It is a state of receptivity that permits understanding of what is heard and grants the listener full partnership in the communication process, The failure behind a great deal of poor listening is the failure to understand the complexity of the listening process, Our biggest difficulty is to find out what to listen but we usually try to absorb all the words forgetting what those words stand for.
Obviously you cant listen to sounds that you cant hear or receive. Only those sounds that you hear can be taken up for listening. As several stimuli bombards at the same time you need to focus on some and leave out others, Focusing also is not enough to complete the process. You have to assign meaning to the stimuli received, Only when you assign meaning to the sounds received the listening process is complete. Thereafter you have to decide whether you need the store the message received or not. You decision to store the message only guarantees learning.
Therefore learning by listening is the process of focusing, screening and filtering, analyzing and interpreting, accepting, and storing the messages received from the external environment. Thus listening is hearing plus attending plus understanding plus concentrating plus remembering plus continually grasping and processing information. In order to improve our learning we should know the process of listening in much more detail.
There are three phases with in the listening process. The accuracy and the effectiveness of the listening are dependent on the successful progression and completion of these three stages. The three phases of listening are as follows.
- Leveling
- Sharpening
- Assimilation
At the time of listening, sharpening of mind is needed to accept the information inflow and thereafter the brain automatically sifts and separates the information according to list priorities. This is similar to a gardener marking the lines and make spots or holes for planting before actual planting is done. In other words sharpening of the verbal inputs by the mental filter takes place at this stage.
The assimilation of the message automatically follows and as a result the desired matter is retained while the rest is rejected or kept in the trash bin for future "recycling". This is similar to gardener finally planting the saplings after checking and sorting the good ones from the bad ones and tall ones from the short ones. The rejects will be thrown out or kept ready for disposal later.
What is retained and the type and quality of dependent on the physical and psychological noise prevailing at the time of receiving the message. Only those parts of the message that the listener considers important will be absorbed and assimilated.
Attributes of good listening
Failure to understand the complexity of the listening process is the main reason behind poor listening which leads to many of the problems in today's world. Following are some of the key attributes of good listening.
Readiness of the person to listen
For good listening to take place a person should be ready both physically and psychologically. He should be willing to hear and should be focusing attention to hear the sounds and also to receive the stricture of images through the eyes. Disturbance should be minimum as it can affect the signals. Further he should in the right state of mind to process the signals received, Otherwise the mind will reject the processing and the signals will provide no meaning to the listener
Ability of the person to discriminate sounds and ideas
The receiver of information should be able to identify and sort out the right information and should be in a position to interpret it correctly.
The capacity of the person to give meanings to selected sounds
Not only that the listener should be able to give meaning but also he should have the capacity to give meaning to selected sounds.
The ability of the person to relate meanings give to certain sounds to other experiences.
As many sounds are heard at the same time a person should be able to discriminate the useful ones from others and provide meaning to those only.
The ability of the person to evaluate the medium and the manner of sound presentations properly.
Different sender uses different mediums in order to send the message to the receiver such as electronic and other information carrying media. The listener should be able to evaluate the medium and the manner of sound presentation properly to get the correct meaning/
The willingness of the person to disregard prejudice.
The listener should be able to disregard prejudice of any kind if he is to gather information correctly. The talking and listening are so intricately intertwined that a person cannot do one without the other. Even when one is alone and talking to oneself there is one part of the brain that is involved in speaking while the other part is involved in listening.
The key factors that are involved in good listening are as follows.
- Adequate hearing ability
- Recognition on the part of the listener of the problems and obstacles such as attitude, boredom, fatigue etc. to overcome to listen effectively.
- The relationship between listening and vocabulary.
- Giving judgement to what is heard which involves ability to think and analyze while listening.
- Interaction
- Question and answer sequences.
For listening to be effective the listener should have a positive attitude towards the speaker and the message he is going to receive. Starting with a negative attitude or a bias can be counterproductive as it will close the mind of the listener and prevents inflow of information. Only marginal or passive thinking is the maximum that is possible in such an event.
Concentration is about careful listening and subsequent examination of the speaker's viewpoint so as to absorb the finer details of the message that is being conveyed. This could be improved by the active participation of the listener and interaction with speaker by way of questions and answers. It has been found that an average person will be able to concentrate only up to about 10% of the time on what the speaker is saying and during the balance 90% of the time his concentration wanders giving more attention to the physical movements of the speaker and the voice infections of the speaker.
