Mastering Active Listening: Techniques, Benefits, and Examples

Posted on Mar 4, 2025 in Naval Architecture

Five Key Elements of Active Listening

The key elements of active listening listed below will help you listen to the other person and increase the likelihood that the other person knows you are listening to them.

1. Pay Attention

  • Ensure you face the speaker.
  • Give the speaker your undivided attention and acknowledge their message.
  • Don’t look at your watch, phone, other people, or activities in or beyond the room.
  • Refrain from side conversations (even if they are whispered).

2. Show That You Are Listening

  • Be aware of your body language—crossed arms can make you seem closed or negative.
  • Encourage the speaker to continue with short verbal comments.
  • Ensure your posture and demeanor are open and inviting.
  • Offer some facial expressions, such as a nod or a smile.

3. Provide Feedback

  • Ask related and relevant questions.
  • Reflect on what has been said by paraphrasing.
  • Seek clarification.
  • Summarize the speaker’s comments.

4. Respond Appropriately

  • Assert your opinion(s) respectfully.
  • Avoid attacking the speaker verbally or otherwise putting them down.
  • Avoid interrupting the speaker unnecessarily.
  • Respond openly and honestly, with an appropriate tone of voice.
  • Treat the other person as you would want to be treated.

5. Defer Judgment

  • Avoid making assumptions.
  • Be empathetic and nonjudgmental.
  • Consider the communication from the perspective of the speaker.
  • Let the presentation run its course.
  • Listen to the entire message before interjecting with your own comments.

Paraphrasing in Active Listening

In active listening, paraphrasing involves a restatement of the information given by the speaker in your own words.

The use of paraphrasing:

  • Demonstrates to the speaker both that you are listening to them and actually understanding what they are saying.
  • Enables you to ensure that your interpretation and/or understanding of the ideas is correct.
  • Enables other people to check that they have also understood the ideas presented.

Examples of paraphrasing statements include:

  • I’m not sure I’m with you but…
  • If I’m hearing you correctly…
  • It appears to you…
  • Listening to you it seems as if…
  • So, as you see it…
  • The thing you feel is most important is…
  • To me it’s almost like you’re saying…

Open-Ended Questions in Active Listening

In active listening, open-ended questions are questions that cannot be answered with YES or NO. These questions encourage the speaker to provide more information.

The use of open-ended questions:

  • Encourages the speaker to expand on the subject in a more comprehensive way.
  • Lets the speaker know that their ideas matter to you.
  • Relaxes the people around you.

Examples of open-ended questions include:

  • What alternatives have you thought about…?
  • What do you mean by…?
  • What could some of the consequences be…?
  • What other possibilities are there…?
  • What were the considerations that led up to this…?
  • Why is this element the most important aspect?
  • Where might this rule not necessarily hold true?
  • How else could this situation be explained?

Nonverbal Gestures in Active Listening

In many ways, active listening is characterized more by what is not done, than what is done. Beyond the words, there will be a host of clues as to what the speaker or listener is communicating. You should avoid sending out negative nonverbal gestures, because if you are too immersed in yourself, others will feel you are uninterested, disrespectful and/or rude.

Examples of inappropriate nonverbal gestures include:

  • Entering the room/situation late without an apology or valid reason.
  • Fidgeting or making distracting physical movements.
  • Multitasking, e.g., checking SMS messages.
  • Yawning, looking around the room or off into the distance.

Benefits of Active Listening

Expressing your thoughts, feelings, and opinions clearly and effectively is part of the communication process. Such expression is complemented by actively listening to and understanding the messages others are trying to get across to you. Indeed, good communication and understanding are made possible by active listening.

The way to improve your active listening skills is through practice. You should not allow yourself to become distracted by things that may be going on around you. Try to make a conscious effort to hear not only the words, but to truly hear what the other person is saying.

Genuine active listening will:

  • Encourage the speaker to keep talking.
  • Indicate that you are following the conversation.
  • Set a comfortable tone.
  • Signal to the speaker that you are attentive and interested.

