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The Six Reflective Listening Techniques to Maximize Conversation Efficiency

In a series of previous videos, I've emphasized the importance of listening: reflective, empathic, and active listening.

It goes by a variety of different names, but it refers to really the same set of skills.

These are specific actions you can take when you're in an everyday conversation or a difficult one.

They'll work the same, no matter what.

But these specific behaviors constitute what people refer to as active, reflective, or empathic listening:

1. Effective Pauses

2. Minimal Encouragers

3. Mirroring

4. Labeling

5. Summarizing

6. Paraphrasing

All of these skills are effective on their own, but they gain even more power if you can combine them.

In a series of books I was reading, I noticed a pattern in their advice. These books included Chris Voss' book about negotiation, a book called Difficult Conversations and another book called Crucial Conversations.

At some point in each of these books, they all recommended combining reflective listening techniques into a package of techniques. When you use a combination of reflective listening techniques, you will be more effective and have more power in listening then using any of them individually.

I am going to teach you about one particular combination that Chris Voss in his book, Never Split the Difference, calls Tactical Empathy.

There's nothing special about the term Tactical Empathy or this combination of skills. It's simply the idea that you want to use all of these skills together in your repertoire when you're listening to someone to maximize your effectiveness as a conversational counterpart, negotiator, friend, colleague at work, or boss.

Technique #1 - Effective Pauses

When you're listening to people, you have to pause.

You might ask an open-ended question, and then you have to pause.

Open-ended questions are an incredibly effective technique in conversation.

They get people to talk about themselves. They get people to talk in an open-ended way about whatever the topic is.

They're very effective, but people often undermine their effectiveness by asking an open-ended question and then continuing to talk. If you ask open-ended questions, you have to then be silent.

Now, silence is a little bit awkward in conversation. There's a pressure on both or all parties in a conversation to fill silences, but you have to use your calm, reserve, and courage not to fill those silences.

So ask a question, when you've said something important at any point in the conversation, let it sink in. Give them have time to think and respond. Be silent.

Technique #2 - Minimal Encouragers

In social science, we call these things back-channel cues. It's the small phrases or sounds we use in conversation to reassure the other person that we're paying attention and listening.

These are called Minimal Encouragers. They include things like, mm hmm, uh huh, ah, yes, okay. They fill a bit of silence. They let the other person know we're paying attention and that they may continue speaking.

I have a habit of doing this a lot. In fact, I was giving a training presentation a couple of weeks ago, and when I'm listening to people in the audience talk, I tend to say, yeah, yeah.

Yeah is my Minimal Encourager.

But I actually must've been using them a bit too much, because I got a comment in the evaluations that said, Bruce stop saying yeah, yeah so much. It's annoying.

So, minimal encouragers are effective, but in moderation. Don't use them all the time.

Technique #3 - Mirroring

Mirroring is just taking the last few words a person said to you and repeating them back.

You may think this could be annoying, but if you do it in the flow of a conversation, people won't notice and it will work well.

Imagine: someone is telling you about a difficult interaction they have to have at work. They have to tell a subordinate that they're going to fire them, or they have to criticize one of their subordinates.

They say to you, Oh man, I have to have this meeting with Bill and I have to criticize his work. His work really hasn't been very good. I have to let him know and I'm just dreading it.

And you mirror this person, saying, "Dreading it. Wow." Or, just "Dreading it. Wow, that sounds awful."

So, youre just repeating the last couple of words they said, and then you go on with the conversation. Mirroring lets people know you're listening and paying attention. Its a way of verbalizing empathy.

Technique #4 - Labeling

Labeling is simply naming people's feelings.

You use all of your resources, all of your perceptions, all of your knowledge, to observe someone's behavior and try to figure out what they're feeling.

Are they feeling joy, or awe, or happiness, or regret or shame, or guilt, or fear?

You try to use your perceptual skills, detective skills and conversational clues to figure out what they're feeling.

"You're feeling really ashamed about that.

You're feeling really frightened about that.

"Man, you seem like you're so happy about that. You seem so excited."

You are listening. You are tuned in so much that you can name their feelings.

Now you might get it wrong. They might correct you. It doesn't matter. In the flow of the conversation, this still signals to the person that you're trying to tune in. Even if you get it slightly wrong, it will give them an opportunity to correct you and tell you how they're actually feeling.

Technique #4 - Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is related to mirroring. It's repeating back what the other person said, but not in their words. You repeat it back in your words.

So remember that colleague says to you, "Oh man, Bill's coming to my office for a meeting, and his work has not been up to the standard and I've got to let him know. I might even have to fire him and I'm just dreading it."

You paraphrase and say, "Oh man, you have to meet with Bill and tell him about the quality of his work? You are not looking forward to that are you?"

That's a paraphrase.

When you summarize what they said using their words, that's mirroring. When you summarize it in your own words, that's paraphrasing.

Technique #6 - Summarizing

Here you sort of combine paraphrasing and labeling, and in your own words, you summarize the main point of what your counterpart has been telling you in a given interaction.

The point of this is to let them know you've been listening and that you understand, but you want to see if you can get them to say "That's right."

This is a goal that Chris Voss talks a lot about in his book. He says that if you can get them to say "That's right," you have paraphrased, summarized, or labeled them so accurately that the only possible response to your summary is "That's right."

So if we go back to the situation at the office where a colleague is telling you, "Bill is coming in for his annual review and he hasn't been performing up to snuff and I've got to tell him, I might even have to threaten him with firing them. I might actually have to fire him. I'm just dreading it."

Its your turn to summarize, and you say, "So you have to meet Bill today and you have to tell him about the quality of his work, and you are not looking forward to this are you? You've never fired anybody before. Man, this looks like it'd be a difficult day for you."

They say, "That's right. You've done it.

Summary

A powerful way to be an effective listener, stay connected to your counterpart, and build a trusting intimate relationship with them is to combine these different reflective listening techniques.

So, go out there, use all these techniques together and see what wonders it will work in your interactions.

People will talk to you and tell you things that you can't possibly believe. When they're done talking to you, they will feel seen and heard and listened to. And they will appreciate having you as a friend or colleague or any sort of interaction partner.

Question of the day: What reflective listening techniques do you like to combine and how do you combine them? Go down to the comments and let me know how you use combinations of reflective listening skills to maximize your effectiveness as a listener.