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Explain why effective communication
Explain why effective communication
Various types of effective communication
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Communication uses symbols, signs, and behaviors to exchange information with other people. Communication shapes our social world altogether and provides us with the means to transfer information and convey our feelings to others. It is essential to the survival and welfare of all the people across the globe. In fact, all species on Earth communicate whether it is verbal or nonverbal. In the case of human beings, we must communicate with others to fulfill physical, relational, identity, spiritual, and instrumental needs. In Chapter 6: Listening Effectively, it explains the importance of listening effectively and how it affects personal and professional relationships. With this in mind, you first have to learn what it means to listen effectively. …show more content…
We listen effectively through these six steps: hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating, and responding. There are four styles of listening in which everyone has adopted at least one or more of these styles. These styles are the people-oriented style, action-oriented style, content-oriented style, and time-oriented style. The ability to listen effectively by using one of these styles is the key to effective communication. Messages are easily misunderstood if there is a lack of effective listening, especially when communicating with someone of another cultural background. Being an efficient listening is vital to all personal and professional relationships. However, listening effectively is difficult and can lead to many obstacles or problems when communicating and listening to others. Listening effectively is challenging because of the countless obstacles that we happen to come across. There are barriers that distract us such as noise, pseudolistening, selective attention, information overload, glazing over (daydreaming), rebuttal tendency, …show more content…
Being an effective listener is indeed a skill, so it is possible for someone to learn how to be a successful listener through education, practice, and ironically enough, listening. Maintaining eye contact and keeping an open mind can make all the difference in keeping you attentive and engaged with a fellow communicator. Steps to improving your ability to listen effectively include facing the speaker, not interrupting, waiting for the speaker to pause before asking questions, asking questions to ensure understanding, and empathizing with the speaker. You should always attempt to provide support and empathize with the speaker if speaking upon an emotional situation. It is critical that you acknowledge their feelings and are not judgemental. You can communicate support both verbally and nonverbally. For example, eye contact and a soft touch can be nonverbal communication. Though nonverbal communication does not convey any auditory meaning, it does show empathy and comprehension toward the one speaking. Additional methods of improving your ability to listen effectively are being skeptical, evaluating credibility, and understanding probability, all of which can improve and advance critical listening skills. All things considered, listening effectively necessary to satisfy the five needs that are the goals of
James C. Petersen (2007), author of Why Don’t We Listen Better, offers practical advice on how to communicate effectively and connect with others. In order to help his readers, communicate effectively, Petersen (2007) divides his book into five divisions. Each division builds on the content in the preceding portions. Every segment provides a great amount of information, which will aid people in how they choose to communicate.
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.
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.
The ability to listen effectively significantly impacts all relationships, be it professional, personal or social. The prevailing issue with effective listening, however, is two-fold, in not truly understanding the meaning of listening and not possessing the tools required to be an effective listener. The skill of listening, according to Dr. Robert Bolton (1979), extends beyond simply hearing sound as a physiological sensory process but instead requires and involves interpreting and understanding the sensory experience or what is being heard (p 32). It also is an active experience wherein the listener is fully engaged and has absorbed the information of the speaker while showing interest and providing feedback, all while demonstrating that they have heard and understand the message. It is a fair assertion that most people in varying relationships and environments listen in what is considered passive capacity, or only digest and process bits and pieces of the speaker’s message.
1. Become a Good Listener: We’ve all been told to be a good listener, and assume that “listening” requires a response. But we never stop to think that the speaker may wish to talk
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
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...
Ignore all distractions when listening to others. 4 6. Practice active listening techniques. 4 7. Am seldom misunderstood when I talk to others.
Listening is a big part of communicating well with others. Take time to carefully listen to what others are saying, and also take time to observe their nonverbal communications. A good listener does not interrupt the person while their talking. they make eye contact with the person speaking. they provide the speaker with their full attention, avoid unnecessary distractions, and try to understand the other persons point of view by being empathetic.
Listening is a skill that requires active, rather than passive, participation to advance shared understanding and minimise misinterpretation. Active listening strategies such as analysing and displaying non-verbal body language, clarifying meaning and accuracy, expressing understanding for the speaker’s feelings through empathy and moments of silence contribute to effective communication. These methods encourage the speaker to convey his or her thoughts and minimises misinterpretation between sender and receiver.
Effectively listening not only helps me to understand others but has allowed me to give appropriate feedback when needed. To listen is critical because there are certain instructions a supervisor may be delivering verbally and to be a good employee to understand what is being said helps improve performance as a worker. Effective listening in the work place has also allowed me to learn how to maintain eye contact while speaking to the employer or a co-worker. In all aspects eye contact is a way to show the speaker that my attention is focused on what he or she is saying and having an understanding of the context. According Joseph A. DeVito 2012), listening effectively requires the skills to be understood and communicate effectively. We can only foster aid to others only if we apply ourselves to effective
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.
Active listening is a form of communication skill that allows people to understand, comprehend, and have compassion for each other. To be a good listener, one must “actively process information, make pertinent comments, and ask relevant questions” (Brent and Anderson 123). The person must make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, try to understand the complete message being sent. One must be engaged in the conversation, avoiding listening barriers such as premature judgment, biases and prejudices, physical and mental distractions, and lack of appropriate focus. This allows for improved relationships, problem resolution, increased cooperation, and intimacy building.
Communication is defined as “the act or process of using words, sounds, signs or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, and feelings to someone else.” From that description, communication can be characterized as anything that can be used to get a message or a piece of knowledge from one individual to another. Communication helps humans to function orderly and productively. Without communication, the evolution of religion, government, art, clothing and much more would not have been possible. This makes communication a major cause of the evolution of human society with the solitary purpose: to inform and provide new information to others. Communication allows us to understand and gain knowledge and understanding of information.
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...