...The Importance of Active Listening Communication is an essential of our everyday life; something we do as naturally as taking our next breath. Many of us see listening in much the same way. Communicating goes much deeper than just instinctive reaction. It takes work. Communication requires active listening and an understanding of interpersonal relationships to have satisfying workplace relations. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ~~Steven R. Covey Communication is more than speaking and hearing. Hearing requires no effort, but listening does. To actively listen you have to pay attention so you can process and analyze the message to respond appropriately. Yes, active listening is work, sometimes hard work but the one thing that is more important in the office than your education, qualifications, or experience, is your ability to be an active listener. Active listening improves understanding through being attentive to the speaker; allowing you to reflect on the message instead of planning your next response. Attentive listening minimizes defensiveness and allows for constructive conversation and problem-solving. Active listening requires listening, reflecting, and acknowledging. Feedback from acknowledgment reduces misunderstanding and allows decision making in the workplace without errors. Active listening is an important part of building relationships in the workplace. Every environment whether it be...
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...Active listening is not an easy skill to master, it takes practice in order for it to be an effective tool. Active listening is taking an active role in an important message (Knippen & Green, 1994). Your active listening skills are vital at work and in a workgroup to keep the flow of information and communication to complete each task. Therefore, without this skill, you may miss an important piece of information that you need for the task. In our textbooks, there are three skills to active listening; pay attention, paraphrasing, and probing (Griffith & Dunham, 2015). Showing the communicator, you are paying attention is very important, you should listen to what they are saying, and you paraphrase it back to them. This enables both you and...
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...One specific skill I bring to mediation and reconciliation is active listening. Through my ministry experiences with those of the elderly population, two aspects of active listening have shaped my interactions; I never complete a sentence unless specifically asked, and I listen attentively rather than plan my response. In active listening one should be comfortable with silence; allowing that silence to fill the room while the speaker contemplates their message or searches for just the right word is important in allowing the speaker to feel authentically and fully heard. If I completed the sentence of someone speaking it would suggest that their voice was less important, it would suggest that I have neither the time nor the inclination to fully listen to them, and it would likely suggest that I found them in some way lacking in intelligence. By holding the sacred space which allows the speaker to openly share their thought, I am performing an act of sacred active listening. Often when listening, I will allow several seconds of silence to permeate the air after one has finished speaking. In this, it gives the speaker the freedom to follow a thought in the direction they feel called, it allows the speaker to delve into the recesses of their mind and include additional...
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...Listening pairs with leadership to form a crucial skill in our ability to communicate well with others. Personally, I define leadership as a quality a leader has to motivate his or her team and work with them towards a common goal by utilizing each group member’s talents successfully. To successfully accomplish this, a leader must listen to its group so he or she can learn how to best utilize each member’s strengths and weaknesses. Everyone can understand what it is like to work within a team and to look towards the leader for understanding and help. Within many work or professional environments and situations, leaders have basic responsibilities, which are modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart. I believe it is important to look at each of these and realize how they would be unattainable for a leader without effectively listening to his followers. This can be accomplishment by understanding provided information, showing interest in the topic being discussed, and providing...
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...Active listening is listening beyond the words spoken. Listening to a person in order to sense what they are thinking and feeling, beyond the words they say. (Hoppe, 2006) Active listening is an important part of the human service industry. Active listening is used in the therapeutic setting to affectively understand the patient and helps bring solution to their problem. There may be things a patient is thinking or feeling that they are confused or embarrassed about, so they do not effectively communicate them. I find this especially true in working with Children. I spend some of my free time mentoring foster children, specifically 3 girls between the ages of 8-11. When talking with them about “serious” issues, like friend problems or rejection things they face. I cannot be a passive listener while mentoring them. I have to listen to things they are not saying but they are fully communicating. Like shame or embarrassment; when they shift uncomfortably because they feel guilty. They could be talking about a problem with a friend at school and I would have to realize that they were talking about deeper issues, such as trust issues. These are things that they do not verbally communicate with me, but reading body language and voice inflection I can start to understand what they are really feeling, even if they don’t realize that’s how they feel. A while ago I was “having ice cream” with one of the girls because she had just gotten ISS and her social worker asked for someone...
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...Project 9.4 The New CSR—Temporary Hire A temporary, six-month CSR position has just been filled at Dallas Distribution Center. The new hire is Abhey Patel, a very nice and bright person, who everyone agrees works extremely hard. Abhey has recently established citizenship in America from his homeland, India. Realizing the need to write to customers using proper English and grammar, the other CSRs have been covering for Abhey, proofreading his letters and e-mail messages for him. He is currently enrolled in an ESL (English as a Second Language) night class, but he hasn’t mastered all the fine points yet. Respond to these questions regarding Abhey’s situation: •Review the exercise above - Decision Making at Work titled “Project 9.4: The New CSR – Temporary Hire” on page 154. Address the following questions: •What are some things Abhey can do to complete his duties on his own more easily? •Do you feel that the supervisor should be informed that Abhey has not yet developed his business writing skills and that others are helping him? Explain. •How can his coworkers ask appropriate questions to help Abhey and his customers? Abhey’s situation is not an unusual one. There are many customer service representatives not able to properly use the English language to communicate either verbally or in written form. This inability to properly communicate can have drastic repercussions on a business. Customers expect quality from you in your products, but that is not the only...
