Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to number seven of this course. So lesson number seven of this course which is active listening. So active listening is key component and I say this for every single lesson. But if you don't look as though you're listening, and you don't actually listen, then you're going to miss out on a lot of information from the source and it could feasibly damage rapport. So this is it's important that you listen to people and you you are seem to be listening to people.

For those of you with children, if you ask them to do something, and they still continue to stare into the distance or at the TV, they are not actively listening. It's when they look at you in your eyes. They may put their fingers on their chin and we bow their head a little bit to the left. To the right, and they look as though they're listening. If you've got young children I eight or below, then there's a good chance they're not actually listening, they just looking as though they're listening but that's that's halfway there. So the aim of this is to divine to find active listening to identify blocks to active listening, and also to identify ways to overcome those blocks and look at some encouragement for active listening.

So active listening should be internal and external. So external by means by body language, as I said, maybe nodding your head. We'll get a couple of these in a few minutes anyway. But given the appearance that you're actually listening to the person, internal is actually listening to the person listen to what said, Listen to how it's being said. Look at the body language from the source if you can have that if you have that opportunity, or listen to their voice very carefully if it's over the phone or via some sort of app where you don't actually see them. But that's what should be in and out.

Both is preferable. It should be sensitive I, you should be reacting to what's being said. Remember previous lessons, I've said, Don't sympathize, empathize. Well, this is this is it via something bad from a source or something about their childhood or something that's happened in their village recently. And then you should be sensitive and respond to what they're saying, but be empathetic rather than sympathetic. And you should be reactive.

So if they're talking about something, if they're passing on information, and then they ask you a question, if you're daydreaming, if you're doodling on your notepads, Or if you're looking into space like my eight year old does, then there's a good chance you're going to damage rapport or you're going to miss out on the information. If you don't respond and react correctly to a question or to a point that they're discussing, then they may just continue on and go to suppose to start listening. So why am I bothering? The butler may be that they get paid at the end of it, but you're missing out potentially on some of information. So let's look at listening. Various types of listen in scanning, so you may be sitting in your office and noises are going backwards and forwards through your head but you're not taking a whole lot of notice of them.

There's nothing there of notes. You're not actively listening to someone. So things are happening in the background, but you're scanning. If you're speaking to a source it may be They're going on for a while or they're hard to listen to for various reasons. The Voice may be boring, and you start to scan, which means you could potentially be missing out on some valuable information. opportunistic eavesdropping.

In a restaurant, for instance, I'm quite often doing that and listening to conversations behind me where my partner is asking me questions, and I'm miles away and not not actually responding properly. So I'm listening opportunistically, to the conversation that goes on behind me, which may be more interesting than my partner. However, I'm damaging rapport and missing out information from my partner who's speaking to me. Pretend that this is not really a good thing to do with the source, but wives and husbands, you know, it's like, they'll be talking away about what they did at work and you're not really interested. So you're given all the tense, the external outward pretense of being interested or actively listening. Whereas inside, you're thinking about the soccer match, what's going to happen this evening?

What are you going to be doing tomorrow and so on and so forth anything but the conversation. That's also not a good idea when you're actively speaking and discussing things with the source. Now active obviously, is where all your senses are poured into the building and maintaining of rapport, listening to what the sources got to say, because you have to answer your information requirements for your client, and you're doing everything possible to ensure that the conversation flows properly and then the direction you want it to to answer your information requirements. So that is active listening. The purpose of it is, obviously to understand what's being said. Understand how it's being said because the body language could indicate something that pops up in motivation for instance on the town spotting in the ANP, OCC damper.

So it could indicate that they may be lying a little bit when they're when they're discussing certain points so you can then go back and clarify why did they change seat positions when they started talking about this person? Or why did they use a hand to mouth gesture when they were talking about this subject? She can go back and clarify and also means that if they just brush over something, neither we're talking about a vehicle now unless there was a blue car and they continue conversation, you can go back and get some more detail about the vehicle who was in it how many passengers registration number, make model type? Where Where did you see it? When did you see how have you seen it before? So you can go back and clear up what was pretty much drop out information as far as the vehicle encourages conversation.

