This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. G: Goal. An animated or subdued gesture that conveys an emotion. Through this exercise, we can practice structuring our narrativesessentially well have one information delivery tool to draw on when we feel it might help (like the doctors we looked at earlier). How large of a role does it really play, and how does it influence our communication? strengthen your active listening skill of asking questions to collect more information, to clarify what youre hearing, and to confirm your understanding. At the human level, our social resources play a massive part in our happiness and well-being in the workplace. Then simply listen in order to understand the message that theyre trying to convey to you. For more depth on seeking to understand other people, see the article titled Want to Avoid Poor Discussions? Talking is essentially a form of content delivery, and its not really communication unless we listen. Hello, Im Andrew Ward and Im the Kiwi guy writing most of the stuff on this website. Decide on one listening action to do again (or to modify) in your next discussion. Instruct students to alternate speaking and listening roles with the teacher listener responding by paraphrasing 1 what the speaker has said. What is the most difficult part of being a [, What does that look like? or What might that look like in practice?, "How did you come to that opinion/conclusion?". In a larger group of participants, this can be done multiple times as players pair up with different conversation partners. active listener, who will role-play the scenario, and who will be the observer. 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. Talk your way through that perfect weekend. In order to tailor a specific sales approach to a prospective client, active listening not just hearing is key. 5 Active Listening Games and Exercises. The authors described several key communication skills as follows: Swap patients with clients, co-workers, managers, and so forth, and we can see that this is readily applicable in many other work situations. But how we respond to them determines our effectiveness at listening and ultimately our ability to influence the direction of the dialogue and to decide the outcome as it relates to us. While they talk, the listener pays close attention to the explicit and underlying details, using only non-verbal cues to show that they are listening. What would be your perfect weekend? 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. Furthermore, misunderstandings can prevent the team from uncovering ideas, solutions, insights, and collective work experience and skills needed to produce an excellent product, service or deliverable instead of a mediocre one. What Active Listening techniques went well? What do you do? Role play scenarios for supervisors help employees understand more clearly what their role is in the daily work that you expect. S: Struggle Participant 1 in each pair is given a simple picture and must not show it to their partner, Participant 2 who has drawing paper and a pen. In these pairs, they will take turns being a mime and being an asker. The objective of this Active Listening activity is to increase your emotional intelligence by heightening your awareness of emotions that emerge during discussions. So, you will need to enlist a volunteer. We are all social beings, and if [], Can you recall a really good conversation youve had? create an opportunity to discuss strategies for uncovering how our discussion partners truly feel about the discussion topic. Was your understanding of the description you received the same as your partners understanding of the description they relayed? This exercise from the team at MindTools is a good way to help participants develop more empathy, consider other perspectives, build their communication and negotiation skills. Start with groups (or sub-groups) of between four and ten players; in each of these, someone will need to volunteer as a facilitator. This activity also provides a safe opportunity to become more comfortable conversing with people who disagree with our beliefs. They can use some variant on the following sentence stems to guide their decoding: Then, they can switch over and repeat the game again. When we give attention to our relationships as well as the task(s) at hand, we create trust and collaborate more effectively. The exercises in this worksheet can be done in groups of two to three. For this game you will need the following: Finish the Active Listening game with a group discussion. An Active Listening skills activity for pairs (or done with a volunteer). How about a chance to blow off some steam and get that empathetic listening ear at the same time? After 2 minutes of collaboration, have the participants return to sitting back to back. Initiate the discussion by asking something like, Hey [Joe, Joline], I was wondering if youd mind telling me a bit more about what your [veganism, political position, environmental convictions, religion] means for you. Why was it important to make the decisions together? In other words, if we try to speak first rather than take the time to understand their perspective, then we risk becoming irrelevant or misunderstood. The group then needs to play the game with only the instructions from the speaker. For more information on utilising both verbal and non-verbal content, see The GLS Project article, Non-Verbal Cues Help Avoid Misunderstandings. And they are encouraged to continue. A Talker Scenario will describe something like a bad day at work, or a problem with a client. Topics to speak on could include: 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. Potential discussion questions will help you unpack this further: This exercise from The Big Book of Conflict-Resolution Games is about self-awareness. Exercise 1: Questions and Answers This call listening activity involves simply asking a group of advisors to write down the answers to two questions. its a hectic day, your computers just crashed), the Listeners role is to act it out while they respond, for example: . Practicing it during our interactions with