EFFECTIVE LISTENING

Studies Show That:

The average person spends about 70% of each day engaged in some type of communication.

• 45% is spent in listening, 45°
• 30% speaking, 30°
• 16% reading, 16°
• 9% writing. 9°

 LISTENING

• Hearing is merely an involuntary physical response to the environment.
• Listening is a sophisticated communication skill which can be mastered only with considerable practice.
• Listening is a process that includes hearing, attending to, understanding, evaluating, and responding to spoken messages.
• You can learn to be an effective, capable listener by using the techniques we’ll review.

 Why Listening Matters:

• Poor listening can cause simple mistakes, lawsuits, and even deadly disasters.
• Active and reflective listening you gets you more successful in your personal and professional life
• Listening is the central skill in the establishment and maintenance of interpersonal relationships

 Reasons to Improve Your Listening

• Demonstrate your valuation and
• Promote problem-solving abilities
• Increase the speaker’s receptiveness to the ideas of others
• Increase the self-esteem of speaker & the other persons.
• Help to prevent head-on emotional collisions.
• Help you overcome self-consciousness and self-centeredness.

 How Well Do You Listen?

• How would you rate yourself as a listener?
• How would the others rate you as a listener?

·         your subordinates

·         your peers

·         your boss

·         your significants

·         your best friends

Ineffective Listening Habits

Dr. Ralph Nichols has discovered that many of us employ ineffective listening habits that interfere with learning.

·         Being preoccupied with talking, not listening

·         Calling the uninteresting subject.

·         Letting bias or prejudice distort the messages you hear

·         Oversimplifying answers or explanations.

·         Tolerating distractions.

·         Avoiding difficult, expository or technical material

·         Rationalizing poor listening.

·         Criticizing the speaker’s delivery.

·         Jumping to conclusions before the speaker has made his/her point

·         Getting over-stimulated to the respond.

·         Assigning the wrong meaning to words

·         Listening only for the facts

·         Trying to make an outline of everything we hear.

·          Faking attention to the speaker

·         Letting emotion-laden words throw us off the track.

·          Interrupting the speaker to express your own opinion

·         Wasting the differential between speech speed and thought speed.