So the more interest you take, the more questions you ask, the more information you're going to get. Obviously, if you're trying to control a conversation and keep keep the source within certain boundaries, you may not want to ask too many questions. But asking questions is a great form of active listeners shows you've been listening. And it helps maintain, build and establish rapport. So from start of a conversation, you are establishing rapport from the previous meeting, or if it's the first time you're establishing rapport with a brand new source, which is critical to building that whole relationship. It may be you've you've dealt with the source before so you all you want to do is build on that previous rapport and continue the relationship and you want to maintain it.

So you don't want to take any backward steps in this rapport building. So active listening One of those components of maintaining report and actually increasing it where possible. So how do how do we deal with blocks to active listening? And how do we identify them so where we are can be a blocked to active listening I we may not be able to fully hear the conversation in a vehicle for instance, if you're driving with the source or the sources on the phone and you're discussing something you may only be getting 50% of the conversation which is it's not necessarily good. You could be in a cafe or a bar or a restaurant, somewhere where there's other noises going on. And also distractions.

So in the bar you may be looking at something else you may be looking at the bar person may be looking in the cafe you're looking at the barista or they the coffee maker and tea maker rather than actively listening to your source, so distractions are prevalent depending on the environment. Some can be something physical I seating position, your body language. And also motivation may be a distractor to active listening, you may not be interested in the conversation, you're bored, you may be tired. It may be that you've got another three or four meetings coming up and you just feel worn out. Same from source, they may not be motivated, which is a failing on your part as a source handler. So you have to increase that motivation.

Get them to talk. And bear in mind that although you're actively listening to the source, when you start talking, you should be encouraging the source to actively listen as well. Familiar familiarity, it may be that you've met this person hundred times before It's just covering bother, it's boring. And you start to switch off that, in itself can reset your body language, and can also diminish your ability to listen to what what's being said. Also, there's a good chance that you'll be signaling this fact to the source. So active listening, remember is internal, you're listening actively really listening to what's being said.

But externally you're looking like you're listening to what's being said. If you're too familiar with the whole relationship, it may be start to switch off your body shows that to the source and therefore you're going to damage damage report, and you may not get all the information that you're hoping to the structure of the meeting, whether it's online or face to face, may be a block to active listening. Maybe you haven't gone through remember the welfare process Hi, allow you how's your family I remember your son was ill last time we spoke How is he now? discuss that a little bit. What is the source doing about this illness, the boys don't hospital or is back home. And then you go on to the right let's let's talk about the information requirements.

If you don't do that properly, if you don't go through the set process, every time you meet a source, that lack of structure or the change in structure may be an inhibitor to active listening for them to actively listen to you and you to active listen to the source. It could be that the meetings long one, your attention span has just deteriorated considerably. On average, I would expect the attention span to start to reach after about 20 minutes. And after 30 minutes you're probably listening to maybe one word and every two if that and it deteriorates, the longer it gets so plenty of meetings. Obviously, if there's a lot of information to pass, the meeting could take quite a while. And I've been in meetings for hours and hours and hours.

And it's very difficult. If that's the case, maybe you've got a co handle or someone else who works alongside with you, who can take over after maybe 30 minutes, give you a chance to stretch your legs, go and get some tea, reset your mind. And then you can take over again, another 2030 minutes. Or you have to try and fit it all in 2030 minutes, or you have to make yourself listen. And that could be after 20 or 30 minutes, you give yourself a break and say I'm just going to go to the toilet excuse me, it's not good to break up an interview or debrief or you know, the information flow. But sometimes you've got to do it because otherwise you're going to start to miss out on valuable information potentially.

Maybe you don't like the person or the information they're passing. For whatever reason you're prejudiced prejudice against them. Religion, all that stuff, politics. It's very hard. If you don't like the person that's sitting opposite, you pass that information, you don't like their politics, but you have to get over that you have to be professional. You have to get the information so you can answer your information requirements.

