Listen, Pause, Clarify & Validate
Our ability to communicate
effectively is one of the most precious skills we can develop. Most
of the time when we think of communicating well, we think of effectively
expressing ourselves. This is certainly important, but listening is the
single most important of all communication skills. It’s what Stephen Covey
calls “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.”
Listen
First and foremost, we must actively listen to
what someone is saying. Perhaps we were given two ears and one mouth
because we were supposed to listen twice as much as we speak. Look at the
person who is speaking. Listen with your whole body and your whole mind.
Resist the temptation to think about your response. People will appreciate
your respectful listening.
Pause
This is a great habit to develop. When the speaker
is finished, pause for a few seconds before responding. This guarantees
that the other person has really finished talking and there is no danger
of cutting them off. By pausing, we show the speaker that we’ve listened
to them and that we respect what they had to say enough to consider it
before we launch into our response.
Clarify
You could call this “Backtrack and Clarify.” This
is where you rephrase what was said and ask if you understood correctly.
You get agreement as to the communication and you make sure that what you
heard was really what was meant. It takes only a moment and prevents
assumptions that create misunderstandings later.
Validate
This is the one I’ve had the most trouble with.
After we have clarified, we validate the opinion/feeling/expression of the
other. Validation does not necessarily mean agreement. It simply means
that we understand how they might feel or think about something. And if
you WERE them, and had the same experience, you would feel or think like
them.
This whole process might seem like
it would be time consuming, but it’s really not. Even if it takes a little
longer at first, you’ll find that it makes for clearer, more effective
communication with less hurt feelings and more understanding. Something
the world needs a lot more of.
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