In order to make listening effective the listener has to break the monotony of listening by way questions and answers and taking down notes or by repeating what the speaker has said if concentration is to be improved, as the best method of effective listening as the listening routine undergoes a sudden change due to the increased interaction. In this process greater exchange of ideas are exchanged where some are renewed and some are activated while others continue to rest in a dormant state, It should be remembered that raising queries merely for the sake of gaining attention would not be useful to improve the listening. This is why interaction has been identified as the most effective method of improving listening.
Deterrents to the learning process
Even though people are physically available for the discussion there could still be instances when he is unable to grasp a great deal of what is being said. Some of the reasons for this are
- Lack of interest
- Ego
- Involved with self
- Fear
- Preoccupation with other ideas
- Stress
- The familiarity trap
Lack of interest in the subject severely hampers the listening process as the mind is not leveled and sharpened to accept the information resulting in poor concentration. Ego or superiority complex will also affect the listening very badly as it blocks or rejects the information inflow. In this situation the listener is unable to accept the speaker or his viewpoint or both. Being busy with his own thoughts or being involved with himself will cause discrepancies in the understanding. Lack of self confidence that may be the result of uncontrolled factors in the environment or as a result of a previous incident that can affect the information absorption greatly.
Fear can totally close the mind so that no inflow of information would be possible, Fear that may be caused as a result of a previous incident or a belief or rear that is caused in the mind of the listener by the environment can severely affect the hearing as well as listening. Preconceived ideas also can block the absorption greatly. Preoccupation with other ideas about the subject or outside the subject affects listening, as listener may not be able to concentrate effectively. Stress may also apply a negative force on the process of good listening. Quite often our previous knowledge of a particular topic can close our mind to the ongoing communication. This is what is normally referred to as the familiarity trap if the listeners are aware of these deterrent then they will be in a position to take guard of these and be able to improve the quality of their listening.
Listening with your eyes
As indicated earlier listening should bot be confused with hearing. Even though there is relationship between the two terms they are not synonymous. Hearing is the perception of sound either consciously or unconsciously. Listening implies the conscious attention to sounds for the purpose of identification or understanding. We may hear a sound without consciously listening for that sound. For instance we hear traffic noises. sounds of birds, footsteps or the voices or our children but we are not consciously aware of those sounds because we may have been busy listening to a television program or some other important thing.
You listen with ears and also listen with your eyes by way of seeing and comprehension. It is important to use your eyes to interpret subtle shades of meaning to information or emotional overtones in the speaker's message or the listener's reactions. The language of the eyes is an age old way of exchanging feelings. IT is both subtle and complex. The listener can give meaning to the frown, the nod, the smile, scratching of the head of the other during the conversation. The visible signals provide meaning to the message more than the words that have been said by the speaker.
Poor listeners are less knowledgeable
Poor listeners do not make use of the opportunity given to the in acquiring knowledge. In addition, poor listeners give poor feed back to the speakers and thereby make the quality of speech of the speaker poor. When people talk to others they are usually affected by how others listen to them,. Your ability to listen is directly related to how much opportunity you have to learn by way of the ear. Research has proved that an average adult spends nearly half of his communication time in the act of listening. An ineffective communicator will use only less than thirty percent of his time in communicating whereas an effective communicator will use as much as seventy percent of the communicating time on listening.
In the business world it has been proved that poor listeners are poor managers as their actions are not effective and efficient as they do not understand their customers as well as their subordinators and superiors well and make wrong decisions most of the time. Rational decision making requires gathering of information about the problem before the search for alternatives and if listening is not done properly insufficient information will result. This will affect the quality of the decision made.
A human being has got only one mouth, but two ears. This indicates that we have to do twice as much of listening than talking. The amount of learning is dependent on the amount of listening a person do as per the old adage "You cannot take any more water out the well than the size of the pail you lower".
Many times we pretend as though we are listening to the other party without actually doing so. You may have heard only part of the conversation as you may have been thinking about some thing else during the conversation. Listening involves a particular application of the joint verbal visual stimuli that occur in the speech situation. The fact that you have heard only part of the conversation does not mean that you have listened to what he said. Many times most of us pretend listening to others by merely staying in front of them, understanding little of what would have been said and get only a little meaning as a result. Listening is much more than hearing a collection of sounds, It is a highly specialized perceptual process.
