Mentor tools II: Active Listening

Have you ever talked to someone and felt that this person was not really listening?

Or maybe you’ve felt uncomfortable by this person interrupting you repeatedly?

At that point, you probably felt discouraged to keep sharing your thoughts or feelings.

Did you like this feeling?

Well, maybe you were having a conversation with a person with a lack of active listening skills.

As I already pointed out in my previous two articles about mentorship (Mentor First Aid Kit and Mentor tools I: Safe Space) I think the main purpose of a mentor is to support mentees to achieve their goals and help them grow. For that it is important, in the first place, to be aware of our mentee's needs, concerns and motivations. How would you do that without careful listening?

So, let’s dive into the active listening concept. Let’s start with a famous quote by Zeno, a Greek philosopher:

“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”

In ancient Greece, philosophers would already notice the importance of listening. But what exactly is active listening? Well, it is the ability to:

help the other person express
focus on what the other person says and doesn’t say (tone, rhythm, volume, pauses, energy, emotions, gestures…).
understand the meaning of all this information in its context.

At this point, it is important to understand there is a difference between hear and listen.

When you hear, you do it by default, with no conscious effort. Listening implies something else: putting your attention and disposition to receive the information from the other person (input), process it in your brain and give back an answer (output). If everything went well, your answer will be based on the input received.

This seems similar to how computers handle information. Let’s see this in a graphical way:

This is an example of how computers handle information. First, you can type on a keyboard (so give the computer an input). This information will be processed by the computer processor. Finally, it will be shown on a screen as output.

Does this flow have something to do with how humans communicate?

So, it is clear that there are some similarities between a computer's information flow and human communication. With this in mind… what happens if you are not actively listening in your one-on-ones?

Voilà, you are not correctly receiving the input, so the output will not be as useful as it could be to your purpose: help your mentee. Imagine a computer not properly receiving information from its keyboard. How could it show the typed text on its screen?

So now that you know the crucial importance of active listening, let’s focus on how you can actively listen in your one-on-one. I will specifically focus on the tips I try to apply in mine. And at this point, I put the focus on the word try: I still have a lot to improve on active listening, but I’ve proved that only trying makes a difference.

Let’s go with those tips:

Ask your mentee what they need to talk about before starting with your agenda. You’ll make sure nothing important will be missing and your mentee will feel you listen and take their needs into account.
Keep your mind empty of your own thoughts. Focus on what your mentee is saying.
Keep all your senses open. You can get valuable information from all your senses. E.g. You see that your mentee is moving a lot. Is there something that makes them feel nervous?
Describe what you perceive if it attracts your attention. E.g. “I see you are moving a lot. Are you nervous?”
Show you are listening. Keep looking at your mentee while is talking, take notes, nod, say things like: “ok”, “I see” ...
Don’t think about an answer or advice before your mentee has finished speaking and you’ve got all the information needed to give proper advice.
Keep an open mind and don’t judge. Each of us has different feelings and thoughts depending on different factors (personality, life experience, etc.). Just listen to your mentee and try to understand their point of view.
Don’t interrupt. Sometimes you’ll feel pushed to share your experience or an anecdote of yourself, but don’t. Take a deep breath, keep listening to your mentee and wait for your turn while you listen.
Take notes if you need them. Instead of interrupting, take notes and bring your ideas when your mentee finishes speaking.
Listen to silence. Sometimes you’ll feel the hurry to speak when your mentee has paused speaking. Analyce that silence and try to understand what it means.
ASK. Asking is an art in itself. Here are some questions that can help you in your one-on-ones:
- Start a discussion:
  - What would you like to talk about?
- Deepen in a topic:
  - Do you want to tell me something else?
  - Anything else to add?
- Clarify:
  - Can you explain a bit more about that?
  - Can you give me an example?
- Offer help:
  - How can I help you?
  - What do you need from me?
  - Is there something I can do for you?
Reformulate, repeat or summarize. This helps to make sure you are correctly understanding your mentee’s message. Something like: “Ok, so If I’ve correctly understood…”
Validate feelings, needs and concerns. Validation is expressing acceptance of another person’s experience. Not sure what this means? Let’s go with an example!

Today you are feeling nervous. It is the first time you are going to [put here any task that puts you out of your comfort zone]. Then, you decide to share that worry with someone. And as a result, this person tells you: “Don’t feel nervous! It is not that difficult!”

Is that message helpful? Do you feel less nervous now? Or do you feel somehow bad or misunderstood, or even worthless?

Well, that’s normal. And probably next time you’ll think twice about sharing your concern with this colleague because your feelings haven’t been validated.

To avoid this, you can replace sentences like “Don’t feel…”, “You should take things easier.” or “Don’t give it that much importance” with "It is OK that you feel like that." or "That must be hard for you. Do you want to talk about it?". Give it a try!

And that's all!

But… maybe now you are thinking that there are too many things to learn or that it is too difficult for you to follow these tips.

If you think that, I can tell you active listening is a skill everyone can develop with will and practice, step by step.

Try one of the strategies and continue with another one.

Try and fail.

Try again.

It will need practice and patience from you… as learning coding does. But anytime is OK to start improving on it and, as you improve, you’ll notice that not only your one-on-ones improve, but so will your relationships inside and outside work.

So… what are you waiting for to start improving your active listening skills?