How to Be a Better Listener - Research Paper Example

How to Be a Better Listener Introduction “Courage is what it takesto stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen” (Winston Churchill). Listening is indeed an essential skill, though we seemingly attach much less importance to it, than we do to our reading or writing skills. How many of us really listen, when being spoken to, and when I say ‘listen’, I do not mean simply ‘hear’. You may hear hundreds and thousands of sounds in a day, but how many of us take time off our hands to actually listen? Listening to simple things, like may be the chirping of the birds in the early morning, or the quiet gurgling sound of a flowing stream, or maybe the sound of the rain falling during the night. These are common natural sounds, yet they may sound unfamiliar, because we do not have the time or the inclination to listen to them. ‘Listening’ is not magic; it is simply an art that you will have to master, if you wish to succeed in life. Now the next question that will most obviously come to our minds will be, if listening is not hearing, then what do we do to listen? Yes, listening and hearing are entirely two different entities. How many times we have our ‘heard’ our mothers asking us to clean our rooms; and how many times we actually ‘listen’ to what she is trying to say and also do accordingly? How times do we ‘listen’ to our parents advising us to avoid doing certain things, or do we just hear them speaking some jargon, a language that we pretend we cannot understand and so can be easily forgotten? The basic difference between hearing and listening is in the amount of attention we pay to the person who is speaking to us, and in our attempts in trying to understand as to what he/she is actually saying. “My son never listens to what I say!”; “Will you for god’s sake please remain quiet and listen to what I am trying to say?” We have heard these complaints so many times that they sound quite clichéd to us by now. It is simply not in most people to listen to what others say. We love to speak, and have fallen in love with our voices so much, that we prefer to talk, even if it means speaking utter nonsense at times. Speaking one to a dozen does not help us much, and it is only in listening to what others say that we climb the ladder to success. So the next time your mother asks you to clean your room, or avoid doing certain things, just ‘listen’ to her. The training to acquire such basic skills start right from home, and once you are out in the world on your own, you may actually find that careful ‘listening’ to your mother has helped you in achieving the success you always dreamed of. Discussion “Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when youd have preferred to talk” (Doug Larson). Listening indeed widens the scope of learning and broadens the intellectual capacity of a person. However listening pertains to ‘real listening’ and not just ‘hearing’. This means that you are giving full attention to the speaker, and not only trying to comprehend as to what he is saying, but actually also empathising with the speaker. As for example, if you are listening well and if you are enjoying the speech, you will pay attention to each and every word that the speaker utters. In such a case you will feel angry when the speaker is angry; you are sad when he expresses grief; you are happy when he speaks of happiness; and you wait in eager anticipation as to what the speaker will say next. So, actual listening is akin to being emotionally connected to the speaker. There is a miscommunication, when the listener fails to comprehend what the speaker is trying to express, or he may also wrongly interpret the speaker’s intentions. When there is indeed a good communication between a speaker and a listener, there are many factors that are at play simultaneously that helps in achieving to this end. Besides having a good and careful listener in an effective communication, the speaker must also be good enough to be able to reach out to his listeners. However good a listener may be, the whole effort will prove to be futile, if the speaker is un-inspiring and insipid, or his language of expression is fraught with grammatical errors. So an effective communication is a two way mode and is successful only when the speaker and listener are both equally involved in the whole process. How to be an effective listener? We listen to so many things during our lifetime, that it is indeed surprising, that yet most of us are not good listeners. We somehow fail to focus on this important communicating skill, while putting great emphasis on speaking or writing well, assuming that these are only two basic communicating modes. In fact a look around will confirm this viewpoint. Many of our schools and universities offer various courses that promise to teach us to speak well and write well. How many of us have heard of any course that offers to teach us to listen well? The first step in learning to listen well would be to understand the fine nuances that exist between hearing and listening. Hearing is simply a biological function, where our ear receives various sound frequencies. The inner region of our ear (cochlea) is filled with fluid that contains nerve cells. These nerve fibres receive the sound vibrations that enter the ear, and convert them into electrochemical impulses, that travel to our brains through our eighth cranial nerve. A completely involuntary biological function, hearing is undeniably also the first expedient in the art of listening. Listening is a process where one is consciously aware of and is paying attention to, while simultaneously analysing all the sound stimuli that he is receiving. So you not only ‘hear’, you also simultaneously analyse and try to interpret the underlying meaning behind all the received auditory stimuli. So ‘listening’ is something more than just ‘hearing’; is an active process which is voluntarily done by the listener. So definitely, listening is an art or a skill, which is fine-processed with long practice. The basic components of good listening can be listed as: You tend to listen better if you have prior knowledge on the topic. With ready material at hand you will definitely listen better. It is for this very reason most of the training programmes or other developmental programmes first hand out printed leaflets, before proceeding with the lectures on the subject. There are physiological activities involved in the whole process like hearing and seeing, both. As for example, the speaker may use visual slides along with his lecture, to make communication (listening) even more effective. Rapt attention and deep concentration on the part of the listener High levels of intellectual activities are involved in the entire process that acts as a constant stimulator, and also assists the listener in remembering the discussed topic later on. Now the next question would be, as to why we should ‘listen’ and in the process why should we develop good listening skills? There are various reasons as why we should work on honing our listening skills. These are: Listening as a mode of communication is most frequently used, right from our childhood days, when we listen to our parents’ instructions; to our school days where we listen to our teachers speaking; to our college days where the major part of our time seems to be spent in listening and trying to comprehend what our professors are trying to teach us. Some of my friends even complained that they