And make sure that the source doesn't get that physical message from you that you don't really like them because of their politics or religion or whatever else you need to be bigger than that. So preparing to listen. Research your source and subject so that obviously is looking at the background of the source, preparing for some welfare issues, if there are any, making sure you're going to check on their motivation, their access, the capability, the point of contact, and also the subject information requirements. What did you ask them to do? And that hopefully, we'll get some questions to the forefront of your mind. So you can start asking questions.

To look interested, and also answer your information requirements better. So remember, look back over what's been discussed what the requirements were from this source and any of the welfare issues that you may may crop up. give time to it. As I've said, prepare your meeting and give it the right amount of time it may be the meetings go on for longer than expected. But if you're used to talk to the source, you know that he or she may be able to download their information in the good 20 minutes. So give it time, but also factor in remember your welfare questions, your access questions, your motivation, questions, all the other stuff, and be prepared for your welfare to take up a good 10% of your time.

So maybe a 20 minute debrief is actually a 30 minute meeting. Prepare your room. If you're reaching them in a room, even if it's a cafe, you're at a table position them where you want them to sit, position yourself where you want you to sit. So the best thing to do is getting there a little bit early, don't get there too early, but get in there before you think the source is going to be there. Because once the source is seated, you don't want to start moving them around. That looks a bit ridiculous and it could damage report a little bit.

So if the sources already there, when you walk into the cafe, that's fine, leave them there. But if you get there, position yourself where you can see the room just in case you've been overlooked, or someone's eavesdropping, and it means you can maintain a sort of security Overwatch as well as having to listen to the download from the source. So be prepared to either stick with what you've got sources already sitting there, or get them to sit somewhere. It may be opposite there may be next to you. You may want them to look at a map or look at photographs or look at some rights. Or you just want to build rapport so you want to sit across the corner of the table from them and get a little bit closer.

As much as possible. avoid distractions. Obviously, if you're debriefing a source in your office, then that's a bit easier to control. Make sure they're not looking at a windows so they can see cars passing or children playing because that will be a distractor. So close the curtains, closed the blinds, position them where they can't be looking at the passing traffic. Same with online video conferencing.

Be careful what you have in the background. If you have bookshelves, they may start looking at what books you read. If you have children playing outside of a window behind you, they'll look at the children plane aircraft taking taking off from the airport next to your house they might see through the window on the video conference. So Reduce that as much as possible because that is a big distractor to the information flow. So techniques of active listening, look them in the eye as young kids, if you have young kid sorry, then you should be teaching them to look people in the eye when they speak to them. It's a bit of respect, but also it builds trust, it builds rapport.

And when you're looking them in the eye, it looks as though you're actively listening to them. nodding is a good one. Yep. Yep, you may not be agreeing with their thoughts or their comments, doesn't matter. Nothing is a sign that the conversation should continue. You should continue or the social continue talking.

So nodding every now and then. Don't nod crazily like a nodding dog in the back of the car. But every now and then just nod and it's a it's an encouragement for the source to keep talking. facial expressions were appropriate. shock, horror, laughter, joy, all that sort of stuff. It is an acting job.

A lot of human intelligence source handling is an acting job as an active acting job. So use facial expression expressions where appropriate. Smiling is always good. You're happy with the conversation, you're happy with the fact that the sources there or you're speaking to them on video conferencing. So Smile, smile at them. You're building rapport as well as active listening, you're checking their motivation, you're looking at their body language, looking possibly at the eye accessing cues, smile at them, and fill them full of confidence which in turn will encourage them to talk.

On the phone, if you talk to on the phone or an app, similar app, then all this stuff you should be doing on the other end of the line even though they can't see it. They will sense The fact that you're smiling, you're nodding, they're not going to see they're gonna fully appreciate what they're sensing. But the fact is, it will come out in your voice. If you're smiling and nodding. And using all the expressions you would if you're sitting right across the table with your source, then that helps conversation flow and gestures, hand gestures, you know, tell me more Tell me more hand to face justice. It's it's See, the police in the United Kingdom are trained to put their fingers on their chins a bit like Sherlock Holmes when he's pondering a problem.

