Warning: digging deeper can result in lively discussions! Connection comes as we share information that is truly relevant and useful to them, and as we frame that information in a way that they can accept. This approach means engaging in a three-part role-play exercise: 1. 2023 Andrew Ward of The GLS Project -Designed by Thrive Themes Ask the group to each prepare a reading that they will share. Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). A blank A4 sheet of paper for every participant to draw on. So, there is no benefit in cheating. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Possible imagined response: Interesting! Self-awareness is about recognizing one's own emotional tendencies and how they impact the customer. Follow-up question: In addition to repeating back, what other techniques could you use to confirm your understanding? [1]. With 2+ co-workers, pick one person (a speaker) to whom youll explain the instructions. What thoughts do you have about interpreting non-verbal cues? As Talker, what feedback did your Listener appear to give? They might be up to their ears in work, or their colleagues complaints might seem trivial. Now imagine yourself harnessing those emotions. Popcorn Storytelling. So, you will need to enlist a volunteer. In other workplaces, team situations call for claritya shared goal is the ideal, but very often we come at situations with at least a few different beliefs. Emotional intelligence. Imagine that time freezes for everyone but you for one day. Everyone knows the directions, and most people enjoy playing. There is no limit to the group size for this game, which requires only enough pens and paper for everybody. After 4 minutes, the participants will switch roles. Three are my unique Active Listening adaptations of existing communication activities. After theyve pitched the ideal vacation spot in the space of a few minutes, the pair discuss how accurately the listener understood the talker. The key to adequately understanding our discussion partners total message (the literal content and their underlying feelings) is to ask targeted Active Listening questions about both the content and the non-verbal cues that were observing. We can brush it all off as too soft and fuzzy, or we can embrace communication as one of the keys to an emotionally intelligent workplace. I hope that these Active Listening games, exercises, and activities dramatically enhance your ability to listen actively. Your sign-up bonus has been sent to your inbox. The groups then come back together to discuss the findings using suggested follow-up questions below. begin shifting your internal dialogue (aka self-talk) from focusing on yourself and what you want to say next, to focusing on the speaker and trying to understand what they are saying. zDevelop the action. Mostly though, we hint at our feelings and attitudes using more indirect non-verbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions, abnormal silence, posture, tone of voice, volume, and rate of speech. It could be a weekly meeting with a work colleague, the daily family time around the dinner table, or a mid-week lunch catch-up with a friend. Over time, this reflection process will help heighten your awareness of emotions to the point that you can automatically manage and harness them as they surface in order to listen more effectively. Writing helps with the cognitive reinforcement process. Invite a trusted person to help you with this exercise (e.g. Occasionally, a speaker will say how they feel. Dealing with resistance. Heres an exercise on the pivotal role of clarification. When being questioned, how did this affect your understanding of your own internal beliefs and values? Is your colleague overwhelmed, perhaps? An Active Listening skills activity for pairs (or done with a volunteer). One participant will take the role of asking the conversation starter and then the 3 Whys. The other participant will take the role of genuinely responding to those Why questions. Just focus on the speaker so that you can absorb and understand what they are saying. Ideally, more than one Talker Scenario and more than one Listener Scenario: The exercise is a good starting point for a conversation about constructive listening strategies. The relative effectiveness of active listening in initial interactions. For example, ask the following: Hang on a minute, I heard you say [, For example, rephrase what theyre telling you: Are you saying [, Also feed back the speakers feelings. Once everyone has finished writing, the acting person can then disclose their cue to the group and take 30 seconds to explain why it reflects how they feel about the groups topic. Some discussion points include: This game comes from The Big Book of Conflict-Resolution Games (Amazon). Feel free to use the CCSG technique described earlier in this article, and that the speaker uses a reflective tone, rather than purely informative, when addressing the group. It works with any sized team and requires only a facilitator and some novel objects that can be passed between participants. Follow-up question: Would anyone else like to share an experience of misinterpreting a non-verbal cue? Foster Self-awareness. In what ways did players support each other? Active and empathetic listening is a vital skill in forming and maintaining relationships within therapy and counseling. Silence: The Secret Communication Tool. Was there any lack