Dec 08 06
CommTips #3: Playbacks (active listening)
By Maureen Taylor
How do you know if someone’s listening to you? People often give visual cues to indicate they’re paying attention to what you’re saying – but these cues can be deceiving.
Unfortunately, many of us listen lightly, or passively. We give people the visual cues that we’re listening, but we might actually be thinking about something else – like what we’re going to say next. Not only do we miss important information, but the other person doesn’t truly feel heard.
The solution to this problem is to become “active listeners.” One way to do this is to utilize a technique called Playbacks. To “playback” is to paraphrase the essence of what you’ve heard. This is not repeating exactly what the speaker said – just something to convey the gist of the speaker’s statements. By interjecting playbacks, you show the other person that you heard what they said.
EXAMPLES
Here are a few examples of playbacks.
Let me see if I’ve got this …
So what you’re saying is …
In summary …
In other words …
To be sure I’m tracking with you …
It’s not which of these phrases you use that’s important, it’s conveying to the speaker that you are listening and paying attention.
LOST CONVERSATIONS
You know those conversations that don’t seem to go anyplace? Oftentimes the reason is that neither party feels heard, so they just keep repeating the same information. Playbacks can help because they let the other person know what you’ve heard.
When you do a playback you’ll get one of three responses – the other person will either confirm that you’re right, correct you, or revise what you’ve said.
