A Fundamental Mistake in the 3 Levels of Active Listening (And How to Avoid It)
How to become a better listener in important conversations.
Whether it’s a meeting, a get-together with friends or a conversation with your partner — wherever we encounter people, good communication and especially good listening are essential. If we don’t succeed, then annoyance, frustration and other problems in communication are the logical consequence.
In school, there was no subject called “proper listening.” But how exactly does one listen really well? How exactly does one show the other person that one is interested in understanding him or her? And what fundamental problem is there to avoid?
Julian Treasure, a world-renowned listening coach, describes in the podcast with Steven Barlett that three levels help to make active listening successful.
Level 1: Mirroring What Has Been Said
Mirroring to the other person what has been said to you, or paraphrasing, is repeating what has been said in your own words.
On the one hand, this checks whether what has been said has been understood correctly. On the other hand, it also shows that you are trying to really understand the other person.
Typical questions at this level are:
- “Did you mean so and so?”
- “And you’re saying so and so, aren’t you?”
- “If I understand correctly, then you are saying that …?”
This can be further intensified by displaying a questioning attitude. This shows that curiosity is valued over clashing.
The peculiar thing about these curiosity-oriented conversations, by the way, is that the people you are curious about tend to become curious about you.
Level 2: Validate the Other Person
Validating the other person is first done by listening to their story and perspective and using appropriate gestures or words to show that you can see how their journey has been and that they have come to this assessment.
At this level, one expresses, for example, the following statements:
- “I can understand that.”
- “I can understand why you feel that way.”
- “I can understand your view of things.”
By engaging intensely with what the other person is saying, we are showing: I heard you. That’s what it means to affirm the other person.
It does not mean agreeing with the statements or conclusions.
Level 3: Contribute
Contributing means I give my thoughts, my interpretations of the other person’s situation into the field of dialogue. I explain my perspective.
You can introduce this level with the following questions, for example:
- “Can I give you another perspective? It might fit your problem and be helpful to you.”
- “Would you like to hear how I see and assess the whole situation?”
Have you ever had the experience of someone really hitting you over the head? Were you able to say in that moment, “Yeah sure, he’s right”? No? Neither have I.
Someone who doesn’t feel seen will not be open to accepting new impulses or thoughts. In other words, contributing becomes impossible.
The Mistake: Invalidate
Instead of validating, in a heated discussion there is often an attempt to invalidate the other person and to overturn, invalidate and invalidate their statement.
In sentences, negations such as “no,” “no,” or “not” are then frequently used, or we encounter the following statements, for example:
- “Why would you think that?”
- “Oh nonsense, …”
- “That makes no sense at all!”
But sometimes it is not only the statement that is invalidated, but the whole person. When we make “invalidating” a linguistic habit and listen to each other very little, it has a negative impact on our relationships.
When I look back at various conversations in the past, I notice exactly this basic mistake. The more attempts were made to tell the other person that he or she was wrong and to convince him or her of one’s own point of view, the more distanced the conversation became.
What happened was exactly the opposite of what was supposed to happen on the second level, namely to understand, see and confirm the other person.
To deal with what is said and to be irritated by it has something to do with respect. If I want to make a contribution in the lives of others, then this mutual respect for each other is needed.
Therefore: Better to Validate Instead of Invalidate
Active listening, then, is about showing the other person that I have understood how they have come to their conclusions from what they have experienced. The person is thereby affirmed as a human being.
When that happens, in my experience, they become much more open to wanting to hear our own opinion, our input.