others enables us to validate their feelings and potentially avoid the stress of misunderstandings. For example, Everyone seems very quiet. This is similar in some ways to the Back-to-Back Drawing exercise above. Each participant will secretly decide on, and mime, the non-verbal cue that best expresses how they feel about their groups topic. An 'In Brief' summary of the Active Listening games. Because communication is so multi-faceted, weve included a selection of different activity types. Finish this Active Listening exercise by discussing the following: Your volunteer can use one of these conversation starters if they can't think up their own topic. Step 2: After the five-minute role play is completed, the speaker spends two minutes giving feedback to the listening partner on the effective listener skills used. To practice active listening and assertive communication. Your email address will not be published. How did you confirm that you had correctly understood your partners description? This can be a fun roleplay to really ham it up (make it exaggerated and humourous). They use the goals as a guide for the conversation, while the watchers listen carefully and make notes. Facilitator asks group what they could have done to listen well. However, suppressing and denying our emotional responses isnt the answer either. back to the Active Listening Skills. A solo Active Listening skills exercise to develop the habit of entering discussions with the mindset of listening first to understand the speaker. Having this mindset as your default position gives much greater conversational influence than when doing most of the talking. Communication in the presence of noise. Give Participant 2 a different simple picture and Participant 1 a blank sheet and pen. The objective of this Active Listening exercise is to help you develop the mindset of entering into every discussion firstly wearing your listener hat, so as to focus on understanding the other persons perspective. What was memorable about it? Once everyone has finished writing, the acting person can then disclose their cue to the group and take 30 seconds to explain why it reflects how they feel about the groups topic. Is now the best possible time to ask them for help on a task? What has worked in the past for your team? Describe a book thats had an impact on your life. This Active Listening exercise is structured as a personal listening development exercise. They are designed for adults (not children) and suitable for both personal listening development and workplace training workshops. Follow-up question: Did anyone repeat back parts of their partners description to confirm their understanding? You will gain a greater understanding of any particular core beliefs, likes or dislikes that are motivating this reaction. Now imagine yourself harnessing those emotions. Once both Participants 1 and 2 have attempted to draw a picture, the group will reassemble to discuss the difficulties of communicating with each other and to discuss Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties. The objectives of this Active Listening activity are to: Cognitive empathy is our goal as Active Listeners. Here are four training activities, suggested by Caroline Cooper, that will help you to develop active listening in your contact centre. Role-playing is a classic method for teaching communication skills. Allow 10 minutes for participants to do the following within their groups. . By the time it reaches Hassan, who is Person 5, for instance, it might be A grey elephant with tattered ears.. Each time you ask the question, dont bluntly ask Why? Soften and modify it in response to what the other person is telling you. At the end of 4 minutes you may speak. Communication, in its most basic form at least, is dyadica two-way, and (one would hope) mutually beneficial flow of information. A blank A4 sheet of paper for every participant to draw on. These science-based tools will help you and those you work with build better social skills and better connect with others. Foster Self-awareness. At the individual level, we can make conscious use of this EQ skill to gauge how others are feeling. We can encourage more engagement, commitment, and complement one anothers different skills for better results. Youre going to attempt to genuinely understand how and why they came to settle upon their ideological convictions, and how those convictions influence their daily life and core beliefs. Were you distracted by the other pairs and if so how? Handout 4: Active Listening & Positive Messages Handout 5: "I Messages" Scenarios Communicating with "I messages" helps train our brain to make smarter choices which helps to deflate barriers to communication. Would that be okay?. Rogers, C. R., & Farson, R. E. (1957). Occasionally, a speaker will say how they feel. It involves listening closely, paraphrasing back to the speaker what you hear, clarifying what you think you hear, etc. As a result, we have developed a customer centric process for sales. Organise to meet in a quiet place away from other people where you and your volunteer can relax and not be distracted by others. Succinctly, they help us convey information to others in an effective way. In the book mentioned below, there are also hand-outs, but you can prepare your own for this activity. That is, the Blindfold Rope Square exercise challenges us to look at how we communicate verbally, then think about ways to develop our effectiveness. Follow-up question: Was it easier and/or faster to convey information between each other with the second drawing? Appreciative Inquiry, for example, is one type of positive psychology intervention that uses storytelling in a compelling way, as a means to share hopes and build on our shared strengths. Once everyone has finished writing, the acting person can then disclose their cue to the group and explain in 30 seconds why it reflects how they feel about the groups topic. In a small paragraph, it should outline whats gone wrong (maybe its everything from a cracked smartphone screen to a delay during your commute). zDevelop the action. 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