Presentation used at the #2012waic Conference - Ghent, Belgium

1. Appreciative Listening
Welcome
Claire Lustig-Rochet Madelyn Blair
www.appreciative-inquiry.fr www.pelerei.com

2. Purpose statement
To offer you :
- a moment for you to listen and being listened to
with an “appreciative ear” and
- a moment for noticing what is emerging.

3. Let me tell you a story about what
awakened my interest in listening and
hence brought me here hosting this
workshop

4. Steps
Review of a few models to bring everyone to the
same place
Practice
Noticing what is emerging : let’s take this to
another level

5. Active Listening
- The ‘mechanics’ of Active Listening
- Eye contact,
- Asking questions and listening to the end,
- Summarising « if I understand correctly »
- Body language : face, nodding, matching posture
- …
- What is behind the ’mechanics’ ?

6. Carl Rogers
- “Active Listening”, Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson,
1957 :
- “Listening is a growth experience” (for both parties)
- When people are listened to sensitively, they tend to listen to themselves
with more care and to make clear exactly what they are feeling and
thinking”.
- “Not the least important result of listening is the change that takes place
within the listener himself … listening tends to alter constructively the
attitudes of the listener”.
- “Create a climate which is neither critical, evaluative, nor
moralizing.”

7. Co-active coaching
H. Kimsey-House, K. Kimsey-House, P. Sandahl, and L. Whitworth
- Level 1 Listening : Internal Listening
- We listen to the words of the other person, but our attention is on what is
means to us personally. Receiving information from yourself.
- Level 2 Listening : Focussed Listening
- Sharp focus on the other person, not much awareness of the outside world.
- Receiving information from the other one.
- Level 3 Listening : Global listening
- Receiving information from everywhere, you and the other one being at the
center of the universe. Greater access to your intuition. Also called
environmental listening. Adjusting behaviour : performers, actors …

8. C. Otto Scharmer
Theory U - Presencing
Shifting the structure of our attention : four types of listening
- Downloading : listening by reconfirming habitual judgments
- Object focused or factual : focus on what differs from what you
already know. Basic mode of good science.
- Empathetic listening : activate the open heart : capactity to
connect directly to another person or living system. Profound shift beyond
the boundaries of our mental-cognitive organization. We begin to see how
the world unfolds through someone else’s eyes.
- Generative listening : requires us to access our open heart and
open will, our capacity to connect to the highest future possibility that
wants to emerge. Getting our (old) self out of the way in order to open a
space that allows for a different sense of presence to manifest.

9. Nancy Kline -Time to think
- We think we listen, but we don’t !”
- We finish each other’s sentences, we interrupt each other, we moan
together, we fill in the pauses with our own stories, we look at our watches,
we sigh, frown, tap our finger, read the newspaper, or walk away. We give
advice, give advice, give advice…
“Listening is a radical act”
• Everything we do depends for its quality on the thinking we do first
• Our thinking depends on the quality of our attention to each other
• Listening of this calibre ignites the human mind
• A thinking environment is the set of ten conditions under which human
beings can think for themselves – with rigour, imagination, courage and
grace. Amongst them : attention, equality and appreciation (5:1)
-

10. Practice
- The story belongs to the speaker !
- As listener :
- listen with full attention,
- no talking, commenting, don’t worry about pauses
- one question allowed if needed :
What more
do you think or feel or want to say ?

11. Tell your partner one thing you’ve
appreciated about him/her

12. Reflecting on the two parts (Talking and Listening)
identify what emerged that would make up for you
“Appreciative Listening” ?

13. Meaning making
• What is happening when we are listening ?
• What sort of presence are we offering ?
• What is the impact of our intention on our ability to listen ?
What more do we think, feel or want to say ?

14. Take away
What is the gift you are taking away from
this session ?

15. Thank you
- The open space group at the European AI network meeting
in Manchester, oct 2011 : Suzanne Quinney, Sarah Lewis,
Pauline Doyle
- The Design Experience Based Learning and Change group
from the NTL Lincoln workshop series, UK - april 2012 :
especially Lesley and Nick Moore