Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Fundamentals of Listening
Listening is incredibly important to all parts of life. In this chapter the work environment was discussed in how researchers have found listening to be critical to the business in every aspect. Better listening skills have found to help people meet their own, as well as the organization's goals. I never knew listening could be such an effective tool in efficient communication. To be an effective communicator, listening has to be just a vital as the verbal communication. I know plenty of people that talk a lot, but don't listen very well. It can be frustrating, because a conversation that could only take a few minutes leads to an hour because of miscommunication. In a sense, listening leads to organization, which helps with efficiency and goals because miscommunication can hopefully be avoided.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
While listening is an important part of communication, I find that unclear communication is more common than the lack of listening.
I have a friend who is Persian and from Iran, but he has been in the states since '85, so his english is pretty proficient. However, it always seems like he doesn't listen (hear) a word I say to him. Which tends to leave me hanging with "do you ever listen to me", "do I not speak clear enough english" etc. And in turn, when he speaks, while I know I am listening to him, we still struggle with our communications. Its like a language barrier, and sometime makes listening and understanding harder and frustrating.
Other times, I am a visually perceptive person. I have a hard time following logic when told to me, so it can appear like I am not listening to someone.
So listening, while it seems like its easy to do, it can be pretty difficult to do. Sometimes it just takes patience and understanding and finding that right approach to communicate with someone.
I agree with your post. Really, if you think about it, listening is just as important as talking and arguably even more important because you need to clearly understand the other person if you want to talk to them effectively. I assume it's not discussed much in the literature on communications because it's seen as being a much more passive than active activity. I disagree with the authors though about expending too much energy while listening actively. Like you said, listening carefully to what others say will help us to process what the other person is saying more effectively.
Hi Caligirl
It was interesting reading your post. I have to agree with your statement that listening is important to all parts of life. There are times when people can continuously talk, but there is a point where they need to take time to listen as well. It was interesting in the book to read how listening skills help people meet their own and the organization’s goals. Especially working in any field, you have to listen to others and interpret that information to continue onto your own work.
Post a Comment