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...TRAINING SCENARIOS “Active Listening” | SCENARIO DESCRIPTION | |Learners will participate in a listening exercise to practice the skill of active listening. | | | |Instructions: | |Present the handout “Active Listening” to the class. Review techniques listed. | |Begin with a discussion about what active listening is and what active listening is not. (Active listening is being non-judgmental, with the | |emphasis on listening and not solving the issue or problem. It is being attentive and respectful to the person talking. It involves | |listening closely, paraphrasing back to the speaker what you hear, clarifying what you think you hear, etc. Active Listening is not planning | |your response to what the person is saying. It is not day dreaming while they are talking. It is not solving their problems or giving advice.)| |Divide the class into groups of three and have each group decide who will be the active listener, who will role-play the scenario, and who...
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...Speaking Active Listening Show Transcript In order to listen well, you must concentrate. You might say, "yea, yea, I know. . ." but then you are falling into the trap that was just demonstrated in the video above. We all make choices about what we will and will not truly listen to. When you are required to listen to information that is necessary for your studies, your work, or the safety of others, you need to listen critically, carefully choosing what to remember. In order to do this well, you should take notes on what the key ideas are. Not quite sure how to do that? Read on! Objectives * Identify the main idea of short presentations. * Identify characteristics of active listening. Remember, listening is an active, rather than a passive, skill. It has certain physical and mental characteristics. Consider carefully each of the following questions in order to evaluate your listening skills. If you are unsure about how to answer some of them, ask your family, your friends, or your teacher to help. They may be more aware of your listening problems than you are. * Do you daydream when others are talking? * Do you take notes when someone is giving you information that you may need later? If not, do you always remember this information? * Do you tend to shut out people or ideas that you do not like? * Do you ask questions when someone says something you don't understand? * Have you ever missed part of an assignment because you were not listening? ...
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...Listening and Effective Workplace Communication James Humes, a former presidential speech writer, stated that, "the art of communication is the language of leadership" (Leading Thoughts, 2010). Communication is an essential process that is common in the workplace. Everyone in the workplace especially leaders must communicate with others. Ideas, conversations, disagreements, and commitments can all be exchanged through communication. Anyone can communicate but it takes discipline and skills to effectively communicate. These skills can include feedback, presentation, non-verbal communication, and listening. Listening is the most valuable skills to effective workplace communication because it enhances job effectiveness, relationships and responses. Most people equate hearing with listening and they do not take time to improve their listening skills. To be an effective communicator a person must understand the differences between hearing and listening. Listening is an active process that requires more effort than it takes to hear. “Listening is the conscious desire to determine the meaning of what is heard” (Behera, 2010). Hearing a message rather than listening could cause a person to agree to something that they did not intend to. An active listener participates in the communication process by being focused on the message that is being communicated. The in-depth process of listening will result in a verbal or non-verbal response to let the communicator know that...
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...Effective Listening Skills Student Name Course/Number Date Instructor Name Introduction Listening is defined by the International Listening Association as the process of receiving and constructing meaning from verbal or non verbal messages, and then offering a response (Cheesebro, O’Connor, & Rios, 2010). This implies that to offer accurate responses in various situations including during conflict resolution, one must be able to receive the information accurately through effective listening in order to draw meaning and respond to the parties in question appropriately (Shermerhon, Hunt, & Osborn, 2004). It is through effective listening to a party that one is able to grasp the intended meaning and offer a relevant response. Effective listening skills are one of the main determinants of the progress of teaching, informing, and conflict resolution. However, various factors need to be put in place to ensure that listening enhances the quality of communication among the parties involved. It requires effective coordination between the brain and the ear as well as proper concentration by the parties involved. This study presents listening strategies employed in effective conflict resolution. Listening Process The starting point is the absorption of information through the ear which is the transmitting device to the brain as indicated below. Source: Cheesebro, T., O’Connor, L., & Rios, F. (2010). For listening to occur, hearing must first take place. While...
