By T.M Jayasekera
'Please ! listen to me! Please! I beg
of you!'. How many times we may have heard this message in our day to day
lives. How many times we may have ignored this request or not heeded to it. If
we really analyze this and go deep in to it we will understand that inability
to listen is the cause of most of our problems in our work life, personal life
and family life. If we can listen to others we can easily understand them and
solve most of the problems of interaction with others in addition to gathering
knowledge completely free of charge. It has to be kept in mind that the golden
rule of friendship is "to listen to others as you would have them listen
to you".
Most of us have witnessed people quarreling arguing and fighting, with each other owing to poor listening. In
addition, we are well aware of how couples have separated, Governments have
collapsed, organizations have crashed, accidents have occurred, countries
separated, wars have begun, and people have killed each other due to poor or no
listening. This is only a few. The list is very large. On the same token we
have witnessed people reconciling, prospering, peacemaking, developing and
doing many good things through effective listening. Therefore it is necessary
for us learn more about this magic word "Listen" and about the art of
learning through listening.
Research as well as experience has
shown that successful businessmen have always listened to their customers their
employees, their advisers and all other important stake holders who had some
say in their businesses whereas the major reason behind the failures of most of
the unsuccessful businessmen have been identified as poor listening. Failure to
listen has been identified as the root cause of failure of many great leaders
in business as well as in day to day life.
All of us can hear well unless we are
deaf. But, sometimes we seem to forget that we have got this sense of hearing
and we forget to use it. In addition, only few of us know that we can listen
not only through our ears but also from all other senses we have. Using this
newsletter I am hoping to make you aware of some important aspects of listening
and few methods to improve your listening abilities through the use of other
senses so that you could improve your learning through listening. So! enjoy
yourself while you learn to listen.
If an country or an organization is
facing economic difficulty, in order to overcome this we require quality
management of our organizations and ourselves. Management is getting things
done with and through people efficiently and effectively. According to Quality
gurus, Quality is all about meeting or exceeding customer expectations.
Therefore to have Quality Management in our organizations, all of should be
oriented towards our customers on whom we depend heavily and for whom, we are
there to serve. If we cannot understand this or if we forget this basic premise
in doing business we are liable to fail and not even the god would be able to
help us. That is why the management guru Peter Drucker said "Business of
business is the Customer". According to him customer is the only source of
profit of the business and everything else is overhead.
To satisfy or exceed customer
expectations we should know what our customers' want and to understand what they
want we have to communicate with them. Not only that we have to ask from them
about what they want but also we have to listen to them very carefully to find
out and learn about what they really want from us. Otherwise we will not be
able to identify their needs and wants correctly to satisfy them. We have seen
many organizations collapsing or getting defeated by competitors by not
listening to their customers who are both internal and external. One good
example is the Ford Motor Company getting defeated by their competitor General
Motors in market leadership in the 1920s as Ford did not listen to their
customers in marketing the "I-Model Ford" and tried to provide what
ford wanted the customers to use. According to some analysts, Ford was arrogant
and complacent enough to say that anyone can have any colour of T-Model
provided it is black. This type of arrogance and complacence of the
organizations and their leaders can be found many organizations
We have seen many countries,
governments, parties and leaders fail due to the fact that they forget to
listen to their subordinates, colleagues, superiors or to their advisers
recent debacles of the ruling parties in and around Asia are good examples to
illustrate this. By listening one could not only understand the other but also
can learn many more things. That is why great people listened to others to
perform well and amass great wealth of knowledge.
Listening is the most important but
rarely effectively used of communications skills. It pays rich dividends if
properly used. It brings about changes in people's attitudes toward themselves
and others. This is only the one side of the coin. The other side is quite
different. It is very common that only a very few of us actually listen. Even
if we do, how many of us actually listen effectively. Ineffective listening can
cause serious problems to our organizations, our society, our family members
and ourselves as well.
The listening process is really
complex. But it can be simplified to a very large extent so that it could be
easily learnt and grasped by any ordinary person. By improving listening
skills, a person can improve his interpersonal skills, professional skills and
business skills sizable. The more efficient a listener you are, the more
success and satisfaction you can attain in your work play and even in social
circles: says G.C Ahuja and Pramila Ahuja in their Book "How to listen
better"
Definition of Listening
Listening is the most used of the
communication skills and good listening is an integral part of the
communication process. Listening has been identified as the selective process
of attending to . hearing, understanding and remembering oral and visual
symbols.