listened more to their instructors than they have ever listened to their friends or families. However, listening does not end at the college or university gates, and even when we join the workforce we end up listening to our senior colleagues, and our supervisors. So without any doubt, listening seems to be the most common mode of communication in our lives (though some would claim it to be a one way communication only). So it is necessary that we learn the skills in order to become a good listener. It has been seen that good listeners are also good workers at the office front. Nearly all the people, who are highly placed in their offices, on being questioned have confirmed that listening is still the best form of work skill. Often at offices the most popular bosses are the ones who have the reputation “of really listening to the problems”. Even doctors and especially psychiatrists, when I asked them, concurred with this idea. According to them, those physicians who listened to their patients enduringly and carefully, are more popular and have very few complaints against them. Psychiatrists have said that patients who come to them have several types of mental problems, and when they get the desired attention from the doctor they are most gratified and many have expressed it by saying that “You are really listening to me, nobody else does”. So listening is an art which is also highly appreciated, bringing in a sort of self satisfaction to those who are marked as good listeners. It has been observed by the professors and teachers that most of the students who score well, and get marks well above the average grade, in a class are invariably good listeners too. Listening is an extremely good means of maintaining a good relationship. A basic requirement for all human beings is to be understood, and also to understand, in turn. If one is a good listener then by obvious reasoning he would also be able to understand or analyse any problematic situation better; and in turn offer the desired help or support, leading him to have strong ties with his family and friends. Thus we can conclude that listening is an extremely important part of our mode of communication, which is also a sure way to achieve success in life. We listen for various reasons: like to learn and widen our perspectives, to gain information on a certain subject, to get a firsthand experience report from someone who has done something special, to get feedback (positive or negative), to be able to wield control (the more information you imbibe by careful listening the more power you imbibe over others, since we know that ‘knowledge is power’), to develop and nurture a relationship, and also to show our respect towards others and show that we value them How to listen effectively? Good listening comprises of mainly four parts. These are, Attention- To listen effectively it is imperative that one gives 100% attention to what the speaker is saying. Hearing what the speaker is saying, (that is, if you have a hearing problem, and have come without a hearing aid, then paying 100% attention to the speaker would be of no avail). Comprehending what the speaker is saying and analysing as to what has been said, and also understanding the parts that been left unsaid. It is a part of effective and intelligent listening, that one comprehends what the speaker has left unsaid, in his speech. As one listens one will have to mentally analyse the speech, and also comprehend the significant parts. So listening as a complete skill, is related to the listener’s level of intelligence, his verbal proclivity, his tendency towards being scholarly disposed, and also his vocabulary. He also has to be interested in the subjected that he is listening to. Remembering is also another important part of listening. If one has listened well, he will be able to store the input within his memory, to be recollected and used later at the right opportunity. Body language: This is another important aspect of effective listening. While preparing to listen well you should also be able to present a suitable body language that should act as an encouragement to the speaker. As you listen you should be able to have a facial expression and a gaze, which in turn would motivate the speaker to give his best. Your body language should not show that you are listening superficially, merely out of politeness. As a good listener you should keep a constant eye contact with the speaker, without letting it gaze in other directions. You body should lean slightly towards the speaker to show your interest in the subject on which the speaker is delivering. A good listener is involved in the whole process, that is, he will speak to the speaker and make it an effective two way communication. Questioning and speaking up to clear your doubts is a part of active listening, and is also quite welcoming to the speaker. So while listening, if you have any doubts or any questions, all you need to do is to ask. It would keep the speaker motivated, and your doubts would also be cleared in the process. Barriers to listening: There are certain barriers to listening these are: Language barriers: In a multicultural society this may prove to be a hurdle where the speaker cannot effectively to his listeners, owing to differences in style of speaking, or differences in accent, or it may be also due to age differences (a grandfather may find it difficult to communicate with his grandson, owing to changes and creation of ‘modern’ terminologies). A lawyer may find it difficult to communicate with listeners that comprise of engineering students. To overcome this linguistic problem you should try to get the gist of the lecture, while taking down important notes which you can study later. The speaker in such cases can also use audio-visual effects to make the communication more effective. Cultural barriers: An American person would find it extremely difficult to understand a typical Japanese movie like ‘Rashomon’ by Kurosawa; while a Japanese citizen would find it incomprehensible, if he tried listening to Sufi songs without any prior knowledge. In such cases it is up to the speaker to use various aids to help the listener to understand as to what is being said. The listener on his part can do a prior study on the subject before going in to listen. Physical factors: Sleeplessness, tiredness, preconceived notions, biases, prejudices, are all parts of physical barriers that hinder effective listening. One may also tend to get over excited, or even upset and emotional at what is being said. Such emotional outbursts do not form a part of effective listening and one will have to consciously remove these hindrances, like those pertaining to a mental block on certain subjects, so as to be able to listen neutrally and also gain the desired knowledge on the subject. Conclusion From the above discourse it is indeed safe to infer that effective listening is indeed a skill that can be developed and worked upon, to make it perfect. Good listening can not only be the road to success, it also helps you to learn many things, and also teaches you how to develop and nurture relationships. A most effective communicative skill, and at times even better than speaking, it is the most intelligent men that have been seen to keep quiet, while listening and making mental notes of everything that is being said, or most importantly, being left unsaid. As Peter Drucker had once said “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isnt being said”. Read More