INTRODUCTION LISTENING SKILLS Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communica
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LISTENING SKILLS
Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process.Listening is key to all effective communication. Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood. As a result, communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated.If there is one communication skill you should aim to master, then listening is it.
Listening is so important that many top employers provide listening skills training for their employees. This is not surprising when you consider that good listening skills can lead to better customer satisfaction, greater productivity with fewer mistakes, and increased sharing of information that in turn can lead to more creative and innovative work.Many successful leaders and entrepreneurs credit their success to effective listening skills. Richard Branson frequently quotes listening as one of the main factors behind the success of Virgin.Good listening skills also have benefits in our personal lives, including:A greater number of friends and social networks, improved selfesteem and confidence, higher grades at school and in academic work, and even better health and general well-being.Studies have shown that, whereas speaking raises blood pressure, attentive listening can bring it down.
Listening is Not the Same as Hearing
Hearing refers to the sounds that enter your ears. It is a physical process that, provided you do not have any hearing problems, happens automatically.Listening, however, requires more than that: it requires focus and concentrated effort, both mental and sometimes physical as well.
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TYPES OF LISTENING
Discriminative Listening Discriminative listening is the most basic type of listening, whereby the difference between difference sounds is identified. If you cannot hear differences, then you cannot make sense of the meaning that is expressed by such differences. We learn to discriminate between sounds within our own language early, and later are unable to discriminate between the phonemes of other languages. This is one reason why a person from one country finds it difficult to speak another language perfectly, as they are unable distinguish the subtle sounds that are required in that language.Likewise, a person who cannot hear the subtleties of emotional variation in another person's voice will be less likely to be able to discern the emotions the other person is experiencing.Listening is a visual as well as auditory act, as we communicate much through body language. We thus also need to be able to discriminate between muscle and skeletal movements that signify different meanings.
Comprehension listening The next step beyond discriminating between different sound and sights is to make sense of them. To comprehend the meaning requires first having a lexicon of words at our fingertips and also all rules of grammar and syntax by which we can understand what others are saying.The same is true, of course, for the visual components of communication, and an understanding of body language helps us understand what the other person is really meaning.In communication, some words are more important and some less so, and comprehension often benefits from extraction of key facts and items from a long spiel.Comprehension listening is also known as content listening, informative listening and full listening.
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Critical listening Critical listening is a form of listening that if usually not mentioned, since it involves analysis, critical thinking and judgment. Making judgments during listening is often considered as a barrier to understand a person, and there's a lot of truth in that.However, critical listening occurs when you still want to understand what the other person is saying, but also have some reason or responsibility to evaluate what is being said to you and how it is being said. For example, if there's an upcoming election and you need to decide who to vote for, you probably use some form of critical listening when you watch a televised debate. You listen, AND you evaluate.While experts on learning and communication almost universally demean the importance and value of critical listening, when it comes to real life, listening critically is used every day.The key though, is to try to understand the other person FIRST, before one evaluates.
Biased listening This type of listening does what it says on the tin we hear things that confirm our preconceived biases, opinions, or expectations.We hear what we want to hear what we think we should be hearing.And we do this subconsciously, without even realizing it. This is due to a wide variety of factors and often happens in the workplace or personal relationships where stress and emotions are involved. For example, we think we hear our bosses say something because were almost expecting them to say it, be it a deadline or praise.And there are plenty of things that can influence what we think is being said.Our initial judgement of a person or situation can really affect how we hear and interpret things.The way someone looks, their tone of voice, and other factors can impact what we think theyre going to say, and we pre-empt their actual speech with our expectations.
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Evaluative listening In evaluative listening, or critical listening, we make judgments about what the other person is saying. We seek to assess the truth of what is being said. We also judge what they say against our values, assessing them as good or bad, worthy or unworthy. Evaluative listening is particularly pertinent when the other person is trying to persuade us, perhaps to change our behavior and maybe even to change our beliefs. Within this, we also discriminate between subtleties of language and comprehend the inner meaning of what is said. Typically also we weigh up the pros and cons of an argument, determining whether it makes sense logically as well as whether it is helpful to us.Evaluative listening is also called critical, judgmental or interpretive listening.Appreciative listenin
Appreciative listening Appreciative listening is a type of listening behavior where the listener seeks certain information which they will appreciate, for example that which helps meet his/her needs and goals. One uses appreciative listening when listening to good music, poetry or maybe even the stirring words of a great leader.It involves listening to music that one enjoys, people the listener likes to listen to because of their style and the choices the listener make in the films and television he/she watches, radio programmes and plays and musicals in the theatre. Unlike informative listening or relationship listening, appreciative listening does not rely on the message from the speaker it is how one responds as a listener. Our appreciation of what we hear will vary depending on our individual tastes
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Sympathetic listening This could be considered the most challenging type of listening because the listener's role is often not to respond at all. The speaker who seeks sympathetic listening might have suffered a tragedy or needs someone to listen to a series of complex thoughts. The listener can help by validating what the speaker says and supporting her words. In this case, it's best for the listener to refrain from offering suggestions or clouding up the speaker's thoughts.
Empathetic listening When we listen empathetically, we go beyond sympathy to seek a truer understand how others are
feeling.
This
requires
excellent
discrimination and close attention to the nuances of emotional signals. When we are being truly empathetic, we actually feel what they are feeling. In order to get others to expose these deep parts of themselves to us, we also need to demonstrate our empathy in our demeanor towards them, asking sensitively and in a way that encourages self-disclosure.
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Therapeutic listening In therapeutic listening, the listener has a purpose of not only empathizing with the speaker but also to use this deep connection in order to help the speaker understand, change or develop in some way.This not only happens when you go to see a therapist but also in many social situations, where friends and family seek to both diagnose problems from listening and also to help the speaker cure themselves, perhaps by some cathartic process. This also happens in work situations, where managers, HR people, trainers and coaches seek to help employees learn and develop.
Dialogic listening
The word 'dialogue' stems from the Greek words 'dia', meaning 'through' and 'logos' meaning 'words'. Thus dialogic listening mean learning through conversation and an engaged interchange of ideas and information in which we actively seek to learn more about the person and how they think. Dialogic
listening
is
sometimes
known
as
'relational listening'.
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Relationship listening Remember, the goal of communications within a relationship is to talk with each other. Keeping this in mind, it is now time to look at the other part of communicating listening. [For assertive communication, click here.Truly listening requires effort. To be a good listener it is important to try to put ourselves in the other persons shoes. It is important to pay attention to the verbal as well as non-verbal communication.
False listening False listening occurs where a person is pretending to listen but is not hearing anything that is being said. They may nod, smile and grunt in all the right places, but do not actually take in anything that is said. This is a skill that may be finely honed by people who do a lot of inconsequential listening, such as politicians and royalty. Their goal with their audience is to make a good impression in very short space of time before they move on, never to talk to that person again. It is also something practiced by couples, particularly where one side does most of the talking. However, the need for relationship here can lead to this being spotted ['You're not listening again!'] and consequent conflict.
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CONCLUSION
Most of the people spend at least half communication in listening.this communication skills is not only used in the crutial but also as interpersonal communication, it also affects the organizational communication and also help to determine success in education and in careers. Become a more effective listener Practice and active listening technique Make it one of your communication skills Active communication listening helps to achieve your ultimate goal
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