So that when the source or in the case when a victim is talking to them, having their fingers rubbing their chin thoughtfully, is a sign that they're listening that actively listening. So encourages reflecting is playing a word back to To the source. So if a source tells you a car accident they saw, and they go through a whole paragraph of stuff and you say, blue car, they will go back and try and explain more about the blue car. Or it will encourage them to say your blue car. There were two people in it and registration numbers, Toyota, so on and so forth. So that word a mean word or words of encouragement that they've just said you play it back, that will encourage them to talk a bit more about that subject matter.

The same word paraphrasing. Okay. So you said that you saw a car accident, there was a blue car pulled out of a junction a white car came up the road didn't stop, hit the blue car on the side of the passenger. The front passenger side is that Correct. And they'll go yes. And they'll probably give you more information about that incident.

So paraphrasing means that you've been actively listening to what's just been said. And it's an encourager when you play it back to source to provide more information without actually asking a list of questions. So it develops the whole scenario. And summarizing, this is great. This is a great technique and it's great for you can use up phones like all these encourages us a bonus video conferencing, conferencing face to face interviews, and debriefs. You get to the end of a critical period and you may say, okay, right before we move on to the next bit of information, I'm just going to go back over what I believe you've said.

And then you just tell me if there's any other information. So you'll go back and talk about the debrief. And you'll say, Okay, well, this is what you were doing. You were in the car, you're driving up the road, you're going to drop your kids off to school. And then you're going to go to the shops. And then at this junction, a blue car pulled out and a white car that was coming the opposite direction, fell to stop, hit the blue car, and then carried on going, you stopped to help you go first aid to the passengers, and then the police came and you want to drop the kids off at school.

So that's summarizing, you can add in their additional questions. So you sure was a blue car? Yes. Okay. So the blue car pulled out the white car hit it. What was the making model of the white car.

So you're catching up and in there, you're adding in additional questions for clarity. But also, you're double checking that The source, the source gave you the story correctly, they may turn around said no, actually, I remember how it was the white car that pulled out, not the blue car. Okay, great. Well, let's discuss that in a little bit more detail. So we get the story correct. So it gives them the opportunity to hear the story from your point of view, to make sure that you've collected the information in the right order, and the right sort of information, and it's an act accurate according to their memory.

So summarizing, sort of key key parts in a download or in an interview, and also at the very end, okay, let's go across the key points at the end of the interview, you'll you'll hit on the major points, and you'll definitely have questions and they'll come up with more information. So summarizing is a great way of encouraging the flow of information without actually breaking up their their download. Silence Silence is a great tool. Not a lot of people use silence. Quite often if there's a break in the in the conversation, handlers will step in and say, Okay, well let's move on to the next subject, whereas maybe the source may have more to deliver. So using silence using silence where the body language is remembered stroking a chair and looking thoughtful nodding of the head.

Icontact is a great tool to encourage the source to continue talking. Because people when they're in an interview, or they're in a conversation, do not like silences. You'll get some people who can't shut up. You get some people who it's hard to get talking. But silence is a control. You can use it to control the conversation and encourage the conversation.

Usually hand gestures like Yeah, tell me more. Tell me why. So using using that whole sort of cycling hand gesture to say Great, tell me a little bit more about what happened in the car accident. And that can all be done in silence. Because if you leave things quiet that that there's an expectation that you want the source to continue talking and nine times out of 10 they will continue talking. conversational, conversational oil is all the above bits and pieces every now and then nodding of the head, the silence, making sure there's no distractions is all what we call oil to the conversation.

It keeps it flowing without any distractions and without any major silences where you have to do you have to put more input into the into the whole process. rapport building encourages will help you with rapport building, definitely because it shows you're listening. So active listening is potentially part of a huge part of rapport building, especially when you're debriefing so Body languages is absurd, usually nonverbal cues, even the way you sit in a chair, the way your legs are, you want to be more open and closed. So when you're open, it looks like you're more interested in the information and you're more open to take in new information. Camille verbal responses. Mm hmm.

