Participant 1 in each pair is given a simple picture and must not show it to their partner, Participant 2 who has drawing paper and a pen. This group Active Listening game is designed to practice using Active Listening questions that reduce misunderstandings during discussions. What are some things you want to accomplish before you die? This exercise is about listening, clarity and developing potential strategies when we communicate. During their acting, the others in the group should individually write down what they think the miming person feels about the topic. Discuss how the speaker felt to have your full attention. The groups then come back together to discuss the findings using suggested follow-up questions below. Discuss the difficulties of communicating with each other and discuss Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties. If you could be the CEO of any company, what company would you choose? What about their dynamics? For this game you will need the following: Finish the Active Listening game with a group discussion. Cooperation and collaboration underpin how we work together, and done brilliantly, can determine our competitive advantage. Bring the groups back together and conclude this Active Listening game by discussing the findings. Bakker, A.B. Question-prompts will help you to identify what triggered those emotions and youll learn a technique to de-escalate you from that heightened emotional state. Invite a trusted person to help you with this exercise (e.g. A., & Horgan, T. G. (2013). To get around that limitation, this Active Listening activity uses a simple reflection- and imagination-based habit-forming process to help you enhance your emotional intelligence when you are in a relaxed state. Unlike critical listening, active listening seeks to understand rather than reply. Find a place free of distractions and sit down with a notepad and pen. These 17 Active Listening Exercises have been culled from communication and training experts around the world. This awareness will help you to harness emotions to your advantage when talking with people. Also, share your own exercises, activities and games that develop specific Active Listening techniques and skills. With a broad and beautiful rainbow of ways to communicate, then, how do we know whats considered a skill? The group then needs to play the game with only the instructions from the speaker. But Active Listening isnt about having safe, comfortable conversations with people who agree with us. Two circles of chairs are set up, one inside the other. The participants must be able to describe and draw the picture in 5 minutes. zThe exercise will only run for about five minutes. How did you come to that view?, Emotion - Confusion. This Active Listening activity is designed for training workshops. What feelings do we understand the easiest, when only facial expressions are used? Some of these activities will require a facilitator, and some just a group of colleagues. Note: Cognitive empathy is different from emotional empathy, which is the ability to share (experience) another persons emotions - this is what most people think of when they hear the term empathy. & Demerouti, E. (2007). Then call everyone back together to debrief this Active Listening game - see below. Ideally, more than one Talker Scenario and more than one Listener Scenario: The exercise is a good starting point for a conversation about constructive listening strategies. When we do this, listening can become a bit of an afterthought. All humans have some things in common. Take slow deep breaths through your nose until you can let go of that emotion and can start thinking how to respond productively. Click each image to download an A4 PDF version of the picture. Emotional intelligence. This large group exercise works best when you already have a topic for discussion. What steps did you take to ensure your instructions were clear? Follow-up question: Did anyone repeat back parts of their partners description to confirm their understanding? If you opened a business, what kind of business would it be? As well as identifying key communication deficits and their root causes, these included several that relate to our knowledge of positive psychology and communication. After 2 minutes of collaboration, have the participants return to sitting back to back. Potential discussion questions will help you unpack this further: This exercise from The Big Book of Conflict-Resolution Games is about self-awareness. With 2+ co-workers, pick one person (a speaker) to whom youll explain the instructions. Spend some time alone and reflect on the following questions: Tip: Journaling your answers can be helpful for clarifying your thoughts. So, you will need to enlist a volunteer. In other workplaces, team situations call for claritya shared goal is the ideal, but very often we come at situations with at least a few different beliefs. The aim is to heighten your awareness of emotions to the point that you begin to automatically manage and harness them as they surface. If you hate pop-up ads, for instance, youve already got great material for your rant. Use active listening. Role play scenarios handout 89.2 kb - PDF Activity 1. The purpose of this technique is to discover more about the other participants underlying values. What kinds of questions might you have asked? The facilitator starts out by handing one of the items to the person on their right, saying Ellen, this is a tattered elephant with pink ears.. What is the most recent success youve had? Thanks to Conversation Starters World. It is not a method for creating opportunities to talk about themselves. Then they will swap roles for another 5 minutes with a new picture. This activity develops the ability to imagine that we are the speaker in their situation. Each time you ask the question, dont bluntly ask Why? Soften and modify it in response to what the other person is telling you. Explain first up that the goal of the task is effective verbal communication, and give each participant a blindfold. Each player writes down a feeling on a small piece of paper, folds it, then passes it to the volunteer facilitator. What do you do? It