Listening is defined as a conscious
cognitive effort involving primarily the sense of hearing (reinforced by other
senses) and leading to interpretation and understanding.
We listen to more than what our ears
do and far more than our sound symbols provide. Listening is mainly about
processing of what is heard, where it weighed, analyzed, sorted, related,
classified, evaluated and judged. We listen through all our sensed and the
process of listening involves accurate perception, orientation, direction of
attention towards the digestion of the speaker's views and integration of the
meaning in to objective concepts.
Why Listen
In most general sense we listen to
receive messages in the process of interaction with others. Some of these
messages are important to us and some are not. Some we like to listen and some
we don't. Some we are eager to listen and some we are forced to. Listening is
an inevitable component of communication and interaction between human beings
as they try to live together in this planet. But, listening offers
opportunities for broadening knowledge, as almost everyone within hearing
distance is a potential source of information to everyone else.
In this world where over five billion
people live your family or your neighbor, your friend or your colleague at
workplace, office, school or community may have a large store of knowledge to
offer to you provided you are willing to listen. More often people are willing
to and are eagerly waiting to share the information they have with others for purposes
of clarification, confirmation or challenge. They get flattered if the others
are willing to extend an ear to them and will readily pass on all the
information they have in their store to others if they can offer time to hear
them speak. That is human nature. That is why confidentiality of information is
almost impossible in this world today.
The person who sits next to you on
your way to office in the train or in the bus may have all the information you
are looking for all these years and if you can give him a listening ear he will
not only pass on all the information he had had in his store but will offer
himself to provide additional information later. Listening is a more efficient
and a faster way of gathering information than many other ways with which we
are used to such as reading, watching, computer search etc. as only a very
small percentage of information is available in written form for others to
search view and share.
This is why the management gurus have
always emphasized on listening to the customers and other stake holders to
obtain the information required about their needs and wants to that the
business persons can use this information to plan out their work so as to work
out their plan in achieving their business goals. By listening you are
enlarging the spectrum of opportunity available to you to gather information A
good listener is always a winner as he always has more information than others
to make decisions.
Listening is largely a matter of
communicating. In our day to day encounters we may have observed the following.
The wife listen to her husband; the children listen to their parents; students
listen to their teacher; customers listen to the shopkeeper. All these indicate
that there has to be more than two parties to communicate and the subordinate
party has to listen to the superior party. This is not really true. What is
only true is that all the above episodes indicate that minimum of two people
are required to communicate. What is not true is that not only the subordinate
has to listen to the superior, but also the superior has to listen to the
subordinate and provide effective feedback. For the communication process to be
complete there should be more to it than a one way street remember! The process
of communication in the above situation is only partially complete. The actual
communication processes needs two or more people and both of them have to share
information.
For complete an effective
communication to take place husband should listen to the wife; parents should
listen to the children; Teachers should listen to the students; Shopkeepers
should listen to the customers and so on. The process will not be complete
until both parties listen to each other and share information. This is how the
effective communication takes place. Otherwise communication will not be
effective.
It has been proved that the failures
of some of the great leaders have been due to poor listening. According to
Alfred P. Sloan who headed the "Buick" division of General Motors,
who later formed the Sloan School Management and who later become the President
of General Motors. "even great people identified as Captains of Industry -
The founding Fathers of large industrial undertakings, like William C. Durant
who founded the General Motors, Henry Ford who founded the Ford Motors, the
shipping Magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and Steel and Oil giants like Andrew
Carnegie and John D. Rockekefeller who possessed extra ordinary qualities and
were instrumental in starting up new businesses lacked good listening qualities
at their initial stages of industry formation and that was the reason for some
failures during those initial periods". They managed to identify their
weakness soon and that is how they became great thereafter. We have got the
experience of observing the rise and fall of some political leaders who failed
to listen to their followers in the recent past especially in the Asian region.
Therefore it has to be kept in mind that in order to become great leaders
people should learn the skills of listening.