of clarity around the instructions? Follow-up question: What benefits did you get from it? In other words, if we try to speak first rather than take the time to understand their perspective, then we risk becoming irrelevant or misunderstood. Each group will receive one topic. Help put resources in the hands of change makers. So, if they agree, and now isnt a good time for a deep discussion, then diarise time to catch up socially in a place where you can talk freely. How much does language affect our thinking? Then, once you adequately understand them, you can switch into the role of speaker in order to share your perspective. Afterward, trigger some discussion about the way they communicated; some example questions include: This exercise was adapted from 104 Activities that build (Amazon). The group then needs to play the game with only the instructions from the speaker. What do you appreciate about them? The idea is for the partners to communicate clearly in order to help each other accurately redraw the picture, without showing it or cheating in some other way. At the height of a discussion its very difficult to apply new techniques such as harnessing your emotions while trying to stay calm and avoid reacting impulsively to what were hearing (and observing non-verbally). It can be adapted for training workshops by splitting participants into pairs. To get started improving your (or your team's, or your student's) communication skills, give these 5 activities a try. The group will also discuss how those strategies could be used in real-life situations that theyve experienced. It only means keeping an open-mind and withholding judgement long enough to adequately understand the other persons perspective. This is similar in some ways to the Back-to-Back Drawing exercise above. What value do questioning skills have when were trying to understand others? This is a small group Active Listening game for adults. Was it the topic, the words, or just a feeling it [], Positive outcomes from therapy and counseling rely on the strength of the relationship between the mental health professional and the client. Put even more simply, we make work a nicer place to be while avoiding unnecessary conflict. This is a solo Active Listening exercise. Communication is a whole lot more than just talkingalthough, that is a fundamental part of relationship-building and knowledge-transfer. Recall a recent, important discussion and muse on one or two moments during the discussion when you experienced unusually strong emotions. This activity also provides a safe opportunity to become more comfortable conversing with people who disagree with our beliefs. Examples include Omit the Obvious, Train of Words, and Blindfold Walk. The goal is for the other person to be heard, validated, and inspired to solve their problems. Odom, R. Y., Boxx, W. R., & Dunn, M. G. (1990). Were not always ready to receive and learn from criticism, especially when its delivered insensitively. It will take no more than 25 minutes.. Essentially, the message will change as the object gets passed along, and players will need to stay sharp to remember who they are passing and talking to. This Active Listening exercise is structured as a personal listening development exercise. And at the same time, helping your co-worker practice active listening? This way, its possible to see if and how the message changes as it goes around the group. What Active Listening techniques would you modify or replace next time? Allow 10 minutes for participants to do the following within their groups. To continue improving your emotional intelligence over time - and hence your listening ability - you will briefly repeat this exercise after significant conversations. Active listening involves engaging with our co-workers and bringing empathy to the table to enhance the quality of our dialogue. . Active Listening Role-Play. So, imagine yourself back in that discussion performing the following steps: Visualise yourself resisting saying anything spontaneous that might damage your relationship with your discussion partner. Record your thoughts on the notepad. For example, happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, indifference, boredom, nervousness, confusion, feeling of guilt. One member takes on the role of a speaker, and the other plays the part of the listener. zDevelop the environment. [1]. Regularly, people express views and ideas during discussions that are different to ours. Subscribe to the newsletter for new resources every month. Participants who sit in the middle are talkers while those in the outer ring are watchers, and these roles should be allocated prior to the exercise. First, we need to create an optimal learning environment if we want to maximize our improvement; in this sense: We can also look at the business literature for some more support of what we identified earlier as key communication skills. In a large group of participants or employees, particularly, we often need to cut through the noise with a clear and coherent messageand this game can be played with even a large group of people. How much were you influenced by the other pairs? Once both Participants 1 and 2 have attempted to draw a picture, the group will reassemble to discuss the difficulties of communicating with each other and to discuss Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties. 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