Start at the Beginning: How Better Listening Can Help You in Conflict
The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits is hosting “Start at the Beginning: How Better Listening Can Help You in Conflict:”
“Effectively handling conflict requires understanding the person you’re in conflict with. That understanding is dependent on listening well to them and showing that you’re hearing what they’re sharing. In this workshop, you will learn and practice two listening skills: Active Listening and Reflection.
Active Listening is a way of listening that demonstrates with non-verbal and verbal cues that you are paying attention. It is a practice that invites the listener to quiet their own thoughts and planned responses so that they can better hear what the other is communicating.
Reflection is another practice that can be used to demonstrate that you’ve heard what someone has said. When you reflect during a conversation, you verbalize what you’ve heard the other person say. This can give that person an opportunity to add to their comments, or even correct something that the listener didn’t hear clearly.
With conflict skills, practice is essential to being able to use them so we give ample time for everyone to get a feel for these listening skills.
In organizations, conflict can build over time because of long histories of people feeling like they’re not understood. These simple skills can rebuild that trust, with regular use showing people that, in fact, you are paying attention to them and care what they have to say.
This workshop is for
- Service providers: These skills will help you connect better with your clients and get clear about what they need.
- Leadership: Hear feedback from outside and within the organization to make improvements.
- All staff members: Build the skills to avoid misunderstandings with coworkers and quickly handle conflicts that arise.
Learning Objectives
- Identify signs of active listening
- Build active listening skills
- Learn how and why reflection works
- Build reflection skills
**This is a participatory workshop because these skills are best learned through practice: as the person showing active listening and reflection, and as the person receiving these. You will learn different things from experiencing both sides of these ways to listen.”