What Are the Characteristics of Effective Listening and Ineffective Listening - Essay Example

What are the Characteristics of Effective Listening and Ineffective listening? ‘We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may listen more[and] speak less.’(Cited in Dr.Karen Lawson 2007) A human being’s contact with the outside world depends on the five physical senses of hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell. Of these senses, hearing plays a pivotal role in interpersonal communication. Our response to an utterance depends on what we hear. Therefore effective communication depends on better use of the sense of hearing or on effective listening, as Michael Purdy and Deborah Borisoff (1997, p 4) argue that ‘among the basic skills we need for success in life, listening is primary- there is no meaningful communication without listening.’ They cite a number of studies conducted by Rankin (1928), Barker, Edwards, Gaines, Gladney and Holley( 1980) and Cotton(1986) which show that ‘from 40 to 62% of our communication time is spent in listening depending on listeners’ fields, professions and nature of communication . Listening is so important in life that there are jobs where ‘listening can save life’, argue Dan Hair O,G.W Friedrich and L.D .Dixon(2008) ‘for example, police officers working ‘on 911 emergency hotlines use their listening skill to identify and respond to emergencies as they occur’(p.106). Despite this importance of the listening skill in our life, ‘rarely do we receive formal listening training in the home and at school’ lament Purdy and Borisoff’s( p.5). Purdy and Borisoff’s views seem to point towards a general tendency among people to underestimate listening in our everyday life. This lack of training results in ineffective listening which causes several problems in our personal and professional life. According to Tony Alessandra ‘ineffective listening is one of the most frequent causes of: misunderstandings ,mistakes ,lower employee, productivity and morale ,missed sales ,lost customers ,billions of dollars of increased costs and lost profits and increased employee turnover’ In addition to these problems in professional life, continues Alessandra ‘ineffective listening is also acknowledged to be one of the primary contributors to divorce and to the inability of a parent and child to openly communicate.’ Moreover, the ineffective listening habits may lead to social isolation as ‘people view poor listeners’ explains Alessandra ‘as self-centered, disinterested, preoccupied, and social boors!’   James P. Lewis(2004, p 164) gives out three reasons behind ineffective listening: not caring for what the speaker is saying, thinking about a response to what the speaker has just said, makes them miss what is being currently said and external distractions of noise and activities around. Thus, the distractions are of internal as well as of external nature which cause ineffective listening . Randy Fujishin(2007.p55-56) finds out four styles of ineffective listening: 1. Refusing to listen (marked by expressions like ‘I don’t want to listen ‘ or simply walking away when the speaker begins. 2. Pseudo listening( pretending to listen) 3. Listening selectively ( listening the things you like and skipping the rest) 4. Listening to evaluate (the listener listens to judge the speaker and not to understand him/her which does not encourage understanding.) When we consider these four poor listening habits, we feel that they appear to be commonly found in our interpersonal communication and cause ineffective communication. Carol Bradford Cummings (2000.p 35) includes ‘dominating the conversation’, interrupting, ‘ridiculing the speaker’s idea’ and ‘avoiding eye contact’, among the characteristics of ineffective listening.  James S Orourke Iv., Anubha Singh. (2006, p .166) include ‘calling the subject uninteresting’ and ‘oversimplification’ of the speaker’s messages in their inventory of poor listening habits. The contraries of these characteristics of ineffective listening are the characteristics of effective listening. This discussion of the causes of ineffective listening and the problems created by ineffective listening in our life, underlines the importance of effective listening and the necessity of our knowledge of what it is what its characteristics are and how we can be effective listeners. But before we discuss the characteristics of effective listening, it seems necessary to define listening first. Listening is not as simple a process as is generally thought. It is, as Alessandra observes ‘more than just keeping quiet’. Listening is different from hearing. While hearing refers to our biological ability to sense sounds, listening refers to paying attention to what we hear. They key element in listening is ‘attention’ and it is this element which differentiates listening from hearing. Dennis M. Kratz & Abby Robinson Kratz (2005) make it clear that the ‘act of listening is not limited to language or even to people’ for example; a doctor listens to patients breathing or heartbeat. A skilled mechanic listens to ‘a running engine’ to fix it (p.3). Purdy and Borisoff enumerate the following defining characteristics of listening which can help us understand the concept of effective listening better. Listening ‘Can be learned’ ‘Is a dynamic process’ ‘Is an active process’ ‘Involves mind and body with verbal and nonverbal processes working together.’ ‘Allows us to be receptive to the needs, concerns and information of’ our interlocutor ‘as well as the environment around us.’(p.7) It is this element of attention or the amount of this element which further defines effective listening and ineffective listening. When we study the element of attention in effective listening, it appears to contain a number of sub-elements which make effective listening a dynamic and not a mechanical process. The sub-elements are: hearing with attention, watching with attention, comprehending and interpreting. Rex Lloyd Forehand and Nicholas James Long (2002 .p. 170) recommend the following qualities to be good listeners: 1. Eliminate distractions 2. Listen to understand 3. Reflect and summarize what you hear 4. Clarify to reach full understanding 5. Use receptive body language Explaining these points they argue that eliminating distractions implies ‘putting down the newspaper’, ‘turning off the TV’ and the like. According to Arthur R. Pell(2001) ‘telephone is the greatest distraction’. Answering a telephone call ‘disrupts the flow of your conversation’ (p.145).Besides the physical means of distractions, we should also get rid of the psychological means of distractions which exist inside us as listeners, such as mental absence , vacuous listening, selected perception and wishful thinking etc . For example in case of mental absence resulting in vacuous listening, we may hear the words of our interlocutor but we may not be listening. Harry G. Turner (2005) when our mind is somewhere else, we are preoccupied with our own thoughts. ‘You are hearing something but you are not listening’ (p.60). Michael P. Nichols (2009) retells this when he observes that ‘when listening is genuine, the emphasis is on the speaker not the listener.’(p.84) .We must remove these filters which may distort what we are hearing and when we do this we listen to understand. This is what the famous quote of J. Isham seems to say that ‘listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals’ Stephanie Dowrick, Catherine Greer.(2006) seem to further Isham’s statement when they observe ‘listening carefully reflects a powerful attitude that other people’s lives matter’(p.203). In addition to the psychological filters and distractions, our own (listeners) body language may mar the communication. The best thing to do to avoid having discouraging body language is to, they explain, ‘maintain eye contact’, projecting a facial expression of interest and nodding to show your agreement, etc. Dr Karen Lawson (2007) recommends the use of verbal comments such as ‘that’s interesting’, ‘tell me more’ (p.5). This point has also been discussed by Dan Erwin who is a specialist in performance improvement. He (2009) emphasizes the importance of listening with eyes which means picking the nonverbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions and posture. Actually, sometime, distractions with regard to our body language occur because of what Karen Lawson calls ‘dead’ time in the communication process (p.4). This dead time occurs because of disparity of the speed of speaking on the part of the speaker and the speed of listening on the part of the listener. As Jerry Wisinski (2009) explain that most people speak at a rate of 125 to 150 words per minute while listers process what is said at ‘four to six time that rate’ (86)   and according to Dianna Podmoroff (2004) average human speaking speed is 160 to 170 words per minute and our brains process the words ‘three times that rate’ (p.171). If the listener’s listening speed is faster than the speaking speed of the speaker, there occurs a dead time. She warns that a good listener should not ‘fill that void by daydreaming’ or doodling. Instead this time should be spent on processing what the speaker has just said. Summarizing is ‘saying in a non-judgmental way the overall point the other person was making.’ It is particularly useful when discussing complex issues or after a lengthy discussion’ (p 172). Asking questions helps a listener clarify his or her understanding of our interlocutor’s perspective. All these characteristic of effective listening are summarized in three points by Marshall Cook (p.77). He gives out three ‘Rs’ of effective listening which we can show for our own understanding in the following figure. Figure 1 We further this summarizing of our discussion and round off with a tabular comparison of both the effective listening and ineffective listening seems useful. This comparison has been borrowed from the FSA website. