LISTENING

Purpose to polish this skill

• The ability to listen is a vital skill in
business communication.
• Polish your listening skills. You will need
them on the job as well as in your
personal life.
• Infact, businesses lose millions of dollars
each year because of miscommunication
stemming from a failure to listen to and
understand customer’s needs.
Effective listening

• Effective listening means to listen with full

concentration, focusing fully on what your
receiver saying, without any distraction.
• Effective listening means listening as
though you were a doctor gathering new
symptoms from a patient or a pilot intouch
with a control tower during a storm.
Advantages of good listening
• Effective listening supports effective
relationships within an
organization,enhances the organizations’s
delivery of products.
• Elerts the organization to the innovation
growing from both external and internal
forces,and allows the organization to
manage the growing diversity both in the
workforce and in the customers it serves.
Difference btw Hearing n Listening

• Hearing:
• Hearing denotes perceiving sounds.
• Listening:
• Listening means decoding and interpreting them
correctly.
• Another definition of hearing is :
• Hearing is an automatic, physical function.
because you heard the words does’nt necessarily
means you were listening to the msg
Three Types of Listening
• Content Listening:
• Is to understand and retains the speaker’s
msg.it doesn’t matter whether you agree or
disagree,approve or disapprove__only that you
understand.
• Example”
• When you listen regional sales manager’s
monthly report on how many of your product
sold that month,you are listening for content.
Critical Listening
• Critical listening is to both understand and
evaluatethe meaning of the speaker’s msg
• (strength of the evidence,validity of the
conclusion,implication of the msg)
• You are bound to evaluate speaker’s credibility
as well.
• When the regional sales manager presents sales
projections for the next few months,u listen
critically,evaluating whether the estimates are
valid and what the implications are for your
manufacturing department.
Active or Ampathetic listening
• Empathic listening is to understand the speaker’s
feelings,needs,and wants so that you can
appreciate his or her point of view, regardless of
whether you share that perspective.
• By listening in an active or empathic way, you
help the individual vent the emotions that
prevent a dispassionate approach to the subject.
avoid the temptation to give advice.
• When ur regional sales manager tells u abt the
problems he had with his recreational vehicle
while vacationing with his family.
What do good listeners do?
• Pay Attention
• Listen with full concentration n attention.
• Focus on the other(s) speakers in a generous
way.
• Give the importance to your speaker not yourself
• Avoid making Assumptions.
• Don’t take some pre-assumed facts in your
mind.
• Listen for feelings as well as facts.
• Give same emphasis to the feelings as well as
facts.
How to avoid listening errors
caused by Inattention
• Be conscious of the points you need to
know and listen for them.
• At the end of the conversation,check your
understanding with the other person.
• After the conversation,write down key
points.
How to avoid listening errors
caused by self-absorption
• Focus on the substance what speaker says
not his or her appearance or delivery.
• Spend your time evaluating what the
speaker says,not just planning your
rebuttal.
• Consciously work to learn something from
every speaker.
How to avoid listening errors
caused by misinterpretation
• Consider the other person’s background
and experiences.why is this point
important to the speaker?
• Paraphrase what the speaker has
said,giving him or her a chance to correct
your understanding.
How to avoid listening errors
caused by focusing solely on facts
• Consciously listen for listen for feelings.
• Pay attention to tone of voice,facial
expression,and body language.
• Don’t assume that silence means
consent.invite the other person to speak.
Active listening

• In active listening,receivers actively

demonstrate that they have heard and
understood a speaker by feeding back
either the literal meaning or the emotional
content or both.
• Other technique in active listening is
asking more information and stating one’s
own feelings.
Five strategies to create active
responses
i- paraphrase the content.Feed back the
meaning in your own words.
Ii- Mirror the speakers feelings.identify the
feelings you think you hear.
Iii- state your own feelings.this strategy
works especially well when you are angry.
Iii- ask for information or clarification.
Iv- offer to help solve the problem.
How to make others feel that you
are listening
• Acknowledge their comments:
• In words(I agree with you)
• by non verbal symbols(nods,huh’s,smiles,frowns)

• By actions(acting on what people say is

necessary for people to feel completely heard)
• Refering to another person’s comments
Listening any deplorable person
• Try to find out why your opponent objects to your ideas.
• Understanding the objections to your ideas is essential if
you are to create a persuasive campaign to overcome
those objections.
• Good listening is crucial when you are criticized.then you
need to know which areas are most important and
exactly what kind of improvements counts.
• If you really listen to the people you disagree with,you
show them that you respect them.and taking that step
may enable them to respect you and listen to you.