promote collaboration. Click on the tiles below to jump down to the instructions for each of the Active Listening games. 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. As well as identifying key communication deficits and their root causes, these included several that relate to our knowledge of positive psychology and communication. If you have any great activities that we havent covered, do let us know! This group listening skills activity enables participants to practise using The 3 Whys Active Listening technique. Very insightful and interesting ways of training people for better workplace communication skills. How did you utilise the 2-minute collaboration pause? Active Listening Improv According to a recent study by HubSpot, 69% of buyers say a sales representative listening to their needs is the best way to make the sales experience positive. Very useful, insightful, and helpful. Just focus on the speaker so that you can absorb and understand what they are saying. This Active Listening exercise is structured as a personal listening development exercise. This large group exercise works best when you already have a topic for discussion. After everyone has attempted both roles, reassemble the group. Were you distracted by the other pairs and if so how? Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The participants are divided into groups of 5. Role play scenarios handout 89.2 kb - PDF Activity 1. So, you will need to enlist a volunteer. Download a printer friendly PDF from the box at the bottom of this page. Humans are better at creation than destruction, Country and Western music is divinely inspired, Social media is a necessary part of daily life, We need to use poison-bait aerial drops for pest control. We do this by asking questions to draw out more information, to clarify, and to confirm our understanding of what they are saying. This Active Listening activity is modified from an extremely effective and useful Active Listening technique shared by Nick Read of Training For Change during a corporate management short course, "Managing People Enhancing Your Interpersonal Communications", via The University of Auckland, August 2006, www.training4change.co.nz. If we want to communicate empathetically and build relationships with co-workersimportant social resourcespersonal storytelling is one way we can build our teams while developing communication skills. Read out the following at a steady pace: You are the driver of the 147 bus route You started your shift at 6:30am this morning Give Participant 2 a different simple picture and Participant 1 a blank sheet and pen. Think of a specific, regular discussion time that youre involved in. Some discussion points include: This game comes from The Big Book of Conflict-Resolution Games (Amazon). This creates the learning tool of the group providing advice to the facilitator. Some of these activities will require a facilitator, and some just a group of colleagues. As you can probably see, the activity is aimed at helping teammates appreciate that feedback has positive goals. Would that be okay?. This exercise is done with another person. Peer feedback is also a useful job resource when it comes to work engagement; as a form of social support, it can help stimulate our learning and developmentthat includes communication skills (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Bakker et al., 2008). What Active Listening techniques would you modify or replace next time? [1]. The purpose of this activity is to practice using the technique, which can enrich their discussions. If you opened a business, what kind of business would it be? Then, let them share the story of what they did with it; When onboarding new people, invite the group to bring in an object which symbolizes their wishes for the new team member. Communication exercises and games are interactional activities that aim to develop how we relate to one another, including how we share information and get along. Each group will receive one topic. Happily ever after: The use of stories to promote positive interventions. I think this is an excellent resource with a great outcome. Discuss the difficulties of communicating with each other and discuss Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties. The goal is for the other person to be heard, validated, and inspired to solve their problems. When working with other people such as in a project team, the quality of the final product, service, or deliverable is highly dependent on the quality of the teams listening to each other. Take a couple of minutes to imagine yourself doing that action. Deadlines, role boundaries, budgets, and the why, how, what of tasks. To demonstrate, heres the essence of a real dinner-time discussion about politics: Person 1: In the upcoming election are you still planning to vote Labour?, Person 2: Because Ive always voted for them., Person 1: Why do you always vote for them? Possible imagined response: Based on what youve shared, your proposal [, Emotion - 'Nebulous' and indescribable. Sometimes it gives us a chance to reflect, in others it creates a space for others to take the floor. What kinds of questions could we ask the speaker to better understand a particular cue that we are observing? Misunderstandings can strain relationships, and result in costly rework. What value do questioning skills have when were trying to understand others? And you may ask follow-up questions if desired. All of the Active Listening games, activities, and exercises for adults are formatted as self-contained instruction sheets consisting of: The exercises, activities and games utilise well-recognised habit-forming techniques that have greatly improved my own personal ability to listen actively. The objective of this Active Listening activity is to help group participants practise using