Although you may not necessarily agree with others, you should come to appreciate the many experiences and perspectives that people can share.

Importantly, if a misunderstanding has occurred, active listening will enable communication to be clarified before any further confusion arises.

To help you improve your skills, implementation of some active listening strategies will help you to reduce the potential for stress and tension, elicit greater openness, and build rapport with your lecturers, tutors, and fellow students.

Steve Jobs Biography

Inventor (1955–2011)

Quick Facts

Name: Steve Jobs

Occupation: Inventor

Birth Date: February 24, 1955

Death Date: October 5, 2011

Education: Homestead High School, Reed College

Place of Birth: San Francisco, California

Place of Death: Palo Alto, California

AKA: Steven Jobs

Full Name: Steven Paul Jobs

Synopsis

Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Smart but directionless, Jobs experimented with different pursuits before starting Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak in 1976. Apple’s revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology, with Jobs having left the company in 1985 and returning more than a decade later. He died in 2011, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Early Life

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California, to Joanne Schieble (later Joanne Simpson) and Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave their unnamed son up for adoption. His father, Jandali, was a Syrian political science professor, and his mother, Schieble, worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Steve was placed for adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his biological parents.

The infant was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant, and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. The family lived in Mountain View, California, within the area that would later become known as Silicon Valley. As a boy, Jobs and his father worked on electronics in the family garage. Paul showed his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a hobby that instilled confidence, tenacity, and mechanical prowess in young Jobs.

While Jobs was always an intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. Jobs was a prankster in elementary school due to boredom, and his fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal that his parents declined.

A few years later, while Jobs was enrolled at Homestead High School, he was introduced to his future partner Steve Wozniak, who was attending the University of California, Berkeley. In a 2007 interview with PC World, Wozniak spoke about why he and Jobs clicked so well: “We both loved electronics and the way we used to hook up digital chips,” Wozniak said. “Very few people, especially back then, had any idea what chips were, how they worked, and what they could do. I had designed many computers, so I was way ahead of him in electronics and computer design, but we still had common interests. We both had pretty much sort of an independent attitude about things in the world. …”

Steve Jobs (2015), starring Michael Fassbender and directed by Danny Boyle.

Apple Computer

After high school, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Lacking direction, he dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes at the school. Jobs later recounted how one course in calligraphy developed his love of typography.

In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer with Atari. Several months later he left the company to find spiritual enlightenment in India, traveling further and experimenting with psychedelic drugs. In 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple Computer. The duo started in the Jobs family garage, funding their entrepreneurial venture by Jobs selling his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak selling his beloved scientific calculator.

Jobs and Wozniak are credited with revolutionizing the computer industry by democratizing the technology and making machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive, and accessible to everyday consumers. Wozniak conceived of a series of user-friendly personal computers, and—with Jobs in charge of marketing—Apple initially marketed the computers for $666.66 each. The Apple I earned the corporation around $774,000. Three years after the release of Apple’s second model, the Apple II, the company’s sales increased by 700 percent to $139 million. In 1980, Apple Computer became a publicly traded company, with a market value of $1.2 billion by the end of its very first day of trading. Jobs looked to marketing expert John Sculley of Pepsi-Cola to take over the role of CEO for Apple.

Departure from Company

However, the next several products from Apple suffered significant design flaws, resulting in recalls and consumer disappointment. IBM suddenly surpassed Apple in sales, and Apple had to compete with an IBM/PC-dominated business world. In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh, marketing the computer as a piece of a counterculture lifestyle: romantic, youthful, creative. But despite positive sales and performance superior to IBM’s PCs, the Macintosh was still not IBM-compatible. Sculley believed Jobs was hurting Apple, and the company’s executives began to phase him out.

