[HN Gopher] Active listening: the Swiss Army Knife of communication
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Active listening: the Swiss Army Knife of communication
Author : lucidplot
Score : 161 points
Date : 2025-10-27 11:40 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (togetherlondon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (togetherlondon.com)
| layer8 wrote:
| > The active listening formula is simple: [...]
|
| The instructions sound a lot like what Weizenbaum programmed into
| ELIZA. :)
| lcuff wrote:
| Yup. Weizenbaum knew about active listening.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| Is there a decent prompt for getting a modem LLM to do this
| (but without the Eliza lack of imagination). Would be fun to
| try out.
| boncester wrote:
| That was excellent!
|
| Couple of tweaks though, try to avoid the same call for response,
| '..is that right?' or whatever. Patterns in speech become REALLY
| old REALLY quickly.. It can start to create a picture in their
| head that this is staged (and it kinda is) which then starts to
| cause them to raise walls up. Keep to the context of the question
| using whatever words you're comfy with 'X...? I got that right?',
| or 'soooooo... X yeah?' and they'll spot the pattern but because
| of the conversational nature of it their hackles will take a lot
| longer to raise.
|
| The other thing is putting pauses in. Yes pauses are remarkably
| powerful, actual dead air forces the other side to fill it, but
| it also creates a pressure vacuum, it FEELS like minor
| bullishness and can start causing combativeness. For me if I want
| the conversation to feel level between two equals I'll instead
| fill the pauses with word-salad appropriate to whatever the
| context is with a couple of words in there to ping reactions. 'Oh
| wow, yeah the more I think about this the more I'm just... wow.
| Yeah that's annoying', where 'the more I think' is reflecting
| back that I agree there's something to what they are saying and
| 'annoying' to cause them to reflect on the irritation, trying to
| draw out that feeling more so they can then talk about the next
| layer down, but it's still basically a pause, it quietly says 'I
| hear you, I don't have anything to say right now, so go on...'
| PandaRider wrote:
| I concur with you (that this is an excellent introduction)!
|
| Imo, your suggestions are more for intermediate/advanced active
| listeners that need to interact with folks in their job (e.g.
| bartenders, reporters, middle managers...).
|
| Still, I feel being repetitive (e.g. 'It sounds like XYZ...is
| that right?') is better than nothing. Sometimes, training
| wheels aren't bad when learning how to ride a bike.
| lucidplot wrote:
| author here. Exactly, "it sounds like" etc are training
| wheels. Use them while you figure out how to do the
| technique. And yes, when you're learning, it can sound
| stilted. As you master it, you don't need to use those exact
| phrases any more.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| Can we make it sound (and be) less like a mind trick by putting
| out opinion in.
|
| E.g.
|
| "I think Trumps approach to immigration will help increase jobs
| for Amercians and help the economy"
|
| "OK sounds like you are for stricter immigration enforcement. I
| actually disagree for various reasons, but I am interested in
| knowing why you see this as helping the economy. Maybe I am
| missing something in my analysis"
| notahacker wrote:
| That (particularly in the context of polarising politics)
| seems worse; it's basically the sea lion meme. Just feels
| like a really disingenuous way of saying "I fundamentally
| disagree, but you should feel obliged to spend time
| justifying your opinion anyway because I've responded to you
| in this faux polite tone".
| Loughla wrote:
| A polite tone also helps cover absolute dog shit nonsense
| arguments. You see it in the YouTube "debaters" that dunk
| on college kids. They keep a level head while college kids
| get angry. This hides that most of the debaters' "facts"
| are either opinion, out of date entirely, or just
| completely made up.
|
| Polite doesn't mean acting in good faith. People seem to
| forget that.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| You've got to be kidding. The couple of times someone tried this
| with me I stopped and asked what the F are you doing?
|
| It's very obviously fake. Seriously you can't see that?
| lcuff wrote:
| Nope, I don't see that. As a therapist, this is a big part of
| our training. Using it in a business context, there's more
| emphasis on ideas, whereas in therapy, you do ask people how it
| makes them feel. Often because people don't know how they feel,
| and that's important in intimate relationships.
