Unlike the attending skills I previously discussed, following Skills require more practice to master. They might look familiar, but putting them into practice will take some work. At their core, Following Skills are the activities that you do (and don’t do) to encourage the speaker to, well, speak without getting in their way. In fact, according to Bolton:

One of the primary tasks of a listener is to stay out of the other’s way so the listener can discover how the speaker views his situation.

Unfortunately, listeners don’t always get out of the way. They often ask too many questions, or their questions divert the conversation in directions the speaker didn’t want to go. How many times have you wanted to talk about something, but your listener started asking questions about things that were only peripherally related to your topic?

Following skills include:

• Door Openers. Per Bolton, a door opener is “a noncoercive invitation to talk.” Sometimes it’s as simple as “What’s on your mind?” or “You don’t seem yourself lately.” According to Bolton, door openers have four parts, though not each part is present in every door opener:

  1. Description of the other person’s body language
  2. An invitation to talk or to continue talking
  3. Silence; that is, give the person a chance to respond.
  4. Attending. (All the skills I talked about here.)

  Keep these guidelines in mind when “opening the door on a conversation”:

  1. Do not use roadblocks when you should be using a door opener. More on roadblocks later. For now, know that roadblocks are comments that actually dissuade a person from talking instead of encouraging them to talk.
  2. If the person doesn’t want to talk, don’t force the issue.
  3. Only use door openers when you have time to commit to the conversation. Giving the person an opportunity to talk and then cutting them short will make it that much difficult for them to open up later.
• Minimal Encourages. These are “brief indicators to the other person that you are with them”. They are minimal because the speaker says very little, but they encourage the speaker to continue talking because they communicate that you are interested and are following them. Minimal encourages include nodding your head, saying “mm-hmm”, or offering other short phrases.

• Infrequent Questions. Questions can either help draw the speaker out, or they can direct the conversation away from the real issue the speaker wants to discuss. Using infrequent questions “helps you better understand the speaker without directing the conversation”. However, most people, myself included, ask too many questions. If you find yourself down the rabbit howl of asking too many questions, try turning your next question into a statement; as Bolton says:

  …most questions can be expressed as statements and that doing so generally is far more productive in a conversation than repeated questioning.

• Attentive Silence. One of the best quotes from Bolton’s book starts out his section on Attentive Silence:

  The beginning listener needs to learn the value of silence in freeing the speaker to think, feel, and express himself. “The beginning of wisdom is silence,” said a Hebrew sage. “The second stage is listening.”

  Many of my friends and co-workers are uncomfortable with silence. Any pause I might give to my conversation is often filled with the other person’s voice. Bolton likens these people to the character in Waiting for Godot who said: “Let us try to converse calmly since we are incapable of keeping silent.”

  During silence pauses in a conversation, a good listener does the following:

  1. Attends.
  2. Observes facial expressions, posture, gestures; hears what the speaker’s body is saying.
  3. Thinks about what the other person is communicating, reflecting on both the speaker’s message as well his emotions.

  Like the other following skills, silence can be taken to extremes as well: Too much silence communicates disinterest.

Unlike attending skills, which you probably already knew how to use, following skills will take time to master. Be patient. I’ve been practicing these skills for the past 2 years and am still learning. Don’t let that intimidate you, though. I’ve been talking for nearly 30 years and have become quite proficient at it—just ask my wife! But I’ve only been listening—really listening—for 2 years. You wouldn’t expect a toddler to speak in complete sentences, would you? The important thing is to keep trying, keep practicing. Even as a growing novice, you will see a marked improvement in your conversations and even in the core of your relationships.

I’m certainly no expert on listening. Most of the ideas and all of the quotes come from an amazing book by Robert Bolton: People Skills. IMO, it is the greatest book on how to apply listening skills in your everyday life.