Appreciative Listening

Welcome

Claire Lustig-Rochet Madelyn Blair www.appreciative-inquiry.fr www.pelerei.com

Purpose statement

To offer you : -  a moment for you to listen and being listened to with an “appreciative ear” and -  a moment for noticing what is emerging.

Let me tell you a story about what awakened my interest in listening and hence brought me here hosting this

workshop

Steps

Review of a few models to bring everyone to the same place

Practice

Noticing what is emerging : let’s take this to another level

Active Listening

-  The ‘mechanics’ of Active Listening

-  Eye contact, -  Asking questions and listening to the end, -  Summarising « if I understand correctly » -  Body language : face, nodding, matching posture -  …

-  What is behind the ’mechanics’ ?

Carl Rogers

-  “Active Listening”, Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson,

1957 :

-  “Listening is a growth experience” (for both parties) -  When people are listened to sensitively, they tend to listen to themselves

with more care and to make clear exactly what they are feeling and thinking”.

-  “Not the least important result of listening is the change that takes place within the listener himself … listening tends to alter constructively the attitudes of the listener”.

-  “Create a climate which is neither critical, evaluative, nor moralizing.”

Co-active coaching

H. Kimsey-House, K. Kimsey-House, P. Sandahl, and L. Whitworth -  Level 1 Listening : Internal Listening

-  We listen to the words of the other person, but our attention is on what is means to us personally. Receiving information from yourself.

-  Level 2 Listening : Focussed Listening - Sharp focus on the other person, not much awareness of the outside world. - Receiving information from the other one.

-  Level 3 Listening : Global listening - Receiving information from everywhere, you and the other one being at the center of the universe. Greater access to your intuition. Also called environmental listening. Adjusting behaviour : performers, actors …

C. Otto Scharmer Theory U - Presencing Shifting the structure of our attention : four types of listening

-  Downloading : listening by reconfirming habitual judgments

-  Object focused or factual : focus on what differs from what you already know. Basic mode of good science. -  Empathetic listening : activate the open heart : capactity to connect directly to another person or living system. Profound shift beyond the boundaries of our mental-cognitive organization. We begin to see how the world unfolds through someone else’s eyes. -  Generative listening : requires us to access our open heart and open will, our capacity to connect to the highest future possibility that wants to emerge. Getting our (old) self out of the way in order to open a space that allows for a different sense of presence to manifest.

Nancy Kline -Time to think

- We think we listen, but we don’t !” - We finish each other’s sentences, we interrupt each other, we moan together, we fill in the pauses with our own stories, we look at our watches, we sigh, frown, tap our finger, read the newspaper, or walk away. We give advice, give advice, give advice…

“Listening is a radical act” •  Everything we do depends for its quality on the thinking we do first •  Our thinking depends on the quality of our attention to each other •  Listening of this calibre ignites the human mind •  A thinking environment is the set of ten conditions under which human

beings can think for themselves – with rigour, imagination, courage and grace. Amongst them : attention, equality and appreciation (5:1)

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Practice

-  The story belongs to the speaker !

-  As listener : -  listen with full attention, -  no talking, commenting, don’t worry about pauses -  one question allowed if needed :

What more do you think or feel or want to say ?

Tell your partner one thing you’ve appreciated about him/her

Reflecting on the two parts (Talking and Listening)

identify what emerged that would make up for you

“Appreciative Listening” ?

Meaning making

•  What is happening when we are listening ? •  What sort of presence are we offering ? •  What is the impact of our intention on our ability to listen ?

What more do we think, feel or want to say ?

Take away

What is the gift you are taking away from this session ?

Thank you -  The open space group at the European AI network meeting in Manchester, oct 2011 : Suzanne Quinney, Sarah Lewis, Pauline Doyle

-  The Design Experience Based Learning and Change group from the NTL Lincoln workshop series, UK - april 2012 : especially Lesley and Nick Moore