Active Listening

There are several essential ingredients to being able to communicate with your clients and one is your ability to actively listen to what the client is saying and also what they are not saying.
Consider the value of:

1. Challenging ourselves about whose agenda we are on. This is challenging because as experts we often think we know best and the client knows nothing - this leads to us getting stuck in a one size fits all approach to our lessons. When you meet your client for the first time is that first lesson always conducted the same way? Do you find out enough about your client's goals and aspirations?
2. Understanding the client's goals, values and beliefs especially about what is achievable and what may not be achievable.
3. Listening not only to the words but taking into consideration the tone of voice and their body language.
4. Taking the time to summarise, paraphrase or repeat back what the client has said so that you can clarify and understand what the client means.
5. Encouraging people to explore their feelings, concerns, opinions and beliefs.
6. Helping put the client's ideas into a reality by building upon their suggestions and exploring with them their ideas.
7. Cyphering out the 'not useful' information and helping the client get to the point rather than having long descriptive stories that are not relevant to their progress.
8. Allowing the client to vent their frustration to be able to clear the air when any miscommunication has taken place.
   
   I will look at questioning in the next article about effective communication.