Listening: A Coomunication Tool

Introduction

Any interaction with others, whether at home, with friends, at college or at work, depends for success on your ability to listen. On committees, in conferences and in group discussions, listening is very important for every member of the group. It reduces verbal conflict and improves discussion. Those who do not listen carefully often bring up points which have been already made by others and waste the time of the meeting. Socially, good listening improves conversation and social relations. Real listening is an active process that has three basic steps as follows: 

    1.     Hearing 

    2.    Understanding

    3.    Judging

What is listening?

Listening is the receiver’s activity in communication. As the speaker has the responsibility to make effort to be understood, the listener also has the responsibility to be attentive and to make effort to understand the meaning of the speaker.

Definition – Listening is a process of receiving, interpreting and reacting to the message received from the communication sender.

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning. Listening is the active process of receiving and responding to spoken (and sometimes unspoken) message.

"There are four elements of good listening:

1. attention—the focused perception of both visual and verbal stimuli
2. hearing—the physiological act of 'opening the gates to your ears'
3. understanding—assigning meaning to the messages received
4. remembering—the storing of meaningful information

Common faults of Listening

Research studies shows that our listening efficiency is no better than 25-30 per cent. That means the considerable information is lost in the listening process. The reasons are as follows:

• Prejudice against the speaker – At times, we have conflict in our mind as to the speaker. Whatever he speaks seems to be colored and we practically don’t listen to what he says.
• Rehearsing – Your whole attention is on designing and preparing your next comment. You look interested, but your mind is going a mile a minute because you are thinking about what to say next. Some people rehearse whole chain of response: I’ll say, and then he’ll say, and so on.
• Judging negatively – If you prejudge somebody as incompetent or uninformed, you don’t pay much attention to what that person says. A basic rule of listening is that judgments should only be made after you have heard and evaluated the content of the message.
• Sparring – This block has you arguing and debating with people who never feel heard because you are so quick to disagree. In fact, your main focus is on finding things to disagree with.
• Being right – Being right means you will go to great lengths (twist the facts, start shouting, make excuses or accusations, call up last sins) to avoid being wrong. You can’t listen to criticism, you can’t be corrected, and you can’t take suggestions to change.
• Derailing – This listening block involves suddenly changing the subject. You derail the train of conversation when you get uncomfortable or bored with a topic. Another way of derailing is by joking.
• Placating – Right, absolutely, I know, of course you are, incredible, really? Use this type of words to be nice, pleasant and supportive.
• Premature evaluation – It often happens that we interrupt the speakers before they complete their thought or finish their sentence or state their conclusions. As a result of our rapid thinking speed, we race ahead of what we feel is the conclusion. We anticipate, we arrive at the concluding thought quickly although often that is quite different from what the speaker intended.
• Delivery – A monotonous delivery by the speaker can put listener to sleep or cause them to lose interest.
• External distraction – The entire physical environment affects the listening. Among the negative factors are noisy fans, poor or glaring lights, distracting background music, overheated or cold rooms and a conversation going on nearby.

Approaches to listening

Just as a carpenter or a chef uses different tools to tackle a job, listeners can take advantage of several skills for listening and responding to message at work. Different approaches to listening are discussed further:

Passive listening:

Sometimes the best approach to listening is to stay out of the way and encourage the speaker to keep going: hmmm, tell me more, really and so on. Non-verbal cues like eye contact, attentive posture and appropriate facial expressions are an important part of the passive listening. Generally, this approach is used when there is one to one conversation or the speaker is giving a formal presentation.

Questioning:

Sincere questions are genuine request for information: “when did you find that fuel was leaking from the barrel?”, “when did you inform your manager?” These questions may be used to gather facts and details clarify meanings and encourage a speaker to elaborate.

Paraphrasing:

Paraphrasing occurs when listener restate the speaker’s ideas in his own words in order to ensure that he has understood them correctly. This is often preceded by phrases such as “Let me make sure I understand what you are saying...” or “in other words you are saying…”. Paraphrasing is a practical technique that can highlight misunderstandings.

How to improve listening skills?

It helps build relationships, solve problems, ensure understanding, resolve conflicts, and improve accuracy. Here are some tips which can help to develop or improve listening skills.

   1)   Eye contact – At the time of communication the eye contact is a must. If there is no eye contact of listener with the speaker, the effective listening cannot be placed. So a listener must exhibit a behavior of making eye contact.

   2)   Bodily exhibition – Non-verbal signs can be used to execute affirmative head nods and appropriate facial expressions, eye contacts etc., convey certain things to the speaker. By this, a listener must show himself that he is listening.

   3)    Ask questions – An effective listener always asks questions, clarifies doubts, seeks explanations and ensures clear understanding. This makes the speaker realize that he is really listening.

   4)   Do not overtake – Some listener instead of listening to the speaker till they complete their version, speak their own ideas or points. An effective listener will never overtake the speaker. One cannot talk and listen at the same time.

   5)   Put the speaker at ease – By your attitude, help the speaker to be relaxed and be aware like willing listener. Eye contact made by the listener makes the speaker at ease.

   6)   Avoid premature arguments – Don’t interrupt question or argue about facts. “That’s not so…”, “prove it…” and other such interjections only serve to abort the discussion.

   7)   Stay objective – Try to avoid emotional involvement, simple try to understand the feelings or the point of view of the speaker. Do your evaluation later.

   8)   Remove distractions – Don’t doodle or play with papers, pencil or anything else. What about shutting a door or window to eliminate extraneous sound or turning of the radio.

   9)   Respect pauses and silenced – It is a all too common for us to jump in when the speaker pauses. Silence is an embarrassment for too many people. Don’t fall victim to this fault.

   10)Listen between the lines – what is not said is not important. Be alert to this: attitude, moods, and feelings often convey far more than words. It calls for strong feelings of empathy on the part of the listener. Try to find the right wavelength.

   11)Listening habits – One should be aware of listening habits. It is a willingness of human beings. It depends on the liking and disliking of speaker’s views. So, one should listen carefully.

   12)Listening to total meaning – Listen to the total meaning of the message being communicated. Don’t assume and don’t pass judgment quickly.

   13)Avoid fake attention – Many listener mistakes silence for listening. They develop the habit of faking attention. They steadfastly fix their eyes on the speaker and try to project themselves as good listener. They usually miss out many important points made by the speaker.

   14)No personal bias – It is always desirable to drop personal biases and attitudes about a speaker and his views. Listeners often prematurely dismiss lecture as uninteresting. They assume so and let their mind wander.