Now that you have identified what you should not be doing when listening to others, let’s see what you should be doing to increase the effectiveness of your conversation. Your objective is to establish rapport and you want others to listen to you, take your message seriously and treat you as a trusted buddy. The following summarise the key points.

• Reflect content. Use empathic communication to show that you care.
• Use body language effectively.
  • Use open body language to show that you are open to ideas.
  • Mirror others’ body language to establish rapport
• Reflect feelings. Acknowledge emotions and ask for emotions. For example,
  • “I understand this project must have been very hard to do, so congratulations on the great work. I just have one question, how do you feel now about the project? Do you feel it was worth the effort?”
• Do not evaluate or judge as you listen. Don’t be tempted to provide solutions immediately.
• Monitor expectations.
  • Check your own expectations and make sure you understand the limits of what you can achieve.
  • Check out the other person’s expectations and perception of you which might affect your relationship. You need to adjust their expectations to reality so that they will not be surprised later.
• Ask clarifying questions to show that you are listening
  • Don’t assume. Seek facts.
  • Use recap to show you understand the points that have been talked about so far.
  • Request expansion on topics.
• Use reciprocity
  • Make sure for everything you request you are prepared to give something in return. If you are constantly asking for favours, you may get some short terms results, but in the long term people may distance themselves from you.