In this article Jeff Thompson talks about listening and how to be a great listener. Listening is a huge part of being professional in the business world. Apart from being professional it is just plain polite to the person you are talking to at that moment. Mr. Thompson talks about some of the ways to do this. In an example, he gave four pictures, two were of separate news reporters that had their hands on or close to their face but it seemed as though they were listening very intently. The third photo was of President Obama was with his hands folded down by his lap and eye contact on another world leader. These photos clearly showed great listening. On the other hand, the fourth photo showed Ellen DeGeneres with her hand behind her head scratching. This was one of the rules that Mr. Thompson said not to do because it distracts you from the speaker and sends a signal to the speaker that you aren’t listening. This article overall talks about the rights and wrongs of listening. The chapter that this article best relates to is Chapter 5 on Listening. The first thing that …show more content…
Jeff did not talk about this but these pictures display different styles of listening. President Obama could be displaying “people-orientated listening or listening in a way of building a relationship (Trenholm & Jensen, 2008 p. 110).” He could be trying to build a good friendship with this other world leader so he needs to listening carefully to not offend the speaker. Ellen DeGeneres also could fall under this category because she is always speaking to new people and trying to make people laugh, so she has to be calm and be able to listen and respond in a friendly way to her guests. The news reporters could be a content-orientated listener or “listeners that like the challenge for listening to complex information (Trenholm & Jensen, 2008 p. 110).” This might be the reason they get into media. They might be the types of listeners that like listening for
Miner, E. M. (1985). The importance of listening in the interview and interrogation process. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://facultysites.necc.mass.edu/pzipper/files/2009/09/Importance-of-listening.pdf
(2014) used the Listening Styles Profile-Revised (LSP-R). This scale was revised by Bodie, Worthington, and Gearhart in 2013 and is “…based on four factors: relational, analytical, task-oriented, and critical listening”. Relational listeners (RL) are responsive and considerate of others’ feelings. “RL captures listening as a way to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships” (Gearhart et al., 2014). Analytical listening (AL) is used to gather all of the information from the message being received before coming to a judgment (Gearhart et al., 2014).
A vital aspect of interpersonal communication is the style in which one listens. While every individual possesses their own preferred method of listening in communication, it can be enlightening to analyze our own strengths and weaknesses so as to maximize effectual communication. Within the confines of four main listening style categories, I have chosen those which best describe my own personal listening style.
Communication in all relationship can be successful when our listener get the message that we want to convey and it is not so much about what we want to say. Listening is a unique process because it involves psychological and voluntary process that goes beyond simply reacting to sounds. It includes understanding, analyzing, evaluating, and responding. As a human, we will use different listening styles, depending on our preferences and purposes. Listening styles refer to the different ways people listen and analyze the content of a conversation. Usually, these styles either have to do with the way listeners choose to receive the message or with how they analyze the message. Listening is very important because we listen in order to establish and communicate power. There are few types of listening that can be used in order to communicate effectively.
Turn taking entails conversation and discourse organization in which one speaker begins her talk after the others have finished. It can be considered an essential communicative competence observed by all speakers. Turn taking ensures the conversation will be distributed on a fair turn-by-turn basis. To be specific, the conventional procedure of turn taking can be graphically represented with the flowchart below. Merelli (2016) claimed that “There is an unwritten rule in presidential debates—and general conversation—that people should not interrupt each other.”
jay is participating in a group discussion about family pets. jay is anxious to share her experience raising chickens and selling their eggs for extra money. She is so excited that she raises her hand frequently and interrupts others as they speak. Which best describes what kind of listener jay is?
They were going over one person’s resume and the possibility of employment with the other persons company. This was a definitely a formal conversation as both participants spoke to one another professionally and set upright in their chairs while engaging in the conversation. It appeared that the interviewee listened well as she was excited when reiterating what the interviewer said. The fact that the interviewees was able to repeat what she heard and place all her focus on the interviewer, showed that she was listening actively. Encounter #6 While having lunch an old friend sat next to me to chat for a while.
Listening and understanding what others communicate to us is the communication process needed for interpersonal effectiveness. If you listen well, you will understand the meaning of the message. If you are unfocused, you will not know most of what the other person is saying. However, there is a range of listening skills that can be learned to develop the communication effectiveness. Firstly, encouraging listening points to the listener that is willing to do more than listen. Usually it provides feedback that supports speakers to say more. Fur...