|
| It can land as awkward, un-natural, yeah even 'fake' when it's
| being used by somebody who is just learning it and is
| practicing, though after time it will lose those qualities. If
| people you know are using this on you, they might need to own
| that they're trying something different to get you into a
| comfort zone before pressing on.
|
| No kidding here.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| > Using it in a business context, there's more emphasis on
| ideas
|
| No. It's a cheap trick to make me trust the interlocutor.
| Since it's not only cheap but effective, it's _entirely_ my
| choice whether I submit to it and "open up".
|
| In business the other side is anything but your therapist.
| econ wrote:
| I'm sure one can get better at pretending to care with
| practice.
|
| There are many roads to birthday parties from people you don't
| like who also don't like you. There will be many uninspired
| gifts.
| qwertytyyuu wrote:
| if somewhat is doing it poorly, it does feel really slimy
| lucidplot wrote:
| totally, it's the worst
| drcxd wrote:
| > Me: It sounds like you've got mixed emotions at the moment. On
| the one hand, you're happy that your boss says you're doing a
| good job. But you're questioning that, given the problems you're
| having with Legal. Did I get that right?
|
| No offense. However, this response from the first example feels
| robotic to me. It feels like I am talking with some kind of
| artificial intelligence. I guess we have to make it sounds more
| natural. In fact, the following examples feel more smooth to me.
| pacoverdi wrote:
| Exactly. I was actively reading until I reached that first
| example. Someone giving me such responses would make want to
| slap them in the face. Are you some old version of ChatGPT??
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| It requires some practice to pull this off correctly. I have met
| quite some people who followed the instructions but it felt very
| scripted. And often it's clear that they have ulterior motives
| and just use this as a tool.
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| Yeah, even in those examples it sounds contrived. Way too much
| "it sounds like you're feeling xyz" and "am I right?"
|
| If someone used that conversation template with me I'd wouldn't
| interpret it as an authentic discussion. At best I'd think it
| was therapy speak or they'd read some self-help "how to
| influence people" book.
|
| Like any tool though, knowing when and how to use it is the way
| to get the most out of it.
| nmstoker wrote:
| A new joiner colleague from another team tried this with me.
| The script was followed in such a clunky manner I started to
| wonder if that team had unwittingly hired someone with
| learning difficulties. Whatever the situation, they didn't
| benefit because they made a number of poor decisions on the
| back of the conversation, but I shouldn't write the technique
| off due to one poor adherent.
| enaaem wrote:
| The idea is to say more or less the same thing in your own
| words.
|
| "It sounds like you're feeling fed up" --> "Fed up?"
|
| Eventually you develop your own conversational template that
| is authentic and effective.
| lucidplot wrote:
| author here. Agree 100% - the idea of the examples is to
| get you to try out the technique. When we teach active
| listening, we start with "it sounds like" or "I'm hearing
| that" and the instruction to check that you got it right.
| As you get the hang of it, you don't have to use these
| guard rails any more.
|
| But really the difficult part for most people is the
| listening itself. Actually getting your head around what is
| going on for someone else.
| specproc wrote:
| I had a few sessions on it decades back as part of a conflict
| resolution course.
|
| I don't think I've ever applied it as described in the article
| or those sessions, but there were a few things from then that
| I've found to improve how I engage with people (when I
| remember).
|
| - ask questions regularly
|
| - make sure your questions are open-ended and can't be answered
| with a yes/no
|
| - avoid saying stuff like "you are like this" or "this is like
| that". It's safer to say things, particularly difficult things,
| from one's own perspective, e.g. "I think that".
| econ wrote:
| I was going to say this goes against everything the US stands
| for. It is like that time Jamie Oliver almost got fast food
| banned.
|
| In stead I'll share a funny routine/joke: If people interrupt me
| while I'm talking to them I tell them that if they do it again
| I'll slap them in the face. Inevitably they will do it again
| immediately. I then raise my hand and they stop talking half way
| their sentence. They make the best of faces.