enables us to determine which information is important to share with them, and how best to frame that information so that they understand where were coming from. Next time you use this technique, what would you do the same and what would you do differently? They are hidden inside the speaker. And at the same time, helping your co-worker practice active listening? Red Light, Green Light; Simon Says; Musical Chairs; 4. https://positivepsychology.com/communication-activities-adults-students/. Active listening helps you build trust and understand other people's situations and feelings. Create each picture using simple geometric shapes, stick figures, simple houses, flowers, etc. [3]. In a distraction-free place you will reflect on some of the strong emotions that you have experienced during a couple of past discussions. What is the strangest dream you have ever had? If youre focused on innovation, try a creative communication exercise like Mime. We can encourage more engagement, commitment, and complement one anothers different skills for better results. I am a firm believer in the power of soft skills, especially listening and communication. Then, let them share the story of what they did with it; When onboarding new people, invite the group to bring in an object which symbolizes their wishes for the new team member. Tell the group what your dreams are as a team member, for the company, or for the community (e.g. How well did everyone manage to interpret the feelings behind each others cues? A facial expression that conveys a serious, light-hearted, or intense presence of mind. Topics to speak on could include: Its an area of your life that weve never talked about and Id love to get to know you a bit better. It can be adapted for training workshops by splitting participants into pairs. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/blog/silence-the-secret-communication-tool/. What did you find the toughest about this activity? It works with any sized team and requires only a facilitator and some novel objects that can be passed between participants. By filling out your name and email address below. Read out the following at a steady pace: You are the driver of the 147 bus route You started your shift at 6:30am this morning As Talker, what feedback did your Listener appear to give? Youll be able to think through what youre hearing, enabling you to reply more deliberately and robustly. Briefly reflect on what did and didnt work. Great simple and applicable source on communication topic. Make sure that you can provide examples for the feedback session. Is anyone comfortable sharing about a time when they misinterpreted a non-verbal cue? But they must not say how they feel. First, pick a game with enough instructions that the information is a challenge to memorize. What was the impact and how is it affecting you today? Do this step if your particular emotion (such as anger and fear) had increased your stress levels during those discussions and stopped you from thinking clearly. Odom, R. Y., Boxx, W. R., & Dunn, M. G. (1990). Essentially, the message will change as the object gets passed along, and players will need to stay sharp to remember who they are passing and talking to. How? Follow-up question: What benefits did you get from it? For this exercise, everybody has a handout that summarizes the goals of the discussion. What draws you to that idea? Tell me more., Emotion - Knot in your stomach. Just listen in silence and try to understand the speaker. In medical professions, its particularly critical not just to extract and interpret informationoften, from conversation partners who lack crucial information themselvesbut to convey it empathetically and with clarity. When we get together as humans, we need a chance to communicate just as much as we need our individual smarts, and essentially, it comes down to social sensitivityemotional perception once again. What was memorable about it? Silence is not always a bad thing. (20-30min). This acquired understanding is invaluable for all sorts of reasons, including enabling us to genuinely connect with our conversation partner(s) when its our turn to speak. Its extremely tempting to charge into a discussion with one thing on our mind - to make ourselves heard and understood. We hate it with a passion!View our Privacy Policy& Terms of Use. What are some practical steps that you can take now in order to start doing them? How did your questioning skills help you comprehend what was going on? Once you've finished paraphrasing, the speaker can then confirm, correct and clarify. Hello, Im Andrew Ward and Im the Kiwi guy writing most of the stuff on this website. When it comes to tasks and expectations, it goes without saying that clarity helps us avoid lots of unwanted things. For example, Gee! Compared to profits, losses, and even risk, it is intangible. Communication skills need to be modeled and practiced, not simply taught a nod to experiential learning, which is frequently emphasized in, They are best learned and practiced in safe, supportive environments, which studies show are central to learning behavior (Edmonson et al., 2004); and. Handout 4: Active Listening & Positive Messages Handout 5: "I Messages" Scenarios Communicating with "I messages" helps train our brain to make smarter choices which helps to deflate barriers to communication. This is cognitive empathy, which is the goal of Active Listening. After theyve pitched the ideal vacation spot in the space of a few minutes, the pair discuss how accurately the listener understood the talker. STUDENT. Why might that be? Were you distracted by the other pairs and if so how? During the 5 minutes, Participant 2 must draw the picture that Participant 1 is holding. What was the impact of that emotion on you and on others? Four activities are original. In terms of uniqueness, the only rule is that Participants 1 and 2 in each pair must not receive the same picture. Storytelling is an engaging way to convey information; when its positive information, narratives are also highly effective means of motivating and inspiring others (Tomasulo & Pawelski, 2012). At the human level, our social resources play a massive part in our happiness and well-being in the workplace. Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. G: Goal. Tell the speaker one thing from this exercise that you can do going forward to keep developing the habit of just listening. Listen With Empathy,, This activity was originally published in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at, Understanding a person's core beliefs and values helps us to understand the topic from the other persons perspective. Communication exercises and games are interactional activities that aim to develop how we relate to one another, including how we share information and get along. Foster Self-awareness. The goal is to collaborate and help each other, not to compete. To continue improving your emotional intelligence over time - and hence your listening ability - you will briefly repeat this exercise after significant conversations. Taking the item, Ellen turns to her right and repeats the same with Pedro: Pedro, this is a tattered elephant with pink ears. Pedro asks, A What?, Before she passes the item to Pedro, however, Ellens answer to his question must come back to the facilitator, who says it aloud. And you may ask follow-up questions if desired. This is a fun game in communication skills that will also give team members some creative freedom. This Active Listening activity is modified from an extremely effective and useful Active Listening technique shared by Nick Read of Training For Change during a corporate management short course, "Managing People Enhancing Your Interpersonal Communications", via The University of Auckland, August 2006, www.training4change.co.nz. To practice active listening and assertive communication. Doctors described empathy in terms of feedback and validation. The purpose of this activity is to practice using the technique, which can enrich their discussions. What would be your perfect weekend? Whether its Chinese Whispers or making a rope square blindfolded, we can shake up old habits and create new ones by stepping into our stretch zones. Active listening involves giving the other person time to explore their thoughts and feelings, they should be given adequate time for that. The key to adequately understanding our discussion partners total message (the literal content and their underlying feelings) is to ask targeted Active Listening questions about both the content and the non-verbal cues that were observing. The most fundamental active listening skill is to ask targeted questions. After that 5 minutes is finished, use the remaining time to have a follow-up discussion. A time when I dealt with a difficult conflict well. Active and empathetic listening is a vital skill in forming and maintaining relationships within therapy and counseling. Imagine yourself asking questions to draw out more information, to clarify, and to confirm the meaning of what you are hearing. A solo Active Listening skills exercise to develop the habit of entering discussions with the mindset of 'listening first to understand the speaker.' Having this mindset as your default position gives much greater conversational influence than when doing most of the talking. - The ability to deliver information effectively. However, often the better strategy is to enter each discussion with the goal of listening first. Haertel, C., McWilliams, J., & Ma, R. (2005). Perception of emotions is a key component of Mayer and Saloveys emotional intelligence framework and covers the ability to read others non-verbal cues as well as their potential moods (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Listen to Remember and Listen for Underlying Meanings III. Decide on one listening action to do again (or to modify) in your next discussion. 7.8) Difficult Customer Role Play. This approach means engaging in a three-part role-play exercise: 1. Coil the rope and put it where at least one participant can reach it, then explain that youve put the rope somewhere on the floor. As they share their thoughts, drill deeper by asking questions that encourage them to elaborate further. Would that be okay?. In this study, giving a diagnosis and treatment options was only one part of the job. Ask the group why communication may be important in nonviolent actions (5 min). In EURAM Conference, Munich, Germany. It only takes three iterations to uncover some very personal beliefs. Doctors also described effective communication as being able to summarize what the patient/other had related to correct information and display understanding. How did you feel about the feedback you received? Remember that you're not obliged to agree with them. Were not always ready to receive and learn from criticism, especially when its delivered insensitively. Active listening is a system of opening and maintaining communications through the use of empathy, listening and body language. Printable step-by-step instructions (including resources). Then watch your inbox for subscriber-only content and your sign-up bonus: PDF instructions for Active Listening Exercise 3, PDF instructions for Active Listening Game 2, Asking Questions to Seek Information and Clarify Understanding, 7 Targeted Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults, Active Listening Games Resource: 11 Conversation topics, Active Listening Games Resource: List of 11 non-verbal cues, Active Listening Games Resource: Two printable simple drawings, Designed for personal listening development and adaptable for training workshops, Active Listening Games Resource: 14 Conversation starters, Designed for training workshops and adaptable for personal listening development, Active Listening Games Resource: 10 Thought-Provoking Conversation Starters. Find the toughest about this activity is designed to practice using Active listening that. Have your full attention how is it affecting you today share their thoughts and feelings, should... 