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Feedback Through Observing and Listening

Author: MayMay

Feedback

Feedback is more immediate and pervasive in interviews, and meaningful feedback, sent and received, is essential to verify what is being communicated and how well it is being communicated.

Feedback is both verbal (questions and answers, arguments and counterarguments, agreements and disagreements, challenged and compliances) and nonverbal (facial expressions, gestures, raised eyebrows, eye contact, vocal utterances, and posture).

We detect feedback through observing and listening. Observe everything that does and does not take place during an interview, including the tone of the interaction, seating arrangement, and proximity of the parties. Be particularly observant if changes in eye contact, posture, attentiveness, voice and manner.

Does the other party move closer or farther away?

Does the opening conversational tone become more or less formal as the interview progresses?

Does eye contact diminish?

Does the other party seem more or less willing to disclose information, feelings, and attitudes?

Be careful or reading too much into small nonverbal actions and changes.

An interviewer may not listen carefully to answers received, while an interviewee may not listen carefully to questions asked. Often we are concerned about our primary role as questioner or respondent that we do not listen.

"Most of our training has prepared us for talking, not listening"

There are four approaches to listening: for comprehension, for empathy, for evaluation, and for resolution. Each approach is designed to play a specific role in giving, receiving, and processing information during interview.

Listening for Comprehension

Listening for comprehension is primarily a method of receiving, understanding, and remembering a message as accurately and completely as possible. The goal is to concentrate on a question, answer, or reaction to understand and remain objective, not to make judgements.

The listening approach is essential when giving and getting information and during the first minutes of interview when determining how to react. Use these guidelines for listening for comprehension:

Listen attentively to a question before phrasing an answer.
Listen attentively to an answer before phrasing a question.
Be patient.
Listen for content and ideas.
Take notes to retain information.

Listening for Empathy

Listening for empathy is a method of communicating genuine concern, understanding, and involvement. Strive to put yourself in the other party's place to understand and appreciate what the party is experiencing and feeling.

Empathic listening is total and genuine response reassuring, comforting, expressing warmth, and showing unconditional regard. It is not synonymous with expressing sympathy, feeling sorry for someone, but the ability to put place one's self in another's situation. Follow these guidelines for listening with empathy:

Show you are interested.
Do not interrupt.
Be comfortable with strong display of emotion.
Remain non-evaluative or non-judgemental until there is no choice.
Listen with an eye toward giving opinion and directions.
Reply with tact and understanding.

Listening for Evaluation

Listening for evaluation or critical listening is a means of judging what you hear and observe.

It is essential in many interviews, but openly expressing criticism may diminish cooperation and levels of disclosure. Follow these guidelines for evaluative listening:

Listen carefully to entire questions and answers before judging.
Listen to content (reasoning, evidence, and words) and observe nonverbal elements (face, eye contact, voice, gestures, mannerisms).
If uncertain, ask for clarification.
Avoid defensive reactions.

Listening for Resolution

Dialogic listening focuses on ours rather than mine or yours and believes the agenda for resolving a problem or task supersedes the individual. Dialogic listening is most appropriate for problem-solving interviews when the goal is the resolution of a problem or task together.

Dialogic listening is like adding clay to a mold together, to see how the other person will react, what the person will add, and how this will affect the shape and content of the product. Follow these guidelines in listening for resolution:

Encourage equal interchanges between parties.
Trust the other party to make significant contributions.
Focus on the communication, not the psychology, of the interview.
Focus on the present rather than the past or future.
Paraphrase and add to the other party's responses and ideas.

Although insightful listening is critical to both parties, listening is difficult. It is an invisible skill, so it is difficult to learn by observing. We learn to be passive listeners as children, students, employees, and subordinates.

We've had experiences with persons who would not listen to us, regardless of what we had to say. There is hope, we can become effective listeners.

First: strive to be as satisfied a listener as you are a talker.

Second: overcome the "entertainment syndrome," the expectation that you must be entertained at all times and the attitude that anything "boring" is to be ignored.

Third: be an active listener by attending carefully and critically to content and nonverbal signals.

Fourth: concentrate on listening despite distractions such as physical surroundings, interruptions, mannerisms, appearance, and dress.

Fifth: use the most appropriate listening approaches during each interview.