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is an independent company in UK which in partnership with the government, is working to build financial capability of people in the UK by helping people review and organize their finances. In this respect it offers a guide to effective listening to its consumers based on an extract from “Learning by Doing, A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods”,by Professor Graham Gibbs,(1988). Effective Listening Techniques Ineffective Listening Effective Listening Non-verbal behaviour Listener looks bored, uninterested or judgmental, avoids eye contact; displays distracting mannerisms (doodles, shuffles papers, etc) Listener maintains positive posture, avoids distracting mannerisms, keeps attention focused on speaker, maintains eye contact, nods and smiles Focus of attention Listener shifts focus of attention to herself: “when something like that happened to me…..” Listener keeps focus of comments on the speaker: “when that happened, what did you do?” Acceptance Listener fails to accept speaker’s ideas and feelings: “I think it would have been better to…” Listener accepts ideas and feelings: “That’s an interesting idea, can you say more about it?” Empathy Listener fails to empathize: “I don’t see why you felt that”. Listener empathizes: “So when that happened, you felt angry”. Probing Listener fails to probe into an area, to follow up on an idea or feeling. Listener probes in a helpful way: “Could you tell me more about what led you to feel that way?” Paraphrasing Listener fails to check by restating in own words important statements made by the speaker. Listener paraphrases at an appropriate time to check understanding. Summarizing Listener fails to summarize. Listener summarizes progress of the conversation from time to time. Advising Listener narrows the range of options, suggesting a “correct” course of action. Listener widens the range of ideas by suggesting a number of alternatives. Figure 2 To conclude, we can say that the importance of listening in communication stresses the importance of effective listening in our life. It seems to have some healing power in our personal, social and professional interactions. This necessitates the importance of avoiding a naïve attitude towards listening. Educationists, economists, experts of communication studies, psychologists and others stress the need for formal training for listening to improve the quality of our lives at home and outside home. Refernces Arthur R. Pell.(2001)The complete idiots guide to human resource management Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Cook,Marshall.(1999) Effective Coaching.NY: McGraw-Hill. Cummings .C.B( 2000)Winning strategies for classroom management . Alexandria, USA: ASCD Publications. Fujishin, Randy.(2007).Creating effective groups: the art of small group communication . Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Inc. Forehand,Lloyd. Long, N. J (2002 ) Parenting the strong-willed child: the clinically proven five-week program. NY, MacGraw Hill. Hair Dan O, Friedrich.G.W., Dixon,L.D. (2008).Strategic Communication in Business and the Professions. Delhi,Pearson Education Inc. James P. Lewis. (2004)Team-Based Project Managemen. Washington D.C:BeardBooks.  James S Orourke Iv., Anubha Singh.(2006)Management Communication: A Case-Analysis Approach, 2/e. India:Dorling Kindersley, Pearson Education in South Asia.      Kratz D.M., Kratz A.R (2005)Effective Listening Skills. Delhi,Tata MacGraw-Hill. Nichols.M.P(2009)The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships. NY: The Guilford Press. Podmoroff ,   Dianna (2005).How to hire, train & keep the best employees for your small business. Florida:Atlantic Publishing Group Inc. Purdy, Michael., Borisoff, Deborah.(1997) Listening in everyday life: a personal and professional approach. Maryland .University Press of America. Stephanie Dowrick, Catherine Greer.(2006) Choosing happiness: life & soul essentials.Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. Turner. Harry G.(2005) You can do it!: a guide for the adult learner and anyone going back to School Mid-career.. Abderdeen: Silver Lake Publishing. Wisinsk , Jerry. (1999)Building a partnership with your boss: a take-charge assistant book.NY: AMACOM, AMA Publications. Electronic Sources 1. Alessandra, Tony. The Power of Listening. Speakers Platform. Retrieved on Dec 4, 2009,from http://www.speaking.com/articles_html/TonyAlessandra,Ph.D.,CSP,CPAE_107.html. 2. Erwin, Dan.( 2009)Listening with Your Eyes: Why Nonverbal Insight Is Tough. Dan Ervin, A Blog About Career Development. Retrieved on Dec 4,2009, from http://www.danerwin.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/09/listening-with-your-eyes-why-nonverbal-insight-is-tough.html. 3. Gibbs,graham. Effective Listening Techniques. The Financial Services Authority. Retrieved on Dec 5,2009,from http://www.fsa.gov.uk/financial_capability/pgtm/family_money_file/modules_sw/m05/u01/8739_FSA_Mod_5_Offering_Guidance_handout_v5.doc.doc 4. Lawson, Karen.(2007)The Importance of Listening . Lawson Consulting Group. Inc.Retrieved onDec4,2009,fromhttp://www.growinggreatness.com/gg_articles/The_Importance_of_Listening.pdf. 5. Listening Quotes and Proverbs. HeartQuotes™: Quotes of the Heart. Retrieved on Dec 5,2009,from http://www.heartquotes.net/Listening.html The Characteristics of Effective and Ineffective Listening By ……………………….. …………………………… Tutor’s Name…………….. Date of submission……………. Read More