Listening is a vital component of the
entire process of communication. The effectiveness of communication is
determined by the extent to which listening and comprehension take place in the
course of an interaction between two parties. The communication cycle comprises
two stages.
- · Encoding and transmission of the message by the sender
- · Decoding and providing the required feed back by the receiver.
Listening is said to take place
effectively when there is satisfactory execution of the above mentioned two
stages. Mis-communication arises when listening is hampered due to extraneous or
other factors at the decoding stage, In other words if the message has been
understood in exactly the same terms as were intended by the sender,
communication proceeds smoothly and we can say that accurate listening has
taken place. However, if due to internal or external factors there are
discrepancies between the intent of the message sent and the message as
perceived listening is affected and communication become ineffective.
Therefore to make listening effective
the listener should have a good knowledge of the sender of information and the
sender should have a good knowledge of the receiver of information. Therefore,
the individual factors like values, culture, motivation, capability,
perception, personality and attitudes of both the sender and receiver of
information and the medium used for the communication are important to make
effective communication to take place so as to make learning effective.
Listening and Hearing
Listening is much more than trying to
hear and decipher the phonetic sounds produced by the sender. It is more to do
with matching of the mental faculties of the sender and receiver of the
message. Words and sounds cannot alone convey meanings. We are aware that words
alone are not sufficient to connote meanings as each word has several meanings
to it. The tone of the message and other non verbal signals carry a major part
of the meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary provides on the average eight
meanings to every word. Therefore the total meaning of the message sent and
received is a cumulative whole of the words in particular context.
What you hear is only one part of the
communication. What you understand is another part. If what you understood is
not what the sender of the message intended then communication become
ineffective as a what is desired is not being achieved. The vital difference
between hearing and listening lies entirely in the perceptions of the sender
and receiver. Hearing is the reception of all that is being stated in
accordance with the frame of reference of the receiver of the set of sounds and
listening on the other hand is the accurate perception of all that is being
stated by the sender of the message.
The average speaking rate of an ordinary
person is about 100 to 200 words per minute even though there are some extra
ordinary categories of people who can speak five to ten times more than that
amount with or without training. But, the average listening ability of a person
is approximately 400 words per minute. This difference in the rate of receiving
the sounds and the rate of assimilating the sounds often leads to distraction
within the mind of a person allowing it to wander towards other elements that
may also require equal or more attention causing the so called distractions.
This is why people are trying hard to
learn methods of focusing their minds or concentrating on one thing by way of
different mental exercises such as meditation etc. The difference between the
rate of hearing and rate of assimilating leaves the mind to undertake other
jobs at the same time and at times it may lead to lengthy distractions
depending on the importance it gives to the other work. The problem occurs as
the mind may sometimes find it difficult to get back to the position where it
left off. After some time when it actually focuses several words may have
missed out and a completely different meaning to what is said may have been
resulted. This is the main reason for "listening errors".
People are used to listen either
actively or passively. Active listening involves dialogue and/or feedback or
participation of the listener and the speaker whereas passive listening
involves no participation or feedback. By being a passive listener busy with
our own thoughts people often miss out the important components of the messages
that are communicated. This can lead to misunderstandings and wrong decision
making causing loss of revenue, assets, friendship, customers and many more
including turmoil as well. Therefore it is imperative that all of us learn the
methods of effective listening so as to be successful in our family, work and
social lives.
Factors that help us to Listen
There are several factors that help or
hamper listening. They are as follows:
·
Intelligence
- · Verbal competence
- · Level of Motivation
- · Knowledge Level
- · Capability Level
The intelligence of the listener is an
important factor that helps or hampers the listening capabilities of the
listener. Further his verbal competence also plays a significant role, as there
will be greater comprehension if one is familiar with the nuances of the
language. Together with this the knowledge and capabilities of the sender as
well as the information about the sender of the message also play an important
role in listening. The motivation level of both the sender of the message and
the listener also play an important part in the degree of learning and the
level of comprehension of the message.