|
| The message is clear tho, don't jump in front of my train of
| thought. It might not be a very big train, it might not go very
| fast, even I might have no idea where it is going or if it even
| is, it feels important to me. That is all that matters.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| That's not funny at all. That's abusive.
| econ wrote:
| Thanks for the perspective.
|
| I think civilized people talk in turns. If you chose to
| violate the social contract anything goes.
|
| I have a hard enough time remembering what I've already told
| people. I also have to account for half sentences? I'm
| supposed to remember where I was rudely interrupted and store
| their response where? Does it even relate to the topic?
|
| I also fear turning my head into a ravioli of sound bites.
| Like an aquarium with little chunks of thought floating
| around. Tiny insignificant chunks. Like death!
| rand17 wrote:
| English is not my mother tongue, so all I can say is no,
| that's not how communication works (of course you can think
| whatever you want or your neurons conjure up, I can't argue
| with what you think). Discourse analysis revolves around
| the dynamics of speaking, speakers and conversations:
| gender, age, empathy, attention there are lots of factors
| in play that decide who speaks and how or when the other
| party or parties can take turn (or whether the turn is
| given). Taking turns is not a social contract; it's a rule
| in your head. You're free to decide to punish people for
| violating rules in your head, but depending on the level of
| punishment, you may end up in court.
| squigz wrote:
| Do civilized people also use threats of violence when they
| don't get their way?
|
| Maybe try using your words instead.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| I like to think of it as playing ball. Sometimes people are
| just bad players. Sometimes people are in a bad mood.
|
| Just consider that physical intervention is not appropriate
| for most cases.
| dns_snek wrote:
| These are your personal preferences, not some "social
| contract". I'm completely fine with people interrupting me
| to correct something I said or to add an important detail I
| missed, and I tend to do the same.
|
| To see slightly diverging behaviors as uncivilized, to
| unilaterally demand that people change it to suit your
| preferences, and especially to threaten people with
| physical violence seems _really deeply troubling_ to me. I
| don 't think that's a good attitude to have at all.
|
| People have different cultural and personal expectations,
| quirks, even medical conditions (e.g. ADHD) that affect how
| they handle communication. You can ask people - politely -
| to try their best not to interrupt you because it makes
| communication difficult for you, otherwise walk away.
|
| I also have ADHD which makes me more prone to interrupting
| people and while I try my best not to, it happens. If I'm
| troubleshooting a problem for you and by the end of your
| second sentence I know what the immediate next step is but
| you keep talking about some irrelevant back-story, I will
| probably interrupt you - either that or my brain will
| completely miss what you're saying for the next 5 minutes,
| making sure that the thought in my head doesn't just -
| poof, disappear.
|
| Yes some people think I'm rude for that. No, I don't really
| care because it's not something I can change. Rude are the
| people unilaterally imposing arbitrary personal preferences
| onto other people.
| econ wrote:
| You have the right idea what should take priority when
| trying to accomplish something.
|
| If you interrupt me to correct me I actually admire it.
| Extra points if you get to do it twice in a sentence.
|
| I'm taking about repeatedly interrupting the next step
| with irrelevant back story or worse, a not even related
| topic.
|
| The big question I suppose is if your thoughts continue
| to go poof if you try harder to hold onto them.
| Izkata wrote:
| > If you chose to violate the social contract anything
| goes.
|
| Sounds like they never agreed to your version of this
| "contract", so they're not violating anything, you're just
| making excuses.
|
| (A social contract is not the same thing as a legal
| contract, but you seem to be treating it closer to the
| latter, which requires explicit agreement)
| racked wrote:
| I bet you're getting plenty of downvotes from the Yanks.
|
| Do elaborate on that first paragraph though please, I'm
| bursting with curiosity about what makes you see it that way.
| thereitgoes456 wrote:
| Maybe the downvotes are because of the jokes about assault?
