Effective Listening Without Facial Contact
Effective listening is essential for good communication, communication cannot take place until and unless a message is heard and retained positively by the receivers/listeners. Effective listening has to do with our conscious mind, interest, attention, willingness and actively absorbing the information given by the speaker, providing feedback to the speaker to show that the message has been received.
Effective listening is not accidental rather it is voluntary and intentional, purposeful and focused it requires effort and motivation to be able to process the meaning and understand the information the speaker is passing. This means not only paying attention to what the speaker is saying rather than how it’s being told, the tone and language used, the body movement and facial expressions. Being aware of the verbal and non-verbal messages. In order to improve your listening skills without facial contact, you should do the following:
Prepare to listen: Clear your mind from any distraction, so that your attention is fully assured, listen to the speaker voluntarily and with the aim of getting the right information.
Be open- minded: Appreciate the speaker’s point of view, it may not necessarily agree to your point of view.
Judge the content not the speaker: You can criticize the content not the speaker, consider the main point and ask questions with the intention of getting the right message.
Don’t interrupt: Try to keep emotions out of it and hold any argument that will counter what the speaker is saying, until the speaker has finished, when you interrupt the speaker, you might end up missing some point from what the speaker is saying or supposed to say next.
Watch out for signals: Pick up aspects the speaker considers important by listening to the intonation in the speaker’s voice or the emphasis on a particular point.
Don’t be judgmental: Be interested in the message, not the speaker, even if you don’t like the speaker’s voice or how he/she talks try to get the message.
Extract key points: Pick out and repeat some key words or phrases if possible note it down. This will help you to remember what the speaker is trying to say.
Avoid distractions: Work hard towards listening and fight any distractions and competing thoughts. You may need to close doors, turn off television or radio, stay in a quiet place and increase the volume of your device.
Letting your speaker know you’re listening
It is important to let your speaker know that you’re listening, because it builds their trust, gives them confidence and the willingness to expand on their points, this shows that you are both engaged in the conversation. How can you convince your speaker that you’re listening without facial contact, body language or gesture, for instance on a phone call or text message? Here are some few tips:
Open Questions: How? what? where? who? why? This shows the speaker that you’re interested, listening and wanting to know more.
Summarizing: Brief your understanding of what the speaker is trying to say, in order to be sure you’re getting the right message.
Reflecting: Repeating a word or phrase encourages the speaker to continue and expand.
Clarifying: Exploring further the areas that the speaker gloss over, can help the speaker clarify their point.
Reacting: We need to show we have understood the speaker and the message has been passed by replying appropriately to the information being passed.
Communication is important in our day-to-day life, be it in business, relationships, or at the work place. In any form of communication, formal or informal it is important for the speaker to know if you’re listening to every detail or not, people like it when you pay attention and show interest in the message being passed, it encourages them to talk more and expand on their points.