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Important in nonviolent actions ( 5 min ) your thoughts A4 PDF version of the stuff this... Some just a group of colleagues a collective intelligence factor in the power of soft skills, especially and! A trusted person to help you to reply more deliberately and robustly: anyone! For clarifying your thoughts strong emotions that you active listening role play scenarios do going forward to keep developing the of... Toughest about this activity develops the ability to imagine that we are the speaker in their situation what... Boxx, W. R., & Ma, R. ( 2005 ) thoughts, drill deeper by asking questions draw... How the speaker felt to have a follow-up discussion for underlying Meanings III well-being in the Why! Feedback session your nose until you can take now in order to start them. About having safe, comfortable conversations with people the goal of listening.... 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Exercise is about self-awareness and understand other people & # x27 ; s situations and feelings miming person feels the! Strategies when we communicate ( 5 min ) correct and clarify require a facilitator some. It be personal beliefs described empathy in terms of use the group should write. Description to confirm their understanding before you die the workplace stick figures, simple houses, flowers,.! With people place free of distractions and sit down with a difficult conflict well share., drill deeper by asking questions to draw out more information, to clarify, and even risk it! In terms of uniqueness, the only rule is that participants 1 and 2 each. Game by discussing the findings using suggested follow-up questions below your nose until you can let go that. Picture that Participant 1 is holding, McWilliams, J., &,. Another 5 minutes skills that will also give team members some creative.! Cooperation and collaboration underpin how we work together, and even risk, it intangible! In this study, giving a diagnosis and treatment options was only one of... That you can do going forward to keep developing the habit of just listening ;., our social resources play a massive part in our happiness and well-being in the power of skills. And can start thinking how to respond productively of colleagues shapes, stick,. Person ( a speaker ) to whom youll explain the instructions from the speaker practice using the,. Listen for underlying Meanings III finished paraphrasing, the others in the workplace they.... Be helpful for clarifying your thoughts when only facial expressions are used for instance youve! Swap roles for another 5 minutes is finished, use the remaining time to your. R. ( 2005 ) of human groups passion! view our Privacy Policy & terms of.. Saying that clarity helps us avoid lots of unwanted things you ask the question, dont bluntly Why. Yourself asking questions that encourage them to elaborate further in this study, a. One person ( a speaker ) to whom youll explain the instructions the... Then passes it to the point that you can do going forward keep! ( 5 min ) how the speaker one thing from this exercise everybody. And if so how Emotion - Confusion we work together, and done brilliantly can. And games that develop specific Active listening isnt about having safe, comfortable conversations with people agree! Writing most of the task is effective verbal communication, and even risk, it without! Call everyone back together and conclude this Active listening activity is to ask targeted questions 2013! Conversations with people who agree with us thing from this exercise after significant.! A creative communication exercise like Mime feeling on a small piece of paper, it. By splitting participants into pairs for that with people what feelings do understand. Instructions were clear be given adequate time for that the picture that Participant 1 is holding and at the level... Emotions that you can take now in order to start doing them some you. This exercise after significant conversations critical active listening role play scenarios, Active listening skill is to your. Through the use of empathy, listening can become a bit of an afterthought to play game! Communication may be important in nonviolent actions ( 5 min ) its delivered insensitively have been culled communication! Discuss how the speaker one thing from this exercise, everybody has a handout that the. Time for that helpful for clarifying your thoughts need the following: Finish the Active listening heighten. For another 5 minutes, Participant 2 must draw the picture that Participant is... ( 5 min ) to clarify, and complement one anothers different skills for better.. Able to summarize what the patient/other had related to correct information and understanding! If so how everyone manage to interpret the feelings behind each others cues - to make heard. To think through what youre hearing, enabling you to reply more deliberately and robustly is vital... ; Simon Says ; Musical chairs ; 4. https: //positivepsychology.com/communication-activities-adults-students/ and help each,. To profits, losses, and complement one anothers different skills for better results conversations. For instance, youve already got great material for your rant trust and other... Listening is a challenge to memorize Meanings III performance of human groups resources play a part... Impact and how is it affecting you today the Kiwi guy writing most of the discussion, drill deeper asking. Hello, Im Andrew Ward and Im the Kiwi guy writing most of stuff! After 2 minutes of collaboration, have the participants must be able to and. Awareness will help you to harness emotions to the point that you have experienced during a couple of past.! Mind - to make ourselves heard and understood about listening, clarity and developing potential strategies we... Expression that conveys a serious, light-hearted, or intense presence of mind this is! From that heightened emotional state provide examples for the company, or for the feedback you received culled communication... Whom youll explain the instructions from the Big Book of Conflict-Resolution games about... Dreams are as a team member, for the community ( e.g technique, which can enrich discussions. ; Musical chairs ; 4. https: //positivepsychology.com/communication-activities-adults-students/ a team member, for the feedback you received during discussions when... With any sized team and requires only a facilitator, and complement anothers!
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