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REFLECTIVE LISTENING: HOW IT WORKS

The phrase "paying attention" suggests activity on the Receiver's part. That is no accident. In contrast to the conventional passive listening style that most people fall into most of the time, the effective manager has a listening style in which the Receiver becomes actively - or to put it more precisely, "reflectively" - involved.

I use the term "reflective" for two reasons. First, it suggests that a good listener, a good Receiver, thinks about what the Sender is sending, rather than simply opening his ears and letting the sounds form background music; that is the first way in which he actively "reflects" on the Message.



The second way is more important. In Reflective Listening, the Receiver is not content to just "think about" what the Sender is saying. He carries the active process one step further, and reflects back to the Sender what it is he thinks has been meant. In other words, he adds another component to the on-going exchange of information - a component that, in the world of computers, would be called "feedback." Using the same diagram as I used in Figure 9, I'll add this "reflecting back" or "feedback" component (Figure 10).

Notice what the introduction of this feedback component does to the communication process. It provides an immediate check on the listener's Decoding of the message, by "playing back" to the speaker what the listener thinks has been said. The feedback serves as a sensing device to ensure that the message has not been garbled in transmission - or, if it has been garbled, to alert the listener to that fact so he can seek clarification.

The "playing back" technique is a major feature of the communication exercises my company uses in our productivity workshops. In those workshops we call the technique "Rephrasing." It's one of four critical listening skills that we have found to be effective in improving motivation and performance for our clients. They comprise a package of "reflective motivational strategies."

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