Not actually having had an official title with the company he co-founded, Jobs was pushed into a more marginalized position and thus left Apple in 1985 to begin a new hardware and software enterprise called NeXT, Inc. The following year Jobs purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in Pixar’s potential, Jobs initially invested $50 million of his own money in the company. The studio went on to produce wildly popular movies such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles; Pixar’s films have collectively netted $4 billion. The studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Steve Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder.

Reinventing Apple

Despite Pixar’s success, NeXT, Inc. floundered in its attempts to sell its specialized operating system to mainstream America. Apple eventually bought the company in 1996 for $429 million. The following year, Jobs returned to his post as Apple’s CEO.

Just as Steve Jobs instigated Apple’s success in the 1970s, he is credited with revitalizing the company in the 1990s. With a new management team, altered stock options, and a self-imposed annual salary of $1 a year, Jobs put Apple back on track. His ingenious products (like the iMac), effective branding campaigns, and stylish designs caught the attention of consumers once again.

Pancreatic Cancer

In 2003, Jobs discovered that he had a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare but operable form of pancreatic cancer. Instead of immediately opting for surgery, Jobs chose to alter his pesco-vegetarian diet while weighing Eastern treatment options. For nine months, Jobs postponed surgery, making Apple’s board of directors nervous. Executives feared that shareholders would pull their stock if word got out that their CEO was ill. But in the end, Jobs’ confidentiality took precedence over shareholder disclosure. In 2004, he had a successful surgery to remove the pancreatic tumor. True to form, in subsequent years Jobs disclosed little about his health.

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Later Innovations

Apple introduced such revolutionary products as the Macbook Air, iPod, and iPhone, all of which have dictated the evolution of modern technology. Almost immediately after Apple releases a new product, competitors scramble to produce comparable technologies. Apple’s quarterly reports improved significantly in 2007: Stocks were worth $199.99 a share—a record-breaking number at that time—and the company boasted a staggering $1.58 billion profit, an $18 billion surplus in the bank, and zero debt.

In 2008, iTunes became the second-biggest music retailer in America—second only to Walmart, fueled by iTunes and iPod sales. Apple has also been ranked No. 1 on Fortune magazine’s list of “America’s Most Admired Companies,” as well as No. 1 among Fortune 500 companies for returns to shareholders.

Personal Life

Early in 2009, reports circulated about Jobs’ weight loss, some predicting his health issues had returned, which included a liver transplant. Jobs had responded to these concerns by stating he was dealing with a hormone imbalance. After nearly a year out of the spotlight, Steve Jobs delivered a keynote address at an invite-only Apple event September 9, 2009.

In respect to his personal life, Steve Jobs remained a private man who rarely disclosed information about his family. What is known is Jobs fathered a daughter with girlfriend Chrisann Brennan when he was 23. Jobs denied paternity of his daughter Lisa in court documents, claiming he was sterile. With Chrisann struggling financially for much of her life, Jobs did not initiate a relationship with his daughter until she was 7, but when she was a teenager she came to live with her father.

In the early 1990s, Jobs met Laurene Powell at Stanford business school, where Powell was an MBA student. They married on March 18, 1991, and lived together in Palo Alto, California, with their three children.

Death

On October 5, 2011, Apple Inc. announced that its co-founder had passed away. After battling pancreatic cancer for nearly a decade, Steve Jobs died in Palo Alto. He was 56 years old.

Books and Biopics

A number of books have been written on Jobs’ life and career, including an authorized 2011 general biography by Walter Isaacson, a 2012 young adult biography by Karen Blumenthal, and yet another title, 2015’s Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. The Isaacson work was critiqued for the depiction of its main subject by Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook, who succeeded Jobs.

Biopics inspired by the computer icon’s life have been released as well—namely the critically panned Jobs (2013), starring Ashton Kutcher, and

What is Group Discussion?

What is Group Discussion?

Group Discussion! Is a methodology or in a simple language you may call it an interview process or a group activity. It is used as one of the best tools to select the prospective candidates in a comparative perspective. GD may be used by an interviewer at an organization, colleges or even at different types of management competitions.