The 3 Whys Active Listening technique. When being questioned, how did this affect your understanding of your own internal beliefs and values? Practicing it during our interactions with others enables us to validate their feelings and potentially avoid the stress of misunderstandings. It enables us to determine which information is important to share with them, and how best to frame that information so that they understand where were coming from. If you could call up anyone in the world and have a one hour conversation, who would you call? Time needed 60-90 minutes Resources needed Whiteboard, blackboard or butchers paper Marker pens How it's done The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Throughout the discussion, just listen. Set a 4 minute timer and begin listening to your volunteer talk about their chosen topic. The group then needs to play the game with only the instructions from the speaker. Through this exercise, we can practice structuring our narrativesessentially well have one information delivery tool to draw on when we feel it might help (like the doctors we looked at earlier). Odom, R. Y., Boxx, W. R., & Dunn, M. G. (1990). And lets make listening fashionable. Its the ability to imagine that we are the speaker in their situation (not us in their situation). Our non-verbal behavior and the way we speak is critical. In several sentences, the scenario outlines a situation where they are approached by a colleague with problems but might have other things on their plate. Heres an exercise on the pivotal role of clarification. [2]. Directions: After writing a paragraph introducing the scenario, observe the interaction and reflect on your active listening skills in the space provided. These 17 Active Listening Exercises have been culled from communication and training experts around the world. Imagine that time freezes for everyone but you for one day. Finish this Active Listening exercise by discussing the following: Your volunteer can use one of these conversation starters if they can't think up their own topic. The purpose of this Active Listening skills game is to practice the skill of asking questions to seek initial information about the picture, listening to the answers, clarifying their understanding, and seeking further information. Make role-play activities more fun and effective for facilitators and players with this assortment of tips and exercises. All humans have some things in common. There is no limit to the group size for this game, which requires only enough pens and paper for everybody. 4. How did you feel during the game? In a small paragraph, it should outline whats gone wrong (maybe its everything from a cracked smartphone screen to a delay during your commute). Describe a controversial opinion that you have. Active listening helps you build trust and understand other people's situations and feelings. In turn, this empowers you to offer support and empathy. I've grouped the 20+ exercises into 5 categories: I. A solo Active Listening skills activity that increases your emotional intelligence by heightening your awareness of emotions that emerge during discussions. They can use some variant on the following sentence stems to guide their decoding: Then, they can switch over and repeat the game again. Armed with their handouts, talkers begin to engage with the topic. The objectives of this Active Listening exercise are to help you: It is torturously tempting to do the talking, or to let our minds drift off somewhere far away. Active Listeners provide verbal and nonverbal feedback to show their sincere investment in what the speaker is sharing. Is now the best possible time to ask them for help on a task? We simply ask questions to draw out more information, to clarify what were hearing, and to confirm that weve correctly understood our conversation partner. B., Schaufeli, W. B., Leiter, M. P., & Taris, T. W. (2008). But active listening encourages pleasant social interactions, which in turn, these boost our well-being and life satisfaction (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). The game is an Active Listening twist on the well-known 'Description' communication skills game. They might be up to their ears in work, or their colleagues complaints might seem trivial. An Active Listening skills activity for pairs (or done with a volunteer). It might unearth an awareness of implicit assumptions, bringing our conscious attention to the role these play in our judgments. Youll be using your imagination to rehearse the act of listening. It involves listening closely, paraphrasing back to the speaker what you hear, clarifying what you think you hear, etc. Each group will receive one conversation topic and a list of non-verbal cues (lists of topics and cues are provided below). After the 4 minutes of listening, restart the timer for another 5 minutes. This listening skills game concludes with a group discussion on the difficulties of communicating with others, on Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties, and on how to use those strategies in real-life work situations. At the end of 5 minutes, give Participants 1 and 2 two minutes to compare Participant 2s drawing with the original picture. Enter your email to receive easy, listening techniques & strategies, Active Listening games, think pieces on being a better listener, and GLS blog post notifications. Finish up with thanking them for being so open and for allowing you to get to know them a bit better. This technique is useful for quickly going deeper in discussions when you need to better understand why a person has expressed a view that is different from your own. We can look at Learys Rose for more insights on how and why, but this time, the tip is to understand when to communicate or step back (Leary, 2004). Listen to Remember and Listen for Underlying