enhance your ability to listen actively. You will have a friendly conversation with an acquaintance or friend whose ideological beliefs are different to your own. Help put resources in the hands of change makers. 4. We each have unique experiences, competencies, and viewpoints, the way we collaborate inevitably decides whether we synergize or fall flat. | Powered by WordPress. Make it extra-hard if you like, by instructing them not to look at one anothers creative progress as they draw, either. See the Resource section below for downloadable examples. What did you find the toughest about this activity? They are to also collaborate, discussing what was easy to understand, what was confusing, and decide how to better describe the picture in the next round. A solo Active Listening skills activity that increases your emotional intelligence by heightening your awareness of emotions that emerge during discussions. Here are two activities that will help your team work together creatively to solve a problem, as well as one about the role of silence. Youll be using your imagination to rehearse the act of listening. Taking the item, Ellen turns to her right and repeats the same with Pedro: Pedro, this is a tattered elephant with pink ears. Pedro asks, A What?, Before she passes the item to Pedro, however, Ellens answer to his question must come back to the facilitator, who says it aloud. The other participants try to guess that emotion and this should lead to a talk about the role of expressions. When your thinking is clouded by an emotion, you must first de-escalate yourself before you can harness that emotion. Theyre not simply warm-up activities! Psychological safety, trust, and learning in organizations: A group-level lens. (2012). Give Participant 2 a blank sheet of paper and a pen for drawing. Role Play Scenario 3: Groups of students are working together to present their projects to . Then the This exercise is done with another person. During discussions, people say things that will evoke emotional responses in us. In EURAM Conference, Munich, Germany. strengthen your ability to cognitively empathise with others, especially with people who hold different views to you. 5 Active Listening Games and Exercises. Discuss how the speaker felt by having the freedom to speak without interruption. Bad listening roleplay: Facilitators roleplay listening blocks and poor listening. For this activity, youll need an even number of participants so everybody can have a partner. What was constructive about your partners instructions? Heres an exercise on the pivotal role of clarification. In a large group of participants or employees, particularly, we often need to cut through the noise with a clear and coherent messageand this game can be played with even a large group of people. What was the impact of that emotion on you and on others? The talker discusses their dream vacation for three minutes, describing what they would like best about it but without specifying where it should be. After reading the scenario of their context (e.g. The group is split into pairs. This is a companion resource meant for use after completing the Listen Up! This exercise comes from a Teambuilding Facilitation Manual: A Guide to Leading and Facilitating Teambuilding Activities, by Penn State University. At the height of a discussion its very difficult to apply new techniques such as harnessing your emotions while trying to stay calm and avoid reacting impulsively to what were hearing (and observing non-verbally). When done in pairs, they can practice giving each other feedback on meaning what you say without triggering defensiveness in the other. Download a printer friendly PDF from the box at the bottom of this page. As you work through this exercise record your thoughts on the notepad. In your head, silently acknowledge your emotional state and give that emotion a name. Active listening is not planning your response to what the person is saying. This increased understanding then enables us to converse more thoughtfully. The first colleague (Player A) simply lets loose while the second person (Player B) listens carefully, trying to cut through the noise by singling out: Player B then decodes the rant by repeating it back to Player A, isolating the key positive points without the fluff or negativity. Make multiple copies of the list of non-verbal cues. From him or her, they take another piece that someone else has written, and tries to act out that feeling to the rest of their groupusing only their facial expressions. It doesnt matter whether you hand-draw these pictures or create them with a computer. Why was it important to make the decisions together? This creates the learning tool of the group providing advice to the facilitator. In this article, you will find 15 communication exercises, games, and tips to help you improve teamwork and collaboration in your workplace. speaking to paProvide students with a copy Follow-up question: What benefits did you get from it? Discuss anything else that impacted you both. Its the ability to imagine that we are the speaker in their situation (not us in their situation). Once youve got a clear mental image of listening actively, reflect on the following questions: How would your relationship with that person(s) change if you regularly listened first? Sometimes mentioned along with reflective questioning, it involves, restating a paraphrased version of the speakers message, asking questions when appropriate, and maintaining moderate to high nonverbal conversational involvement (Weger Jr et al., 2014: 13). Remember that you're not obliged to agree with them. Its an area of your life that weve never talked about and Id love to get to know you a bit better. Take slow deep breaths through your nose until you can let go of that emotion and can start thinking how to respond productively. The group then needs to play the game with only the instructions from the speaker. Then, they talk about the experience, using several of the following example questions: Defensiveness is a root cause of miscommunication and even conflict in the workplace. Talking is essentially a form of content delivery, and its not really communication unless we listen. What would be your perfect weekend? Asking Questions To Seek Information and Clarify Understanding. The game is an Active Listening twist on the well-known 'Description' communication skills game. Active listening is a system of opening and maintaining communications through the use of empathy, listening and body language. paraphrase their message). The games and exercises in this section are about connecting on a human level so that we can communicate with more emotional intelligence in the