How To Use Reflective Listening

• Reflective listening can make you a better communicator.
• Reflect feelings and you will quickly establish rapport.
• Use summaries to reflect a persons message.

In the last few articles you learnt about the importance of using questions in persuasion. However regardless of the type of questions you use, in persuasion you still need to actively listen to what the other person is saying.

Active listening means listening to the words a person has said, in addition to the things they do not say. This will allow you to grasp the full content of their message, without becoming distracted by emotionally laded words.

So for example, if a person shouts at you saying they hate you, but their body language suggests otherwise, you can take what they have said with a pinch of salt because you know how they real feel.

Active listening is therefore an essential part of not only successful persuasion, but also of successful communication in general.

Let’s now explore some various forms of active listening, and how you can apply them to your future conversations.

Reflective Listening

One of the best ways to show someone you have heard and understood what they said is to reflect or paraphrase the content back to them.

This reflection should be short, simple and easily understood. If you reflect for too long, you may irritate the speaker or cause them to loose their train of thought.

An effective reflection will summarize what the person has said, cutting through the waffle and highlighting key points. This is important to remember, as reflective listening does not mean simply parroting back to the person what they have just said.

Reflective listening usually starts with phrases such as:

• So It sounds like…
• In other words…
• It looks like…
• So your saying…
• You mean…
• It seems that…

When using these reflections they should signal a sense of uncertainty as to whether your interpretation is correct, and a need for further clarification possibly with a slight upward inflection.

This will encourage the speaker to continue talking, whilst at the same time making them feel as if you are interested and understand what they have said. This technique can rapidly help to create rapport.

Reflecting Feelings

Reflective listening involves not only reflecting words, but also reflecting feelings. This is most applicable when someone talks to you in an emotional way. Such as when they are upset, happy, sad, angry etc…

Generally when people display these emotions, there is a subconscious desire for those emotions to be recognized and acknowledged by others.

So by reflecting those feelings back to them, such as by saying “you look in a good mood today” or “it seems that really upset you” you are acknowledging their feelings, and telling them you understand those feelings.

Again, this can help to create rapport between you. This is especially true if a person is upset, because by acknowledging their feelings you are also comforting them, which can quickly create an emotional bond between you.

It is important to remember that feelings are also expressed through non verbal communication (body language). To find out more see this article on body language.

Here is a quick summary of the benefits of reflective listening:

Benefits Of Reflective Listening

• Encourages the other person to keep talking
• Corrects misunderstandings, false assumptions and misinterpretations
• Reassures the speaker that you are listening
• Gives you a much deeper insight into the needs of a person
• Helps you remember what was said
• Builds rapport and mutual respect

Reflective Listening : Summarizing

A summary serves to refocus attention on a particular issue. This can be useful when your conversation has wandered too far from the main topic, and you want to get back on track. By summarizing the main points made so far you can quickly do this.

In order for a summary to be effective, it must be relatively brief and well balanced to cover all viewpoints. If someone thinks your summary is inaccurate or biased, this may cause an argument or lead to disagreements about the points being made.

You will want to avoid this because disagreements and arguments both break rapport and make persuasion a lot more difficult.

Here are some of the most effective times to use summaries during a conversation:

When To Use Summaries

• Whenever emotion and argument are clouding the issue.
• When your views are not being properly recognized appreciated or understood.
• Whenever you feel its time to conclude a conversation/agreement.
• After reaching agreement to make sure your understanding of what has been agreed to is exactly the same as the other persons understanding.

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