Listening

The nature of listening

 Hearing and listening are not the same
 Steps in the process of listening (Selecting, Understanding, Remembering, Responding)
The listening process
1. Selecting
 Hearing is not listening
 Listening is not easy
 Hearing problems
 Personal concerns
 Rapid thought
 Noise
 All listeners do not receive the same message
 Poor listening habits
 Information overload
2. Understanding
 Decode sounds into meaningful patterns
3. Remembering
 Recall the information you heard
4. Responding
 Provide feedback and demonstrate understanding of the message
 We validate the message by confirming our sense of worth and value within the
conversation
Why listening matters
 Listening affects the development and maintenance of personal relationships
 Listening affects productivity in the workplace and profits in the marketplace
 In educational contexts, students benefit from good listening skills
 Supportive listening builds trust among health care providers, patients, and clients
 Front line workers like waitresses benefit financially from good listening skills
 According to recent studies:
 92 percent of employees who rated their managers as good listeners said they were
satisfied with their jobs
 58 percent of managers rated as good listeners had received listening training; 89
percent of poor listeners had no training
 58 percent of the highly-rated listener groups were women, who used more nonverbal
cues
 Doctors who spend more time with patients have fewer lawsuits
How do managers view their listening skills?
 Not the same as employees:
 Virtually all managers in one study perceived their own listening skills as good or very
good
 Employees scored same managers as infrequently demonstrating effective listening
Barriers to effective listening
 Information overload and multi-tasking
 Difference between thought rate and speech rate: the difference between the rate at which
a speaker conveys a spoken message and the speed at which a listener processes the
information
 Listening from your own perspective
 Taking away from the other person’s perspective (evaluating, shifting the focus, advising,
and interpreting)
Information overload
 According to Torkel Klingberg, we are in a constant state of information overload and, as a
result, must engage in serious multitasking to keep up
 While it may seem efficient to engage in many activities at the same time, research shows
that the human brain is not as good at multitasking as we like to think
What do we know about Multi-Tasking?
 Study 1: Students compared two rotating objects while listening to someone reading
sentences aloud. The task engaged two different parts of the brain—one that processed
spoken information and one that processed visual information. When multi-tasking, brain
activities dropped by 53 percent with spoken and by 29 percent with visual
 Study 2: Time spent on laptops was negatively related to student learning, including
understanding of course content and grades. The more time spent browsing the Internet
during class, the lower the final grade
Getting the most out of listening: listening to learn
 Deliberative listening: analytical, evaluative
 What are typical rates on recall in lecture situations?
 50 percent immediately after hearing a 10-minute presentation
 25 percent after 48 hours
 10 percent common in classrooms
Getting the most out of listening strategies for listening to learn
 Sit near the front
 Eliminate distractions
 Pay attention
 Take good notes
 Review your notes
 Be aware of confirmation bias
 Practice active listening
When you talk about a problem, what do you want the other person to offer?
 A solution to your problem?
 Emotional support?
 Understanding?
 An ear while you work things out?
 An opinion on where you might be wrong in your thinking?
Listening to sustain or improve relationships
 Limit your own talking
 Use nonverbal cues to show attention
 Paraphrase the content or feeling in the message
 Practice empathic listening
 Supportive
 Accepting
 Sensing and feeling with the speaker
 Non-evaluative and non-directive
Tips for effective listening
 Make an effort to enhance your cognitive complexity by interacting with people outside your
personal network
 Avoid checking your email or social media accounts during challenging listening situations
 Use silence to communicate
 Use words that explicitly acknowledge that you understand and empathize with the
speaker’s experience
 Use nonverbal cues and vocal sound to show you are listening
 Summarize and paraphrase what the speaker has said
 Ask questions
 Actively think about what the speaker is saying