Active Listening: The art of clarification.
May 31, 2025
“Is this real?”
Whether in a dream or just daydreaming at work, it’s a good question.
Consider your five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. These inputs are the only ways you receive information about the world. Then, the brain makes sense of all of this raw data and constructs its perceived reality – this is blue, that is cozy, they…are a threat.
Human biology has us constantly scanning for things that are unsafe. This negativity bias is one of a myriad of leaps in logic that can cause inaccurate perceptions of others.
And so, to this constructed reality in our heads, we pose our sage question: “Is this real?”
It’s important to check the actual facts – doubly so when feeling an emotional charge about someone else that is certain / assured / firm. Because the truth is that, based on our five sensory inputs, we can’t exactly know the heart of what’s going on within another person. If you want to know how the people around you see the world, you need to ask them.
On this blog we talk a lot about bringing curiosity to hardened stances in order to soften absolute thinking. It is key to opening up conversations and finding steps forward that otherwise can’t be seen. Asking a simple question like, “What did you mean by _____ (fill in the blank)” sets the stage for a dialogue.
But here’s an important addendum: after someone explains their perspective to you, try repeating it back to them in your own words. This simple exercise forces you to formulate their line of thinking within your head, and further allows the other person to clarify anything that is still misunderstood. Psychologists call this process looping.
Here’s a simple looping formula you can try in your next tough conversation:
- Summarize what you think the other person is saying in your own words.
- Ask if you’ve understood them correctly.
- If not, invite them to clarify: “What am I missing?”
- Repeat until they confirm you’ve got it right.
As an example, let’s imagine you’re having a disagreement with a coworker about the reason for missed deadlines. A project you were working on together was delivered late and no one on the team feels good about it. Here’s how the stand-up meeting discussing the elephant in the room might go:
You: “So, if I’m hearing you right, you’re frustrated because the project updates weren’t shared on time, and that made it hard for you to finish your part. Does that sound about right?”
Bob: “Yeah – and I also felt like I was left out of the loop when decisions were made.”
You: “Okay, so not only were the updates late, but you also felt excluded from the decision-making process.”
Bob: “That’s right. I just want to be kept in the loop so I can do my job well.”
This back-and-forth is looping in action. You paraphrase what you’ve heard, check if you got it right, and invite the other person to clarify or add more details. You keep looping until you both agree on the understanding.
This approach is deceptively simple, but it clarifies perspectives in emotionally-charged situations in a way that slows things down, calms emotions, and shows genuine effort to understand.
The result? Both people feel heard and understood, which disarms defensiveness and frustration. Misunderstandings are identified and defused like the explosive source of conflict they can be. Trust is built and the door opens to finding solutions together (on the same team rather than in competition).
Curiosity and structured dialogue are pivotal for resolving conflicts, transforming adversarial interactions into collaborative problem-solving by aligning perceived realities.
No one likes to think of themselves as a bad person and, more often than not, a clash of perspectives usually comes from a misunderstanding rather than some malicious intent that we otherwise might intuit.
People aren’t as clear as they think they are, and we aren’t as good at listening as we think we are either. Active listening requires the humility to admit this to ourselves. And then, we can make intentional efforts to ask questions and hear others’ viewpoints.
“Is this real?”
Maybe, after a tough conversation or ten, we can check the facts and bring a bit more clarity to get at the heart of this deceptively simple question.