CHAPTER FIVE

ACTIVE LISTENING

INTRODUCTION

Dear student, this is the fifth chapter of the course. The chapter is designed to discuss the
important and/or basic points that would enable you to have the fundamental knowledge on
active listening.

In this chapter, you will be learning about the meaning, type, importance of active listening,
significance of active listening in organizations and the different causes of poor listening.

Listening is defined as making an effort to hear somebody/ something. Listening is a

combination of what we hear, understand and remember. You may physically pick up sound
waves with your ears, evaluate the information and finally you may act based on your hearing
and evaluation listening starts from hearing and it goes beyond hearing, since we evaluate and
react based on it.

Effective listening is not a passive communication activity. It takes a great deal of effort and
motivation to become and remain an effective listener. However, good listening is a
prerequisite for success in business and the professions. Effective listening is certainly not the
answer to all business problems, but it is one of the first steps leading to solutions. The case
cannot be made strongly enough that organizational effectiveness is hampered by employees
and managers who do not listen well. Individual career advancement also can be impeded by
poor listening. Unfortunately, poor listening is often more apparent to others than it is to the
poor listener.

5.1 TYPES OF LISTENING

The three forms of listening are:

1. Content listening
2. Critical listening
3. Active listening
5.1.1. Content listening

The purpose of this type of listening is to understand and retain the speaker’s message you
may ask questions, but basically information flows from the speaker to you. Your job is to
identify the key points of the message. It doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree,
approve or disapprove only that you understand. Content listening enables you to understand
and retain the message.

5.1.2. Critical listening

This is meant to both understand and evaluate the meaning of the speaker’s message at several
levels. Logic of the argument, strength of the evidence, and validity of the conclusions the
implication of the message for you or your organization, the speaker’s intentions and motives
the omission of any important or relevant points. Critical listening generally involves
interaction as you try to uncover the speaker’s point of view. You are bound to evaluate the
speaker’s credibility as well. It enables you to evaluate the information.

5.1.3. Active/empathic listening

The aim of this type of 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. Try not to judge the individuals feelings. Just let the other person talk. Active listening
is used to drown out the other person.

Regardless of whether the situation calls for content, critical, or active listening, all three
types of listening can be useful in work – related situations, so it pays to learn how to apply
them.

5.2. IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE LISTENING IN ORGANIZATION

In business environment, three different sources of information demand effective listening:

customers, employees, and supervisors.
By listening to customers, the organization can learn objective information about its products
or services. For example, customers can suggest desired product improvements that the
research and development department may have overlooked. Listening to customers can tell
us a great deal about the competition. Most companies like to compare and contrast
themselves with other companies’ people, information, goods and services. Customers will
communicate their opinion of you, your company, and its competition if they are encouraged.
It also increases sales and the level of customer satisfaction.

Listening to employees is a way of showing support and acceptance, which make for a more
open climate, and an open climate makes employee satisfaction and productivity more likely.
To show that they are listening managers’ responses must communicate acceptance. “There is
a genuine working together a whole new cooperative spirit--- but the most dramatic change is
in the atmosphere. It was hard to cooperate when you were in a war. The change is almost too
good to be true” Joseph Leonard

Perhaps it is obvious that employees of an organization should listen to their bosses since their
position depends on pleasing higher authority. However many employees do not recognize
how important it is to appear to be listening of course, giving the appearance of listening
without actually listening is unwise, but effective listening to a supervisor involves not only
good listening skills but also giving a good indication that listening is taking place.

Actually, effective listening can give you some power over your superior. People listen to and
agree with powerful people. Therefore, if you want your boss to listen to you, you need to
establish a power image.

Your goal in increasing your power over your superior is essentially to create in his or her
mind this image of you. You may say “This is a person who is like me in very important
ways, who is loyal to me and the organization, who will help me achieve my goal, who will
help me feel good in the process, this also is a person who has some expertise I value and
need.” Listening and responding play a key role in getting that image established.
Generally effective listening plays crucial role for the success of the organization by
increasing interpersonal communication and by creating common understanding between
employees and supervisors.

