Become a Better Facilitator With 5 Tips for Improving Your Active Listening Skills

The ability to be an active listener is pretty much a non-negotiable for facilitators, but that doesn’t mean the skill comes naturally to everyone.

In fact, when it comes to communication, what tends to be most in line with human nature is:

• Thinking ahead to what you’re going to say / how you want to reply
• Interjecting, or jumping in to respond even if you’re not able to play back what you heard
• Reacting before filtering your thoughts, or gut-checking them against personal bias, triggers, and baggage

These behaviors are pretty common, which is why active listening is all about building muscle memory.

While our pal Merriam Webster doesn’t have a definition for the phrase, it can generally be understood as a method for listening and responding to another person — both verbally and nonverbally — that increases empathy, understanding, and alignment between people.

You can see why it’s so important to the field of facilitation: we facilitators listen to people all day long! And it’s up to us to receive information, synthesize it, play it back, and paraphrase what we’ve heard. Why? It builds trust, drives understanding and collaboration, and helps teams align and gain clarity (which is likely something they’ve struggled to achieve on their own, hence the importance of guidance from a facilitator).

If you want a little support honing your active listening skills, here are 5 actionable tips you can start folding into your facilitation practice to make your sessions a more positive experience for everyone:

1. Ditch the performance mindset. The most common way we fall out of touch with active listening is when we start thinking ahead to our own responses. When you release yourself from the notion of needing to have all the answers, or being the “boss” of the meeting, it allows you to step more confidently into the role of a listener and guide. From this safe space, you can ask all the questions (even the so-called “dumb” ones), foster group exploration, and democratize sharing across participants. (More on moving from a performance mindset to a curiosity mindset here.)
2. Ask clarifying questions, and play back what you’ve heard. Not only will this help people feel more seen and heard, but it will also support group understanding, team alignment, and move everyone more quickly and confidently through the work.
3. Tap into the nonverbals. Hold eye contact, keep your body language open, and don’t check your phone (even if that means you need to buy timers rather than use your phone as a timer). This will help you stay focused and present with the people you’re communicating with.
4. Drop the judgment. This might seem obvious, but it’s human nature to jump to conclusions and make assumptions about others. As a professional facilitator, I’m telling you, it’s critical to check this at the door. This can sometimes manifest in a less obvious way — like feeling an aversion to a certain participant, or like they rub you the wrong way — which usually results in an emotional reaction. If you find this happening to you, ask yourself: “Am I having a negative response to this person because of my own baggage or triggers?” Acknowledge your sh*t, set it down, then stay present with the group and what’s being shared. (Note: It’s important to clarify that this is different from handling someone who is being disruptive, rude, or offensive — these behaviors need to be addressed right away.)
5. Embrace empathy. When you’re an active listener, you can create an energy that encourages people to feel more comfortable participating. Acknowledge contributions, validate ideas, and thank people for sharing — a little kindness goes a long way.

At the end of the day, facilitation work is as much about navigating your agenda as it is about managing the humans in the room. When you take your role as listener to the next level, it leads to better cohesion and outcomes, which is why every facilitator should prioritize fine-tuning these skills.

For more resources on fostering healthy group dynamics, check out this post about helping people feel more comfortable in meetings and workshops. And definitely look into the book Listen Like You Mean It by Ximena Vengoechea (it’s a personal favorite of mine!). She’s a Design Researcher who distilled lessons from her work into tips for better listening that are applicable across our personal and professional lives.

Leave a few claps if you found this helpful, and let me know in the comments if there are any active-listening techniques you practice when leading workshops and meetings.