Meanings III. To use the structure as an exercise, participants simply relate a narrative using CCSG. Its okay if participants choose the same cue. They will need to communicate those creative ideas to one another, but also engage in joint decision-making for the activity to be a success. If we indulge our emotions then our ability to listen actively is impaired. Recognising and Interpreting Non-Verbal Cues. Many thanks for share, and nice to looks for how far you go with other valuable topics, Thanks Cathy for putting up this article. Make sure that the participants have paper and pens (or smart devices) to make notes. Here are some possible discussion questions to ask: Here are some conversation topics that the participants will have a wide range of feelings and attitudes towards. How has your life changed because of them? Active listening is not planning your response to what the person is saying. Printable step-by-step instructions (including resources). 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. https://positivepsychology.com/communication-activities-adults-students/. Explain first up that the goal of the task is effective verbal communication, and give each participant a blindfold. Discuss what happened to your internal dialogue. Why was it important to make the decisions together? Once people get the gist of how to play with one item, the facilitator adds in the second by passing it to the left. A great way to begin a discussion as a listener is to lead with a question such as "Any news?" Crediting the source(s) of course. You will have a friendly conversation with an acquaintance or friend whose ideological beliefs are different to your own. And here, we have only one link rather than an entire chain of people. What are your thoughts regarding [. I need someone to help me with a listening exercise. Swap roles. The observer should see if the active listener is employing active listening techniques listed on the handout. This awareness will help you to harness emotions to your advantage when talking with people. Different studies vary on exactly how much of our intended message (and credibility) is non-verbal, but its undoubtedly important (DePaulo & Friedman, 1998; Knapp et al., 2013). Listen With Empathy,. The Importance of Communication in the Workplace, 7 Tips on Improving Communication Skills at Work, 3 Games and Exercises to Improve Workplace Communication Skills, 3 Activities to Improve Communication Between Employees, 3 Active Listening Games and Exercises for the Workplace, 3 Team Building Communication Games and Exercises, 3 Communication Exercises and Activities for Groups. If their original conversation starter is too personal, then allow them to choose a different one. Active listening involves giving the other person time to explore their thoughts and feelings, they should be given adequate time for that. Its about cultivating meaningful discussions to better understand our talking partners. Everyone knows the directions, and most people enjoy playing. Step 2: After the five-minute role play is completed, the speaker spends two minutes giving feedback to the listening partner on the effective listener skills used. Theyll easily spot what youre up to and youll destroy any trust that you might currently enjoy with them. We each have unique experiences, competencies, and viewpoints, the way we collaborate inevitably decides whether we synergize or fall flat. Asking Questions To Seek Information and Clarify Understanding. Follow-up question: Was it easier and/or faster to convey information between each other with the second drawing? Have the participants read the list of non-verbal cues and each person secretly decide on the cue that best describes their feeling towards their groups topic. Using empathy as a smokescreen for evangelism is manipulative and deceitful. Briefly share what you think you heard the speaker say (i.e. This is a fun game in communication skills that will also give team members some creative freedom. It also promotes collaboration. Rogers, C. R., & Farson, R. E. (1957). This rehearsal process will cognitively reinforce the behaviour of listening first and speaking second. Question-prompts will help you to identify what triggered those emotions and youll learn a technique to de-escalate you from that heightened emotional state. Poor listening results in misunderstandings. Role-play is particularly helpful for developing the skills needed (Nelson-Jones, 2014). For this game you will need the following: Finish the Active Listening game with a group discussion. The other participants try to guess that emotion and this should lead to a talk about the role of expressions. Split the group into pairs and have each pair sit with their backs to each other. 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. Thanks to Conversation Starters World. Built with love in the Netherlands. Red Light, Green Light; Simon Says; Musical Chairs; 4. Edmondson, A. C., Kramer, R. M., & Cook, K. S. (2004). It is not a method for creating opportunities to talk about themselves. Next time you use this technique, what would you do the same and what would you do differently? Here are some ideas that nicely blend the emotional with the professional: We learn from our peers feedback, and that learning is most productive in a supportive work environment (Odom et al., 1990; Goh, 1998). These science-based tools will help you and those you work with build better social skills and better connect with others. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. It's how they say it. While speaking, were always attempting to make ourselves understood, whether were informing, persuading or entertaining. Comes from the box at the end of 5 minutes or their colleagues complaints might trivial. 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