That's sort of, okay. That's, that's great. And sort of sounds combined with the nodding of the head. The eye contact is a as another way of oiling the conversation and keeping source talking and mirroring matching your posture, your body language. If you mirror or match mirror means it's the same but opposite and matching it is pretty much the same of what the source is doing. A lot of people do it unconsciously or subconsciously.

Some will pick up a cup of tea during an interview and the other person will pick cup, a cup of tea, you lean forward, the other person believe forward, they cross their arms, your cross your arms, you look down and you see that your body, your body language is exactly the same but opposite of their body language you're mirroring, or it's exactly the same, you're matching. So that's, that's good, that builds the builds rapport. It's also an encouragement for them to talk. It means visually that you're agreeing with what they're saying pretty much or you're actively part of the conversation, even though you haven't said a thing for 20 minutes. And that whole body language and the conversational oil is a great means of maintaining and building the rapport and actively listening or showing your active listening. Your kinesthetic your touchy feely interview skills, as I said before, if they if they talk about something sad, then looks at Oh, that's that's terrible.

I didn't realize that your father died 10 years. years ago very, very sorry to hear that. But your long your body language will reflect that as well. And your whole language and mirror match them the language of your source in that if you speak to technically or the source doesn't use long words and you do, it can become a bit confusing for the source. So let the source talk in the language he or she is used to. And you use that same sort of language that same level of language, which will also in turn build rapport.

So some discourages your questioning style. If your questioning style is more like an interrogation that will put people off they will be looking for the door and going okay 20 minutes now I'm out of here and you're going to lose information and lose rapport as well. And appropriate questions if you drilling down too much, if they Know what your information required requirements are they've delivered the information but you continue digging down more and more and more for no apparent purpose. That could be inappropriate. If you're asking more and more questions about their wife or their husband or children, more than is comfortable for them. It's inappropriate.

So you have to be very careful, intrusive agenda. If they appreciate that, I start to appreciate that, actually, you have an agenda, your information requirements, have an agenda and you're applying that agenda to the conversation to the meeting. That may become a little bit too intrusive for them. So if it's a political agenda, and you don't want to introduce that to the source, your source to pass on the information that they've had they have and then you once your information requirements in in a way that's supposed to be answered. So be very careful not to apply whatever inclusive agenda you may have on to the source or into the conversation and your inappropriate nonverbal communications. So, if you're looking to relaxed in a conversation where maybe you should be leaning forward closer to the source to build rapport and actively listen, if you're back and your arms are out, and you're scratching your head, and you're looking around that is very bad, nonverbal communications and it sends the wrong message to the source, you have to be very careful.

And hark back to the mirroring and matching. So in summary, active listening is internal Alexa, what you show from your body language. The positioning, remember, is critical, but also in turn, actually listen to the conversation so you can replay it back a little bit to the source but also so that you pick it up information to answer your information requirements. It involves the application of quite a number of simple techniques, all of which you can practice at home. Active listening is, is a great skill when you've got it in. If you'd start to do it automatically during a conversation, it means it's one less thing to worry about.

When you're debriefing a source. It does require practice, keep the practice up, and also try try out some inappropriate body language. So when you're in a conversation with your wife, for instance, and you're talking about your day or her day, or your husband, you're talking about what he did, or what you did during the day. Try out some inappropriate language every now and then body language just to see how they respond. There's a good chance they'll look at you and go, you're not interested in what I'm saying. So you'll know fine, what not to do when you're speaking to your source and if Bear in mind that your tone of language is critical if you're speaking to someone on a phone or Skype or something like that.

So use your body language skills when you're talking to someone on a phone, because they will know that you're actively listening if you are. There's some YouTube links. Have a look at those. They'll give you a slightly different perspective and give you more of a visual overview. But pretty much that's it. If you have any questions, let me know.

Active listening is a great skill to have. It's good at job interviews, as well as source debriefing. So, practice it, make it perfect, and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks very much. Speak next time.