When psychologist Robert Biswas-Diener told his friends he was writing a book on listening, they were confused.
“It was a real head-scratcher for them,” he tells CNBC Make It. “I’m a huge talker and I am not naturally a great listener.”
In Biswas-Diener’s upcoming book “Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection,” which he co-authored with positive psychology professor Christian van Nieuwerburgh, he wants to teach readers that just because a skill isn’t second-nature, doesn’t mean you can’t cultivate it.
“Listening is just full of really learnable skills,” he says.
And honing it can pay off both professionally and personally. After all, listening is a great tool for influencing people, navigating conflict, and soothing relationship skirmishes.
If you want to sharpen your listening skills, here is a three-step guide to get you started.
1. Set an intention
A good conversationalist doesn’t listen to one-up the other person, compare experiences, or give advice. Instead, they listen to validate the other person’s feelings.
“If I am listening in order to appreciate you or connect with you, I’m going to pay extra special attention to your emotion words, your tone of voice, to potential shared experiences or mutual enjoyment or hobbies,” Biswas-Diener.
Knowing and naming the purpose of your conversation beforehand will help your focus on what’s important or as Biswas-Diener says, “your intention directs your attention.”
2. Observe and notice
Keeping the purpose in mind, notice what seems important to the other person.
If they keep circling back to the same point again and again that might tell you they don’t feel heard. “They need to keep bringing it up or they need to keep processing it,” Biswas-Diener says.
The good news is most people are pretty good at observing their surroundings, he says: “Humans are naturally geared towards noticing, whether you think you’re a good listener or not.”
3. Ask questions
This might seem “counterintuitive” to listening, but asking questions is one of the best ways to show someone you’re paying attention.
“Questions are the most powerful tool in listening because they can invite so much more speaking and because they can influence the direction of the conversation,” Biswas-Diener says.
Be careful about which questions you ask, though, as not all queries signal interest.
There are some questions that turn people off, Alison Wood Brooks, a professor at Harvard Business School, told CNBC Make It earlier this year.
In her book, “Talk: The Science Of Conversation And The Art of Being Ourselves,” Brooks outlines three types of questions good conversationalists don’t ask.
- Boomerang questions: This refers to asking a question for the “sole and obvious purpose” of answering it yourself, Brooks writes in her book. If you want to share information about yourself, it’s best to just say so explicitly instead of trying to cloak your intention.
- Gotcha questions: Brooks defines “gotcha” questions as inquiries that are supposed to test another person’s knowledge. Let’s say a co-worker is talking about a new show they like. A gotcha response might look like “Oh really? I heard it wasn’t very good. What did you like about it?” Even if it comes from a genuine place of curiosity, this type of question can often be read as threatening.
- Repeated questions: Asking for the same information over and over again, even if you switch up the wording, can feel antagonistic.
While these steps might come more naturally to some than others, they are not unlearnable, as Biswas-Diener says. And, like any skill, you can get better by practicing.
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