Listening is an important learning tool that offers unusual opportunities for broadening our knowledge. People will be able to do much more and better work in setting in which they feel they are understood and listened to. Through out the business world it is being recognized that poor listeners are expensive employees - the superiors as well as the subordinates.
Sometimes the mere perception of the subordinate that the superior is listening to the subordinate can do more than what is required to improve relations between the two parties, Even if the superior's understanding is less than perfect, the mere fact that he listens actively and shows that he is trying to understand is normally perceived by subordinates as demonstrating their worth. People are usually flattered and elated when they understand that they are being listened to. Effective listening is a way of showing the people who are engaged in personal relationships that they have your attention and respect.
How to and what to listen
When you find yourself in the role of the listener you should know how to listen and what to listen. According to communication specialists Nelson and Jones "To be an effective listener you should keep your mouth closed and your mind opened". If you are not born deaf the capacity to hear sound is natural but the capacity to understand most sounds need to be learned. Listening entails picking up both vocal as well as body messages.
Therefore it requires capacity to observe as well as to hear. It has been said that listening with an open mind is good even though it is extremely difficult to do so as we have set beliefs and ideas about certain objects, events and other situations based on our value systems. If we here only what we like and want to hear then we will reject all other new information and will not learn many things new. By listening with an open mind we can examine and re-examine our implicit and unconscious assumptions and become much more learned that what we actually are.
Pitfalls of listening comprehension
Following have been identified as pitfalls of learning comprehension:-
- Allowing the details of what you hear to obscure the speaker's central theme.
- Permitting ones mind wander to other matters while listening to someone else talk
- Allowing a listening environment to interfere with listening efficiency
- Overlooking opportunities to improve one's listening through practice
- Rejecting what is heard because it appears to be trivial
- Completely familiar or completely unfamiliar to comprehend
Suggestions to improve listening
According to professor Larry L. Baker following are some suggestions to improve your listening:-
- Be mentally and physically prepared to listen
Active listening involves the listener to be both physically and mentally in shape. Even though all of us are well aware of this only a few only uses it in practice. Your attention span is directly related to your physical and mental condition at a given moment.
If you are tried your capacity listen and learn will be actively and effectively reduced.
- Behave as you think a good listener should behave
If you behave as a good listener behaves, you can improve your listening greatly. for this, you to have your own role models. There may be some people whom you admire as good and effective listeners. Take some cues from their behaviors and add those to your own habits. Always try and learn from the good practices of others.
Some of the desirable listening behaviors include -
- Concentrating all of your physical and mental energy on listening
- Avoiding interrupting the speaker when possible
- Demonstrating interest and alertness
- Seeking areas of agreement with the speaker when possible
- Searching for meanings and avoiding arguments about words
- Demonstrating patience because you understand that you can listen faster than the speaker can speak
- Providing clear and unambiguous feedback to the speaker
- Representing the tendency to respond emotionally to what is said
- Asking questions when you do not understand something
- With holding evaluation of the message until the speaker has finished and you are sure that you have understood the message
- Practice listening to difficult expository material
It has been found that listening under normal circumstances can be improved by applying good listening habits to difficult listening. This is more of an exercise than a suggestion. If you find that you are an effective listener under extremely difficult conditions then it is very probable that you will be even more effective in listening under normal circumstances.
- Be flexible in your views
For listening to be effective you should not be close minded. Make sure that views you hold that are inflexible are held for very good reasons. Always keep in mind that there may be other better or contradictory views, which may have some merit even if you can not give them total acceptance. You can profit it you can approach all listening situations with an open mind and if you are flexible in your views.
- Compensate for emotion rousing words
Some words evoke as signal reactions, which may be a function of habit or conditioning.
We must be aware of those words, which affect us emotionally such as sex, honesty, boss, tax, and most four letter words. Following are few suggestions to help compensate for emotion rousing words.
- Think ahead of the talker
- Weigh the evidence used by the speaker
- Periodically review and mentally summarize the contents
- Listen between the lines
This is only a brief guide for you to understand the importance of listening and if you learn to listen effectively i am sure you will be able to succeed in your life.
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