A GD is a methodology used by an organization to gauge whether the candidate has certain personality traits and/or skills that it desires in its members. In this methodology, the group of candidates is given a topic or a situation, given a few minutes to think about the same, and then asked to discuss the topic among themselves for 15-20 minutes. Freshersworld.com brings you an elaborate section for GD as you had ever seen anywhere else. It is a very useful tool to screen the candidate’s potential as well as their skills.

Some of the personality traits the GD is trying to gauge may include:

  • Communication skills
  • Interpersonal Skills
  • Leadership Skills
  • Motivational Skills
  • Team Building Skills
  • Analytical /Logical Skills
  • Reasoning ability
  • Different Thinking
  • Initiative
  • Assertiveness
  • Flexibility
  • Creativity
  • Ability to think on one’s feet
  • Why GDs are implemented commonly:

The reason why institutes put you through a Group discussion and an interview, after testing your technical and conceptual skills in an exam, is to get to know you as a person and gauge how well you will fit in their institute. GD evaluates how you can function as a part of a team. As a manager or as a member of an organization you will always be working in teams. Therefore how you interact in a team becomes an important criterion for your selection. Managers have to work in a team and get best results out of teamwork. That is the reason why management institutes include GD as a component of the selection procedure.

Company’s Perspective:

Companies conduct group discussion after the written test to know more about your:

  • Interactive Skills (how good you are at communication with other people)
  • Behavior (how open-minded are you in accepting views contrary to your own)
  • Participation (how good an active speaker you are & your attention to the discussion)
  • Contribution (how much importance do you give to the group objective as well as your own)

Aspects which make up a Group Discussion are:

  • Verbal Communication
  • Non-verbal behavior
  • Confirmation to norms
  • Decision making ability
  • Cooperation

You should try to be as true as possible to these aspects.

Leadership Skills for Effective Group Discussions

Productive business meetings require a leader with the ability to focus the discussion. Business owners with effective group leadership skills, including the ability to listen and organize discussions, can help the company focus on important details during meetings.

Organization

Effective business leaders plan the agenda for group discussions and develop a printed outline for the meetings. Groups have more productive discussions when everyone has a copy of the printed agenda before the discussion begins. This allows time to review the topics and focus on key issues. The printed agendas should include large blank spaces so attendees can make notes. The leader must also use organizational skills to focus the members on the agenda points during the discussion. Leaders calling attention to the specific agenda points keep the group discussion focused on decision-making.

Listening and Note Taking

Group leaders with highly developed listening skills are able to guide discussions by focusing on what each person is saying during the meeting, while at the same time taking notes as the conversation continues. By listening for repeated phrases and ideas, the leader can direct group members in reaching agreement on topics. For example, if a leader hears members repeatedly refer to job duties as “too complicated,” she should focus the discussion by asking group participants what specific things make the duties complicated.

Rephrasing

“Rephrasing” refers to techniques in which leaders ask for more clarification during a group discussion. The leader will typically ask group members for more in-depth opinions after restating the general discussion topic in new terms. Rephrasing allows group members to view topics from different angles and interpretations.

Emotional Control

The leader’s emotions, and the emotions of the group members, must be under control for effective discussion. Leadership requires developing a tough skin to take on the lead-discussion duties when tempers flare. Discussion leaders should work to diffuse anger and redirect the emotions with constructive suggestions. Addressing an emotional group member with questions about the reasons for the outburst can provide an avenue to discuss problems more constructively. After dealing with emotions, redirect the focus to agenda topics.

Mediation

Group members typically fall into different participant roles, particularly in permanent groups. Effective group leaders understand the unofficial roles group members take during the discussion and use these members to help mediate group problems. For example, the role of the “tension reducer” is to resolve conflict and anxiety, while the “task master” helps focus the group members on the purpose of the meeting. The leader uses the group’s tension reducer to assist in soothing feelings when group participants feel ideas weren’t given equal consideration by group members. The leader uses the group’s unofficial task master to help keep easily distracted group members focused on the agenda points.