Listening and Responding to Others
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Focus Questions
How do listening and hearing differ?
How does effective listening differ when listening forinformation and listening to support others?
How can we improve our listening skills?
What are effective ways to express support for others?
How can you control obstacles to effective listening?
Listening and Responding to Others
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Listening and Responding
People tend to more focus on talking
Studies show: Average person spends 45%-53% of waking time on listening to others
Total listening may even greater (radio…,background…)
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Hearing & Listening
Hearing is aphysiological activity
Sound wave & ear drum
Other messagesreceived at the sametime (sight)
Listening
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The Listening Process
Being mindful
Focus on what is happening in the moment
An ethical commitment; Leaders must want to listen!
Enhance communication
Increasing understanding of what others feel & think
Promoting more complete communication by others
Physically receiving communication
Women are more attuned to what is going on around
Men tend to direct hearing in a specific way
Women likely to notice contexts, details, themes ininteraction
Average: 300 words/min understood; 100 spoken
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The Listening Process (2)
Selecting and organizing communication
Study: Teachers unintentionally give more attention tomale than female students…
As we listen: categorize people→assess them →applystereotype→choose a script
Perceptions can be wrong. Be ready to revise them!
Interpreting communication
Recognizing others’ viewpoint doesn’ t mean youagree with them; it does mean you make an earnesteffort to grasp what they think and feel.
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The Listening Process (3)
Responding
Signs of being involved in interaction
Remembering
Recall of literal messages vs. Recall ofinterpretation of them
Memory fading
Remember less than Half / immediately after
Recall 35% / after 8 hours
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Obstacles to Effective Listening
Situational obstacles
Message overload
Message complexity
Environmental distractions
Internal Obstacles
Preoccupation
Prejudgment
Lack of effort
Not recognizing diverse listening styles
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Forms of Ineffective Listening
Pseudo-listening
Monopolizing
Conversational rerouting
Interrupting
Selective listening
Defensive listening
Ambushing
Politics: Gathering ammunition to use in attacking aspeaker
Literal listening
Content level vs. Relationship level of meaning
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Guidelines for Effective Listening
Informational & critical listening
Be mindful
Control obstacles
Ask questions
Use aids to recall
Repeating
Mnemonics
Organize information
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Guidelines for Effective Listening
Relationship listening
Be mindful
Total listening: more than words, also silence &meaning buried
Suspend judgment
Strive to understand the other’s perspective
Minimum encouragers
Paraphrasing
Asking questions
Express support
See Father-Son conversation on page 170