There are five different types of
listening. This is why different people hear and understand the same message
differently. They are as follows:
- · Passive Listening
- · Marginal Listening
- · Projective Listening
- · Sensitive/Empathetic Listening
- · Active Listening
- · Critical Listening
Passive Listening
In passive listening all that is being
said is being heard but not really absorbed. In passive listening absorption is
less as there is little or no assimilation and sharpening in the absorption of
the message and as real or meaningful listening does not take place in this mode
of listening. As no actual processing is done by the listener, the message
received becomes some verbal garbage only. In passive listening there is no
invasion in the thought process, which could probably change the trend of
thinking or strengthen the pre-conceived ideas of the receiver. This kind of
listening is normally found in classroom type of teaching or in meetings where
the students or the participants of the meeting may show physical presence but
with mental absence. This type of listening occurs when the presentation of the
speaker becomes monotonous or boring and that listeners switch off their mental
faculties and are found to be only physically present.
Marginal Listening
Too much of listening is also bad as
it might lead to information overload and listening may get hampered. In
addition you may even go crazy by listening too much. Fatigue and boredom may
not allow you to listen for long hours continuously. Marginal listening is that
kind of listening where individual only listens at the superficial level and
does not try to go beyond a brief understanding of the topics covered. The
listener erects a barrier by himself where he allows information to seep
through in bits and pieces. As a result only partial or marginal information
only can be retrieved if the need arises. This method can be learned through
training and a person can listen for long hours in this manner without getting
bored or fatigued. This is a better form of listening where small chunks of
information are assimilated than passive listening which leads to zero
registration where entire process of communication becomes a waste of time and
energy.
The name projective listening has the
analogy of the projected image of a camera. What we get from a camera is a
image of a picture seen through a pinhole projective listening is an attempt by
the listener in receiving the message from a limited personal perspective or
through his own perspective or frame of reference. In projective listening the
receiver is in state of "restful alertness" where he tries to absorb
the contents of the message within his own frame of reference. In projective
listening the listener uses his previous learning and experience to assimilate
what the sender sends and only absorbs a projected image of it.
Sensitive Listening
This can be referred to as empathetic
listening as the receiver is able to understand the view point of the speaker
in exactly similar terms as were intended by him. Part of the emphasis in
sensitive listening lies on the ability of the listener to match his
perceptions with those of the sender. It is a myth to presume that words always
mean the same to everyone. If two people have learnt to speak a common language
it does not mean that all utterances will be understood by the receiver totally
as were intended. The meanings assigned to spoken words lie in our perceptions,
which is a result of our values and experiences. In sensitive or empathetic
listening an attempt is made by the listener to decipher the meaning of the
statement in relation to the perceptions and the experiences of the sender it
is not an easy task if the sender is new to the listener about whom little or
nothing is known. Sensitive listening if taken in isolation result in
observance of a one sided sympathetic stand. Taken in combination with active
listening where sensitivities match it proves to be an excellent form of
listening. Empathetic listening can be made very effective if receiver of the
message raise equerries, which helps in understanding the viewpoint of the sender
and therefore presents a correct perspective of the message, sent.
Active Listening
This type of listening is identified
as the most important of all types of listening. Here the receiver absorbs all
that is being said and also makes an attempt to verify all that he has been
listening to. When combined with sensitive listening it can result in the best
kind of listening with the receiver moving in accordance with the intent of the
speaker. It has to be understood that we cannot take in all what is intended by
the speaker unless in the case of a fluke. But we may be able to improve the
extent of sharing of the message to a very large extent by way of active
listening and thereby mis-communication can be largely avoided. The
participative contribution from the receiver by way of asking questions
improves the effectiveness of communication. Merely relying upon the hearing
faculties for a comprehension of what the speaker has said will not be
sufficient as words have different meanings to different and clarifications and
checks regarding words ideas and issues should be sought at every stage in this
method of active listening. Active listening is not solely a product of the capabilities of the
listener. part of the onus lies in the speaker as he should get the listener
involved and participated in the message sharing process.
Critical Listening
Critical listening is something, which
is very important in a democratic society. As per Thomas Jefferson, in a
republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not
by force the art of reasoning become most important. The listener has the right
to hear intelligent effective responsible talk. Unfortunately there is very
little of such talk in society today. In critical listening the listener will
engage himself in hearing only intelligent effective and responsible talk by
training himself to do so.
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