What is Observational Listening
In brief: Observing the reactions of your conversational partner during the conversation.
Ordinarily people tend to ask questions with a certain goal or purpose in mind. They then listen to the answer as if the answer is based on the question as they meant it to be. Yet the other is answering based on what they understood the question to be. Observational listening trains the listener to let go of their own goals and interpretations and concentrate on the reactions evoked. In other words, the listener tries to find out what the question meant to the other. In this way he or she “gets it” and is able to bring depth into the conversation in a natural way, without resorting to tricks.
To do this, the listener rather tunes in to the emotions they can recognize in the other than to the literal answers they get. The focus is therefore on emotions, which requires training their emotional intelligence and empathy.
Observational listening is grounded in empowerment, empathy and a genuine facilitating attitude.
How you can learn this technique
Training courses
Go to Excellent-Leader.com and follow the online training courses
Books
Buy one of the books on Observational Listening listed on the Books page.
Background story
In my role as trainer I have a rule of always demonstrating some aspect in an improvised role play in front of the whole class. Usually after the students have had a go in smaller groups, so that I can concentrate on a specific aspect they find tricky. I ask a student to improvise, throw me some curved balls if the situation arises and try to really live in the role they are playing. Sometimes students aren’t role playing – they bring in something which is a real and current issue for them. I have the knack to generally pick up on this straight away.
One afternoon after a full day of training I had one of these demonstrations, in which I soon picked up the issue my student was dealing with. After a few minutes, probably not more than five, the tears started rolling over her face. She felt so relieved, as for the first time she felt that someone had heard her, had understood what she was going through and didn’t judge her. Where therapists in her past hadn’t been able to give her that feeling in many sessions, I managed in a few minutes.
Notwithstanding the compliment, it did push me into thinking. What is it that I do in such a situation, which clearly other people seem not to be doing? What makes that when I observe students in a role play that I see things they do not? What makes that my clients feel heard? I certainly am not clairvoyant or omniscient, so there must be some trainable skills … The only satisfactory answer I could come up with, is that I am constantly observing and picking up on the emotions my conversational partners are experiencing. I am not so much interested in what they tell me about their emotions, I am picking up what they are feeling right now.
And that answer has lead me to finding ways to develop teachable skills, so that my students can implement them. Dubbed as observational listening, the result thusfar I have shared in my books and online training courses
Praise
”Markus’s keen ear and thoughtful approach brought a fresh perspective that truly elevated our project.”