Chapter 6

Effective Listening

Distinguishing the Difference: Hearing and Listening

• Hearing is the physical process of receiving audio stimuli, but not necessarily interpreting the stimuli

• Listening is a dynamic and transactional process of: receiving, recalling, rating and responding to stimuli

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Listening

• Receiving - acknowledging the reception of both verbal and nonverbal stimuli

• Responding – providing feedback to another communicator during an interpersonal exchange

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Listening

• Recalling – understanding, storing and remembering messages– Rating–Opinion

The Importance of Listening

• New technologies have changed whom we listen to, what we listen for, when we listen, and how to listen

• Employers list Listening as the number 1 skill in employees

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Barriers: Why We Don’t Listen

• Noise – anything that interferes with the transmission of a message– Physical– Semantic– Psychological

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Barriers: Why We Don’t Listen

• Preoccupation– Conversational narcissism – when a

communicator is extremely self-focused to the exclusion of the other person

• Selective listening – attending to some messages and ignoring others

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Poor Listening Habits

• Talkaholism – compulsive talkers that dominate the conversation and monopolize encounters

• Pseudolistening – pretending to listen

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Poor Listening Habits

• Gap filling – people who assume they know what the person is going to say next and don’t need the speaker to continue

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Poor Listening Habits

• Defensive listening – when people take offense at innocent comments and interpret them as negative or hostile criticism

• Ambushing – listening with an intent to use the information against the individual

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Styles of Listening

• People-centered – listening with a concern for others’ emotions and feelings

• Action-centered - listening with a preference or emphasis on organized, accurate and concise messages

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Styles of Listening

• Content-centered – listening with a focus on the facts and details of the message

• Time-centered – listening with a focus on conveying a message in the shortest amount of time possible

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Culture and The Listening Process

• Individualistic cultures value direct communication, or speaking one’s mind

• Collectivist cultures value harmony, and believe in conversational politeness

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Choices for Effective Listening

• Evaluate your current skills• Prepare to listen• Provide empathic responses• Use nonjudgmental feedback

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Choices for Effective Listening

• Practice active listening – where the listener communicates reinforcing messages to the speaker

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