5.3. CAUSES OF POOR LISTENING

People are not born with the ability to listen effectively, listening skills are learned.
Unfortunately, many of us have developed poor listening habits. Poor listening can be
attributed to several causes, many of them involving bad habits that can be broken.

a) Physical Barriers

Some barriers to effective listening are not directly under our control. A noisy type writer, a
duplicating machine, someone’s loud voice, or a nearly vacuum cleaner could prevent us from
hearing an important message. Visual distractions also pose barriers to effective listening
concentration is the key to deal with physical barriers to listening.

b) Personal Barriers
1) Day dreaming

It is the most common listening problem because it affects everyone frequently a speaker may
mention some person or thing that triggers an association in our minds, and off we go. When
we return to reality and start listening again, we may find that the third point is being
discussed and we have no recollection of points one and two.

2) False attention

Is a protection technique that everyone uses from time to time to take out the speaker when
we are not really interested in what some one is saying, we pretend to listen we nod our heads
and make occasional meaningless comments and eye contact to give the impression that we
are listening but our mind is a million miles away from the speaker.

3) Prejudgment

Is one of the most common and difficult barriers to listening because it is an automatic
process people could not operate in life without holding some assumptions. However, in new
situations, these assumptions are often incorrect. In addition, some people listen defensively,
viewing every comment as a personal attack. To protect their self-esteem, they may distort a
message by tuning out anything that doesn’t confirm their view of themselves.

4) Listen selectively out listening

You stay tuned out until you hear a word or phrase that gets your attention once more. The
problem with out-listening is that it leaves you not with a memory of what the speaker
actually said but with a memory of what you think the speaker probably said.

5) Closed mindedness

If a fault that happen, more outside the class room especially when we are arguing we often
refuses to listen to other side of argument, especially when we have already made up our mind
we think there is no use in listening since we know all.

6) Personality listening

This is natural for listeners to evaluate the speaker but our impressions should not interfere
with our listening some time you may be tempted to tune out. We can find different types of
personal barriers that cause poor listening during the communication process and this personal
barriers are controllable than physical barriers.

c) Semantic barriers

Refers to the different uses and meanings of words and symbols therefore, they do not
necessarily have the same meaning for everyone. For your clarity of the word semantic
barriers you can refer from barriers of communication in the previous discussions.

5.4. GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE LISTENING

You can improve your listening ability by becoming more aware of the practices that
distinguish good listeners from bad listeners:
  Fight distractions by closing doors, turning off radios or televisions, and
moving closer to the speaker.
 Depersonalize your listening so that you decrease the emotional impact of what
is being said and are better able to hold your rebuttal until you have heard the
total message.
 Listen for concepts and key ideas as well as for facts, and know the difference
between fact and principle, idea and example, and evidence and argument
 Stay a head of the speaker by anticipating what will be said next and by
thinking about what is already been said.
 Look for unspoken messages often the speaker’s tone of voice or expressions
will reveal more than the words themselves
 Keep an open mind by asking questions that clarify understanding, reserve
judgment until the speaker has finished.
 Evaluate and criticize the content, not the speaker
 Provide feedback, let the speaker know you are with him or her, maintain eye
contact, provide appropriate facial expressions.
 Take meaningful notes that are brief and to the point.

One way to assess your listening skills is to pay attention to how you listen when some one
else is talking, are you really hearing what is said, or are you mentally rehearsing how you
will respond? Above all try to be open to the information that will lead to higher quality
decisions, and try to accept the feelings that will build understanding and mutual respect.
Becoming a good listener will help you in many business situations especially those that are
emotion laden and difficult.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

o Effective listening is not a passive communication activity. It takes a great deal of effort
and motivation to be come and remain an effective listener. Organizational effectiveness
is highly affected by the listening ability of managers and employees. Individual career
advancement also can be impeded by poor listening
o The three types of listening are: content, critical and active listening. Critical listening is
both understanding and evaluating the meaning of the speaker’s message at several
levels.

o You can improve your listening ability by becoming more aware of the practices that
distinguish good listeners from bad. Pay attention to how you listen when someone
else is talking, are you really hearing what is said, or are you mentally rehearsing how
you will respond? Try to be open to the information that will lead to higher quality
decisions, and try to accept the feelings that will build understanding and mutual
respect.