| Etheryte wrote:
| That's not funny, that's messed up. In essence, you're saying
| that if someone else doesn't submit to your will, talking the
| way you want, there will be physical violence. And then you
| escalate that to an imminent threat. Doesn't that sound pretty
| fucked up to you? I understand you want people to be polite,
| but what you consider polite is not universal. If you don't
| like the way a conversation goes, you can exit the
| conversation, either by not participating or physically
| leaving, or if you want, interrupt them in turn. Threatening
| people with physical violence is not the answer.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| "You're not that guy pal" energy
| coldfoundry wrote:
| I'm confused. Isn't this more or less just listening to someone
| when they speak? I guess seeing it from their perspective isn't a
| default for some people?
|
| I usually work in analogies when trying to share my understanding
| of what they said, whether it is a story or a question.
|
| I may be misunderstanding this a bit, but the inverse or active
| listening seems to be someone who is distracted and not actually
| listening to another person? For example: "Wow, yeah, thats
| crazy" when someone is rambling.
| mordnis wrote:
| I have the same opinion. This is just a normal conversation. If
| I'm not doing this, I either want to rant to someone or I'm in
| a so hostile conversation that it doesn't make sense to do it.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I'm scared that people think actually listening and not just
| waiting to speak is a novel or new idea.
| jayd16 wrote:
| You've never experienced someone who isn't a good listener?
| It's fairly common and not always intentional.
|
| For example, Kids are great at rambling off information for
| attention. Active listening is a skill and isn't the default.
|
| Even if someone is listening, active listening is hearing what
| the partner says and attempting to intuit why they would think
| that and what assumptions they are making that may be different
| from your own.
| vlan0 wrote:
| Listening and responding is just like singing. If you are
| "thinking about it while doing it" it feel off to everyone. Like
| how singing is best when you embody the lessons and move your
| focus away from "getting it right". It has to feel like you and
| not you playing a character.
| lucidplot wrote:
| everybody has to learn to sing at some point. same goes for
| listening.
| Twirrim wrote:
| I've been using active listening approaches for about 6 years
| now, when I interview candidates, to great effect.
|
| I give a head's up to the candidate of what I'm going to do,
| right at the top after introducing myself. During the interview
| proper, I'll ask a question, and while the candidate is speaking,
| I'll make notes about what they've said. Then I read back to the
| candidates the notes I've written, asking clarifying questions,
| and seeing if there's anything that I've misunderstood or
| anything they'd like to expand on. I make it clear at the outset,
| and usually mention later on, that any mistake in the notes is on
| my part and that they should feel free to correct me. I've been
| surprised about how comfortable people have been to correct my
| misunderstandings. From time to time, I've even shared my screen
| so they can see what notes I've made. Once the interview is
| complete, I flesh out the notes with any impressions above and
| beyond the content, while I consider if I see them as a hire or
| no hire, and at what level.
|
| This has resulted in much more positive experiences all round in
| interviews. Candidates seem to relax quicker, and get into the
| flow of things more readily. They're able to talk more freely
| without fear of being misunderstood, knowing they've got a chance
| to correct any misunderstanding later on in the loop.
| twelvedogs wrote:
| i've often been surprised while working with kids that i'll be
| trying to manipulate them into a way of thinking about a
| problem or task and they ask me why i'm talking in that way or
| asking those (usually just prompting) questions
|
| i'll usually just tell them why i'm trying to manipulate them
| into thinking about the problem in the way i want (in kid
| friendly language) and they're perfectly fine with it. people
| don't really seem to mind being manipulated like that, they
| really just hate not understanding what's going on or being
| lied to.
| fumblertzu wrote:
| I also tend to think about this with the term manipulation,
| because it feels to me a bit like that. But in the end it
| really engages the other party to take their own steps and
| quetion what I am asking.
|
| I guess that is less manipulative than other communication
| approaches...
| jrs235 wrote:
| Thank you for using the correct vowel for your context. A pet
| peeve of mine is when people misuse flesh and flush. Flesh is
| adding to a body of work. Flush is removing unnecessary details
| from the work. One adds flesh to bones (an outline, draft,
| etc.). One flushes crap down the toilet, getting rid of it.
| christophilus wrote:
| Are you saying that you've heard people say something like,
| "let's flush this out"? I've never heard or read that before.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Never heard that either, and I've mostly worked in
| professional settings where there wasn't many native
| English speakers, but most of the communication was in
| English anyways, and don't recall hearing/seeing that once.