According to Burley-Allen (1995); “There are five styles of listening including, the faker, the dependent, the interrupter, the self-conscious listener, and the intellectual or logical listener” (p.60-64). The faker happens when a person pretends to pay attention when someone is speaking, when actually their mind is thinking about something else. This is something that I have been guilty of especially when the message is not something that interest me. When you fall into this category you will act like you are listening and paying attention to make the person speaking happy. When someone is trying to fake listening they will try to memorize specific fact in the message. When trying to memorize specific facts in a message, the message will
As The Gift of Listening describes, “Opening one’s heart and listening at a deep level does not come easily and is rarely achieved simply by life experience” (Browning & Waite, 2010, p. 151) There are different aspects to being a good listener that are often difficult to achieve and lead to poor listening. One significant challenge to listening is the attention needed in order to actively listen to another person. Proper listening does not occur due to a passive process but instead it takes deliberate action and thought towards what a person in saying. Like previously stated, actively listening is achieved by sitting in a comfortable and open way and maintaining good eye contact. When a person does not exhibit these techniques good listening often does not occur. The challenge of utilizing different techniques in order to listen to others in a better way often gets blocked by barriers that make active listening unable to occur. In our society today one major barrier to listening is technology. In a casual setting, proper listening often doesn’t occur due to someone being tied to their cell phone. The millennial generation is often guilty of passively listening to others due to the mobile technology that is being used today. Many conversations occur without eye contact or full focus on what the other has to say and instead is spent staring at a
People often confuse hearing with listening, believing that they share the same meaning. However, hearing is the spontaneous transmission of noise through the ear, while listening is described as a dynamic process that involves receiving a message, interpreting its meaning, and responding appropriately (Kreunus et al. 2011, p. 42; Thompson 2002, p. 89). The listening process is comprised of five stages involving a number of skills that can be developed with practice; receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating and responding (Buchanan 2016, p. 84; Thompson 2002, p. 90; Tyler, Kossen & Charmaine 2005, p. 266). Further, key points associated with active listening include, focusing on the message to avoid distraction; expressing empathy using verbal and nonverbal cues; avoid interrupting the speaker; avoid making judgements based on personal beliefs and attitudes; and repeat the message to confirm what has been interpreted (Tyler, Kossen & Charmaine 2005, p.
In all aspects in life effective listening plays an important role in our lives, both professionally and personally. As many of know from experience listening is never easy in fact it can be difficult to understand what is being said by the speaker. Because of laps in attention we tend to misunderstand some of the messages that are being relayed to us or disregard them altogether. Effective listening is important for receiving the correct feedback from those you’re speaking with and requires a focus that should be central to what is being said or what topic is being discussed.
“Lack of listening skills affects marriages, parents and children, teachers and students, employers and employees, foreign affairs, and the list goes on” ("The Importance of Listening"). This paper will discuss how poor listening skills adversely affect interpersonal relationships. Variable listening skills will be examined through different characteristics, real-life scenarios and the improvements that could be made with tips.
One of the main aspects in communicating is listening. An effective listener is one who, not only comprehends how the speaker feels but, also understands what they are stating. Building a strong connection between the speaker and the listener is one of the first steps to become a good listener. By building this connection speakers should first be in an environment with open minded listeners, it makes them feel more comfortable to state their opinions, feelings and ideas. Listeners should avoid being judgmental. The individual does not have to agree with the ideas, values or opinions of the speaker; however, to fully understand them, one must put aside their criticism. Speakers will believe that they can trust the listeners with their information when they know that they will not be judged. Miscommunication happens frequently, listene...
To be effective listeners, the listening process should be incorporated into our lives. We should be attentive to what people say, clarify what the speaker is trying to come across, and respond in a way the speaker can understand what we are saying. I think I was aware that I needed some improvement in certain areas of this process but I feel as everything is slowly changing. In the future, I’m going try not to interrupt people, get distracted, tune out, and try to get a bigger picture of what the person is telling me. If good listening habits are applied in our day-to-day life, we can easily communicate with anyone and everyone.