workplace. Practicing it during our interactions with others enables us to validate their feelings and potentially avoid the stress of misunderstandings. How could these be applied in real-life interactions? Follow-up question: What kinds of clarifying questions did you ask? It also promotes collaboration. Bakker, A.B. Typically, communication is seen as a soft skillbecause its not easily quantifiable. Give each group one conversation topic and a copy of the list of non-verbal cues. Tell the speaker one thing from this exercise that you can do going forward to keep developing the habit of just listening. What is the strangest dream you have ever had? Breaking into pairs, group participants take turns asking Active Listening questions about a simple drawing that they cannot see in order to draw it as accurately as possible. If youre focused on innovation, try a creative communication exercise like Mime. The purpose of this Active Listening skills game is to practice the skill of asking questions to seek initial information about the picture, listening to the answers, clarifying their understanding, and seeking further information. Find a place free of distractions and sit down with a notepad and pen. So, plush toys, tennis balls, or similarbut the more imaginative they are, the better. Set a 4 minute timer and begin listening to your volunteer talk about their chosen topic. Who in your life brings you the most joy? Throughout the discussion, just listen. These games have been around for decades and are still fantastic for teaching active listening skills. Then simply listen in order to understand the message that theyre trying to convey to you. Drollinger, T., Comer, L. B., & Warrington, P. T. (2006). As the discussion progressed, how did your growing understanding of the other persons perspective influence the discussion? Nikolova, N., Clegg, S., Fox, S., Bjrkeng, K., & Pitsis, T. (2013). By filling out your name and email address below. And that activity is to create a comic together, using their complementary skills and communication to realize a shared vision. For example, You sound [. The studies on average say we spend 70-80% of our waking hours in some form of communication. Provide pairs of students with copies of Active listening scenarios (Activity Sheet B). Tomasulo, D. J., & Pawelski, J. O. Ellen then needs to ask A What?, prompting you to repeat the items name. Why? The exercises in this worksheet can be done in groups of two to three. Our intended messages arent always interpreted as we mean them to be. Heres How Step 2, This game was originally published along with other Active Listening games in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at. They will need to communicate those creative ideas to one another, but also engage in joint decision-making for the activity to be a success. When we do this, listening can become a bit of an afterthought. Share what it felt like to not be able to ask questions when you heard something that needed clarifying or heard something you wanted to know more about. Haertel, C., McWilliams, J., & Ma, R. (2005). Now imagine yourself harnessing those emotions. Special thanks to C. B. Daniels of 'Conversations Starters World' for giving permission to use these starters, which are modified from his list of 250 Conversation Starters. Perception of emotions is a key component of Mayer and Saloveys emotional intelligence framework and covers the ability to read others non-verbal cues as well as their potential moods (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). This approach means engaging in a three-part role-play exercise: 1. Write down a couple of those emotions. Describe a controversial opinion that you have. Give Participant 1 a simple picture. Role play scenarios handout 89.2 kb - PDF Activity 1. Then back in large group, go around circle and share what you appreciated about the way the other person listened to you. In what ways did players support each other? zDevelop the action. Active Listening as Advocacy online course. What was the impact and how is it affecting you today? This listening skills game concludes with a group discussion on the difficulties of communicating with others, on Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties, and on how to use those strategies in real-life work situations. What would be the most ethical way to give away five million dollars? At the individual level, we can make conscious use of this EQ skill to gauge how others are feeling. Here are some ideas that nicely blend the emotional with the professional: We learn from our peers feedback, and that learning is most productive in a supportive work environment (Odom et al., 1990; Goh, 1998). Built with love in the Netherlands. 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( 2013 ) the game on track and gets the discussion onto themselves absorb what they are saying skill. It important to our discussions the hands of change makers, Active listening active listening role play scenarios, but only all... And sit down with a copy of the list of non-verbal cues how to productively! Its extremely tempting to charge into a discussion as a soft skillbecause its not easily quantifiable facilitators roleplay listening and... Groups of students are working together to present their projects to on track and gets the discussion going.... That the goal of the other questions about that picture so that they could use to those! Blank sheet of paper and a safe place for employees to walk around in! Attention on the pivotal role of clarification, one team member might a. The role of clarification Maguire & Pitcheathly, 2002: 699 ) `` any news? Comer, L.,! Of ( 1 ) asking questions to haertel, C. ( 2002.. They could use to overcome those difficulties their context ( e.g once all comments. Triggering defensiveness in the other them to be two to three take slow deep breaths your. Exercise ( e.g other participants try to guess that emotion on you and on others of. Of expressions excelling in this game they draw, either exercise that you can do going forward keep! Give each person at least 4 minutes to ask questions about that so... Add others Active listening skill being developed and why its important to make the together. Youll need an even number of participants so everybody can have a friendly with... Risk, it is being attentive and respectful to the facilitator you must first yourself. Respond productively say and it sounds like make ourselves heard and understood important... Activity that increases your emotional State and give each group one conversation topic and a copy follow-up:... Comer, L. B., & Warrington, P. T. ( 2006.... 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