| And I'm usually slightly bothered by those silly things
| too.
| ddulaney wrote:
| Although, "let's flush this out" is also a hunting idiom,
| as in flushing out game. So that may be part of the
| confusion.
| jrs235 wrote:
| "I created a story in Jira. Next refinement session we need
| to flush out the details."
| christophilus wrote:
| To which the Jira bot should automatically reply, "We
| need to flush that sentence-- and Jira-- down the
| toilet."
| pedro_caetano wrote:
| Yes one should write flesh out rather than flush out.
| However, as someone who uses English as a second language,
| the concept of phrasal verbs is the single most non-intuitive
| thing (with the very real risk for severe faux pas).
|
| From your own words, to flesh out implies to me as a non-
| native that I remove flesh from said thing, when in reality
| the expression is to mean that you "add" flesh to bones. Very
| confusing.
| bbminner wrote:
| If people are talking about important personal matters, one might
| fall into the trap of thinking that one can understand another
| fully by asking more questions. Some authors argued that love and
| empathy starts precisely once you hit this boundary of your
| ability to perceive and understand another - it is a strange
| lived experience of living with the facts that something active
| and free and incomprehensible exists outside oneself, and still
| profoundly affects you.
| racked wrote:
| "The technique works by subverting standard social etiquette. The
| normal rules dictate that we take turns. I talk about myself,
| then you talk about yourself, etc. Active listening changes that.
| You are listening, they are talking. We do not take turns.
|
| You need to work hard to maintain these unusual rules. Your
| partner will try to give you a turn"
|
| This unwritten rule is not understood by many. There are plenty
| of people out there that are completely happy to drain you of
| your energy by talking endlessly about themselves. What I try to
| do in those situations is to assert my speaking time and if that
| doesn't change their attitude, it's bye bye, fuck off, go drain
| someone else.
| rationalpath wrote:
| Active listening isn't just a skill, it's a little act of
| kindness that makes people feel seen and understood.
| pillefitz wrote:
| Come on..
| iberator wrote:
| Funny, for me active discussion and interruptions are sign of
| ENGAGEMENT and I respect that a lot.
|
| From my personal experience people who are angry about
| interruptions are typically arogant and non empathic.
|
| I love heated debates. (Adhd, INTP, Central Europe)
| bityard wrote:
| So, I'm going to challenge you on that.
|
| First, let me describe myself. I'm not always great at
| explaining my thoughts to others in a meeting. The output
| peripheral bus has a lower clock speed than the CPU, if you
| catch my drift. If I'm not the one driving the meeting, I try
| to wait until I have a decent amount of context before offering
| my own thoughts. Most critically: I don't speak unless I have
| something important to say, because time is scarce and talking
| AT ALL is a very high effort activity for me.
|
| I really don't mind the occasional interruption or clarifying
| question. But if someone is constantly interrupting me every
| other sentence, it seems obvious to me that they either think
| their opinion is more important than mine, or they just like to
| hear themselves talk. In either case, the constant
| interruptions mean they don't actually care what I have to say,
| so there's no value in me trying to say it, and I just stop
| talking until they are done and let the conversation end
| naturally.
| iberator wrote:
| Sounds like skill issue. For me there is nothing more
| beautiful than fast active discussion about xyz. That's
| what's chatting about: people speak _together_, otherwise
| it's just slow slide show.
|
| Let be clear tho: I'm talking about positive mindset
| discussion and NOT shunning someone into silent submission.
| (That would be awful!)
| christophilus wrote:
| You and I would get along well. This active listening format
| would drive me crazy.
|
| I also see interruptions as going hand in hand with
| collaboration and engagement. I guess it's a personality thing.
| I'm adhd, INTJ, family hails from a part of the US northeast
| that is known to be direct and blunt.
| zkmon wrote:
| This works only under some assumptions about the context, who is
| talking and who is listening. Observe a heated debate between two
| adversaries. The more listening you do, the more you lose out.
| It's all about who got the mike for most of the time, not about
| who is listening and whether it is active listening or not.
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