Becoming an effective listener
Featured in the Winning Teams training manual
By Tony Bray
Category: Team Building
Credit price: 2 download credits (Single user)
A winning team will already be good at meeting its customers’ and clients’ requirements and, to be able to do that, its members must first be able to understand exactly what people want. To do this there must be substantial questioning, followed by effective listening. Becoming a good listener is what this training activity is all about.
After a short briefing the participants are divided into teams of three and practise their listening skills. They rotate around three roles: speaker, listener and observer. The speaker talks on a subject of personal interest. The listener has to display a behaviour selected at random from one of a series of cards, unseen by either speaker or observer. After a few minutes, the observer leads a discussion about the impact of the listener’s behaviour on the speaker. They then change roles – the listener becomes the speaker, the observer becomes the listener, and so on until they have all tried the three roles at least twice.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to help participants to explore what’s involved in active listening.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 20 |
| Typical Duration: | 01:20:00 |
| No of Pages: | 9 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers in a wide variety of situations because the skill it aims to improve – listening – is used in every human interaction. In this particular training activity, the participants are encouraged to listen to what their customers/clients want from them, but you can use it in almost every team situation, including appraisals, influencing and problem solving.
Download the training activity, Becoming an effective listener as featured in the Fenman training manual; Winning Teams