Active listening skills and how to use them.

What is active listening?

Active listening means you effectively understand what someone is saying in-depth, rather than simply listening on a surface level. You are listening because you want to fully understand what’s being said, and why it’s being said. It’s essentially the art of fully focussing on the meaning behind someone’s words, rather than using that time to think of what you want to say.

The technique of active listening is a soft skill, which means that it’s a non-technical skill used in the workplace – as opposed to coding, for example, which is a hard skill. Soft skills positively affect how you communicate and work with others, and can make you an all-round better employee (and person).

What are some active listening examples?

Active listening techniques can be used in a range of different environments and scenarios. While we’re focussing on exploring why active listening is important at work, the skills you learn will be relevant across your interactions with people – whether professional or personal. The idea is to illustrate that you genuinely and fully understand what’s being said, which itself illustrates empathy.

Some examples of active listening skills include:

• Paraphrasing. One of the key active listening skills is to be able to paraphrase what someone has just said to illustrate your understanding. This can be especially useful for managers who’ve been presented with quite a complex issue.
  • Example: ‘So, you mean to say that…’
• Summarising topics. A key skill you may want to utilise when participating in talks and presentations. This shows you fully understand the topic at hand.
  • Example: ‘In this case, it sounds like we need to…’.
• Asking the right questions. It’s not enough to simply take in information. Mastering active listening techniques means you should be able to question that information too. This is a good skill to utilise in job interviews, when you’re not entirely sure of a piece of information you’ve been given.
  • Example: ‘Can I just confirm that…’
• Illustrating patience. Another good skill for managers to master, or if you’re faced with a particularly tricky client communication issue. Active listening is about fully understanding what’s being said – it doesn’t mean you have to agree with it.
  • Example: ‘I completely understand what you mean, however…’
• Relating similar situations. A good way to show someone you care is to use a personal experience related to the topic at hand. This can help put someone at ease, especially if they’ve just shared something quite intimate.
  • Example: ‘I understand, I experienced a similar thing when…’

How to use your active listening skills in the workplace.

So, now you better understand how to use active listening techniques, next is knowing when. Here are a few practical examples of when you might need to put them into practice.

How Adobe Express can help you and your team work on active listening.

If you’re looking to brush up on your active listening skills, Adobe Express can help. Discover useful templates and listening aids to support your learning both in and outside of the workplace. Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

1. Share your active listening tips in an infographic.

Whether you’re training your team on active listening, or just looking to share some tips with the wider office, a visually engaging infographic can help. Select a free infographic template that suits your business style, then add the key tips or things to consider when active listening.

You can share this over email, or pop it on a poster in meeting rooms and other communal areas to encourage people to maintain eye contact and ask open-ended questions.

2. Create different role-playing scenarios.

This one can work well if you’re on a team building day or training session. Create your own dialogue cards and worksheets with conversation prompts, then get participants to practice their active listening skills in real-time. You could then discuss how people found the interactions, and revisit the activity at the end of the session.

3. Make your own listening journal to help you reflect.

Use Adobe Express’ free library of templates to build your own listening journal. When you’ve had a meeting or important discussion at work, you can then reflect on the conversation by answering different questions and see how actively you listened. Your questions might include:

• What were the key points the speaker said?
• How did you respond?
• Did you maintain eye contact and utilise your body language?
• What could you do better next time?

4. Construct a visual summary of key conversations.

If writing down a summary doesn’t work for you, you could use Adobe Express to map out a visual summary of your meetings or discussions instead. Use a mind map or concept map template to set out the key points discussed, then add your reflections and notes around how you actively listened and what the outcome of this was.

5. Host a virtual training session on active listening.

Looking to run a workshop on active listening? Adobe Express makes it easy for you to build your own presentation slides and videos for a virtual training session.

Start your presentation with a simple overview of what active listening is, then dive into key steps and examples. Add some active listening exercises at the end of your presentation to make it more interactive and actionable for your team.

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