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...I think that practice being an active listener would promote the desire to pay attention to what customer are saying. By practicing active listening skills a consumer would sense that the CSR cares for their business as well as gain knowledge about the service situation. Ways to improve your active listening skills are be ready to listen, take notes, show you are listening, ask question and restate the customer’s problem in your own words. An individual should always be ready to listen physically and mentally; body language and facial expression play a big part in my opinion. Learn how to block out any distraction they may side track you from what you are being told. Be ready to take note; carry around a little notebook and pen. During the conversation write down the key points or whatever you believe will help you come up with a solution. Let the speaker know that you are taking note so they can speak clearly and slowly enough so that you understand. Show the speaker you are listening to them using body language (but nodding your head etc.) or keeping eye contact the whole time. You can even ask question to determine what the cause of the problem was. Even if you have to ask a lot of question the speaker will know you are putting forth your best effort to understand what is being said. After you hear the speaker out recite their problem back to them in your own. By following these steps an individual can improve their active listening skills 2. Which service situation...
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...COM 120, Test 2 Chapter 4: Perception and Interpersonal Communication 1. The stages of perception are: a. Sense, organize, interpret-evaluate, store in memory, retrieve b. Retrieve, interpret-evaluate, sense, organize, store in memory c. Organize, store in memory, sense, interpret-evaluate, retrieve d. Retrieve, store in memory, proximity similarity, interpretation. 2. Our senses are bombarded with stimuli. Consequently, we a. Look for similarities b. Select and attend to those which meet our immediate needs c. Systematically process all of it d. Organize it just like everyone else does 3. We make judgements about others on the basis of all the following EXCEPT: a. Comparison b. Proximity c. Similarity d. Contrast 4. Relying on early information for a general idea of what a person is to like is also called: a. Stereotypes b. Our first impressions c. Prophecies we make d. Implicit theories 5. Giving subtle cues or hints about how we expect the other person to act is also called: a. Stereotypes b. Implicit theories c. Self-fulfilling prophecies d. Our first impressions 6. First impressions are all of the following EXCEPT: a. Unjust b. Inevitable c. Highly accurate d. A filter 7. You can increase your accuracy in...
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...EFFECTIVE LISTENING What Effective Listening Is ? Effective listening is actively absorbing the information given to you by a speaker, showing that you are listening and interested, and providing feedback to the speaker so that he or she knows the message was received. Delivering verbal communication, like writing a newsletter, involves trying to choose the right words and nonverbal cues to convey a message that will be interpreted in the way that you intend. Effective listeners show speakers that they have been heard and understood. "We were given two ears but only one mouth, because listening is twice as hard as talking." Sources of Difficulty by the Speaker • Voice volume too low to be heard. • Making the message too complex, either by including too many unnecessary details or too many issues. • Getting lost, forgetting your point or the purpose of the interaction. • Body language or nonverbal elements contradicting or interfering with the verbal message, such as smiling when anger or hurt is being expressed. • Paying too much attention to how the other person is taking the message, or how the person might react. Sources of Difficulty by the Listener • Being preoccupied and not listening. • Being so interested in what you have to say that you listen mainly to find an opening to get the floor. • Formulating and listening to your own rebuttal to what the speaker is saying. • Listening to your own personal beliefs...
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..."There are a broad range of counselling micro skills that can be utilized effectively in therapy sessions. Within the context of their personal history, effective micro skill applications can encourage clients to tell their stories in colourful and extensive detail. Such effective implementation of micro skills facilitates the development of rapport and a positive therapeutic alliance thereby permitting clients to enrich their perspectives regarding problem and opportunity situations in their lives (Egan, 2007). Three important counseling techniques will be explored, all of which have been clinically demonstrated to be efficacious in a broad range of counseling settings (Egan). The skills of active listening, empathy and sharing empathic highlights will be discussed and analysed within the framework of a counselling case study. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to examine the use, efficacy and deficiencies of how these skills were employed within a counselling session with a mother, let's call her Mary. Mary presented to counselling with a five year history of frustrated attempts to get her daughter to sleep consistently in her own bed. On one hand, she had gone to extraordinary efforts to influence and sustain effective sleep patterns in her daughter. On the other, a feeling of being out of control permeated drained resourcefulness. Mary felt she was too compliant with her daughter's unwilling behaviour and sought help from a counsellor. The surface structure of...
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...Improving my listening skills at work would increase the effectiveness of my communication because the person or people that are talking to me or trying to explain something to me will know that I am being attentive they will know that they can trust that I am hearing what they are saying, understanding what they are saying, and most importantly hear what they are saying. I know that if my managers know that I am actively listening it could definitely have positive outcomes on where I want to be in my career. The main strategy of effective listening that I think I need to personally work on would be “Mindful” (Wood p 160). In my work situation being mindful would be me learning to in our group meeting situations to let people speak all the way through even if they are totally off topic, not to try and dominate the talk stage. At work I would also want to work on my “active listening skills” (wood p160) which I know is hard work but it will force me to ask questions and let the other person know I am interested in what they are saying and I am actually taking it in. It would also force me to ask questions because I know myself personally, if I am not actively listen my mind wanders on to other things and I won’t ask questions and I won’t retain a word that was said. These same techniques can help me in my personal life as well because a lot of times my husband will have important information that he needs to discuss with me, and to be honest with you I would really only use my...
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