AXIS INSTITUTE OF PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT

MBA – BUSINESS COMMUNICATION NOTES UNIT 2 Part 1

LISTENING
• Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the
communication process.
• Listening is key to all effective communication, without the ability to listen effectively
messages are easily misunderstood.
• Listening is one of the most important skills you can have.

IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE LISTENING SKILLS

1)Building relationships - Good listening can help you build and maintain positive
relationships in the workplace. Showing interest when communicating with others can help
you build trust and develop long-term, mutually beneficial professional relationships. Good
listening can help you prevent misunderstandings between coworkers, perform your duties
accurately and anticipate the needs of your customers.
2)Performing effectively - Listening intently can help you accurately follow directions. By
following directions exactly, you may be able to improve your performance in the workplace.
By listening closely to directions, guidelines and requirements, you may be able to avoid errors
and improve your processes.
3)Reduces Misunderstandings - Poor communication always results in misunderstandings.
And, poor communication arises from poor listening skills. People end up assuming things and
misunderstanding each other if they do not share their side of the stories or listen to others
actively. Such misunderstanding can gradually keep increasing if the listening skills in
communication are not improved.
4)Increases Productivity - Whether you’re at work or home, listening is essential to your
success. Good listeners are more likely to store information and understand what’s being
required of them. This is a valuable skill in group projects and meetings. People may think they
need to talk a lot to contribute, but listening is arguably more essential. If everyone listens to
each other, there is less room for misunderstandings. This increases everyone’s productivity.
5)Enhances Leadership Skills - Leaders always have good listening skills in
communication. Active listening helps you connect with your team’s ideas, hear various
perspectives, and prevent miscommunications. In addition, a good team leader ensures
everyone feels respected, which means they all feel listened to. They always listen to others
and help them in every possible way.
6)Builds Empathy - Empathy is essential to effective listening. Therefore, it would be best if
you mirrored the emotions the speaker has. For example, if the speaker’s face expresses sadness
or joy, your facial expressions and words should also express similar emotions. Empathy
towards the speaker takes concentration and consumes energy, allowing open communication
and establishing relationships.

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TYPES OF LISTENING
1) Comprehensive listening - Comprehensive listening is listening to learn the content. Also
known as informational listening, you listen to comprehend and absorb the information
presented. This type of listening is commonly used in day-to-day lives, and requires
concentration and a conscious effort to understand.
2) Discriminative listening - This type of listening identifies the variation in tones and sounds.
It interprets the verbal cues to understand what the speaker is truly saying. Discriminative
listening is a basic type of listening skill developed quite early on in life, where different sounds
of the words are recognized without understanding their meaning.
For example, if your client speaks in a foreign language that you have difficulty understanding,
you can use discriminative listening skills to comprehend what is going on to some extent,
based on their tone, mannerisms or body language.
3) Empathetic listening - Empathetic listening is a way of listening for emotional support and
improves mutual trust and understanding. Listening with empathy means that you place
yourself in the speaker's situation. A major quality of empathic listening is to give support and
encouragement rather than advice or criticism.
4) Critical listening - Critical listening is listening to scrutinize or analyze the idea being
expressed. Here you make mental judgments based on what the other person is saying and
evaluate the trustworthiness of the message and the speaker. This type of listening involves
some sort of decision-making or problem-solving.
5) Appreciative listening - Appreciative listening is when the listener seeks certain
information which they will appreciate since it meets their needs or goals. You may listen
appreciatively to good music, podcast or an inspiring speech of a great leader. This type of
listening will make the speaker feel valued and appreciated.
6) Active listening – This happens when you pay careful attention to what the other person is
saying. In this type of listening, you aim to understand the entire content that the speaker wants
to convey. This is a very active form of listening, where you may pause for summaries or
paraphrase to ensure that what you understood was correct.
7) Selective listening - In selective listening, you filter the message too quickly, concentrating
only on certain aspects. This may affect your ability to understand the whole intent of the
message and leads to miscommunication. When you filter out some of the messages, it may
reinforce your bias for future communications.

BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE LISTENING

• Premature evaluation about the speech.
• Assuming that the speaker is going to give some unimportant information.
• Arriving late for a speech, presentation or lecture.
• Judging the speaker by his/her mannerisms, voice, appearance, accent, etc.
• Lack of concentration/interest.

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 • Avoiding listening to difficult, boring or complex information and selectively listening
only to what is considered interesting.
• Speaker or listener being distracted easily.

WAYS TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS/LISTEN EFFECTIVELY

• Face the speaker and give them your attention.
• Keep an open mind
• Maintain Eye Contact with the Speaker
• Visualize What the Speaker is Saying
• Do Not Interrupt
• Pay Attention to Non-Verbal Cues
• Empathize
• Ask Questions
• Give feedback
• Avoid or eliminate distraction.
• Try to gather information about the topic to develop interest and familiarity.
• Keep recalling the points.

NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION

• Communication through expressions, gestures or posture is nonverbal communication.
It refers to the flow of information, through facial expressions, tone of voice and other
body movements.
• In other words, it is a type of communication other than words. It conveys the feeling,
emotions, attitude of a person to another. A person can communicate his feeling to
others quickly and economically by using a non-verbal form of communications. This
does not require the use of words as a person can express his feelings by his body
language.
Merits of Non-verbal communication:
• Complementary: Non-verbal cues complement a verbal message by adding to its
meaning. You can pat someone you offended at the back as you say sorry to him or her.
• Substituting: Non-verbal messages may substitute for the verbal message especially if
it is blocked by noise, interruption, long-distance, etc. for example; gestures-finger to
lips to indicate need for quiet, facial expressions- a nod instead of a yes.
• Repetition: Used to repeat the verbal message (e.g. point in a direction while stating
directions.)
• Help to illiterate people: This type of communication use gestures, facial expressions,
eye contact, proximity, touching, etc. and without using any spoken or written word.
So, it is very much helpful for illiterate people.
• Attractive presentation: Non-verbal communication is based on visual, picture, graph,
sign, etc. that can be seen very much attractive.

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Demerits of Non-verbal communication:
• Vague and imprecise: Non-verbal communication is quite vague and imprecise. Since
in this communication, there is no use of words or language which expresses clear
meaning to the receiver. Their meaning varies not only by culture and context but by
the degree of intention.
• Multi-channel: while watching someone’s eyes, you may miss something significant
in a hand gesture. Everything is happening at once and therefore it may be confusing to
try to keep up with everything.
• Culture-bound: Non-verbal communication is learned in childhood, passed on to you
by your parents and others with whom you associate. A few other gestures are not
universal. Gestures seen as positive in one culture (Like the thumbs-up gesture in the
USA) may be seen as obscene in another culture.
• Distortion of information: Since it uses gestures, facial expressions, eye contact,
touch, sign, sound, paralanguage, etc. for communicating with others, there is a great
possibility in distortion of information in non-verbal communication.
• It requires the physical presence of both parties.
• The meaning of gesture changes according to time and place, thus it is difficult to
understand universally.
• There is no written proof in case of any dispute in future.

FORMS OF NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

1. BODY LANGUAGE
2. PARA LANGUAGE
3. SIGN LANGUAGE
4. SPACE LANGUAGE, TIME LANGUAGE AND SURROUNDINGS.
(1) BODY LANGUAGE – It is the way our body communicates through its parts.
• Body language includes moving eyes, clapping, moving of hands and circular
movement of fingers is included.
• This is also known as kinesics and is an important medium of communication.
• For example, an umpire signaling a six in a cricket matches. In body language or
kinesics movement of body parts is used to convey a message.
• It’s basically the movement of our bodies.
• Body language is a type of nonverbal communication in which physical behaviors, as
opposed to words, are used to express or convey the information.
• Such behavior includes facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement,
touch and the use of space.
• Ex- Waiving hand, wrinkle on forehand, smiling, gazing at each other, wear a coat or
tie,
Types of Body Language
(a)Posture - Posture is the way we carry ourselves. Erect posture reflects confidence and bent
posture reflects thinking, relaxed posture reflects balanced state of mind. Postures means the

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various ways of sitting, standing and lying down. The method of standing in an office will be
different than in a party.
(b)Gestures - Physical movement of different body parts like hands, legs, eyebrows and head
etc. is known as making gestures. The movement of these parts confirms and lays stress on the
message. In general the louder someone speaks, the more empathetic the gesture used, and vice
versa.
(c)Facial Expressions - The human face is extremely expressive, able to convey countless
emotions without saying a word. And unlike some forms of nonverbal communication, facial
expressions are universal. The facial expressions for happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear,
and disgust are the same across cultures
(d)Eye Contact - Eyes are a very powerful medium of face to face communication. For how
long and how a person stares at something revels his feelings, trustworthiness, honesty and
capability to work. Have an eye contact but don’t stare.
(e)Head Position - Head position reflects confidence, nodding of head means listener is
understanding head held high is a sign of honour and self-confidence. Head bent low is a sign
of modesty and politeness.
(f)Physical Appearance - It is the way we dress do our hairstyle, wear makeup shows, etc. It
reflects attitude towards the job and peers. It includes a person’s dress, hair style, make up,
ornaments and cleanliness etc. The appearance of the body can affect how our body movements
are seen. Appearance must fit the situations as it plays vital role in the oral communication.
(g)Silence - Silence is a basic and natural aspect of communication and represents a person’s
agreement of disagreement. For example, if someone is praising a man and the other person
remains silent then it means that he agrees with the praise.

(2) PARA LANGUAGE - Para language means equivalent to language. In paralanguage the
expressions used by a person to speak are studied i.e. how the person speaks.
The word paralanguage comprises of two words i.e. para and language. Para means
equivalent and language means recurring communication. Para language is a mode of sign
communication and informs us about the sound the person makes. The sound and tone should
be such that the message can be understood easily.
There are 3 types of Para language.
(a)Pitch - Pitch of the voice means tone of the voice. Voice can have high or low pitch. High
or low pitch indicates authority and state of mind. Pitch means increasing or decreasing of the
tone. Oneness in the voice cannot easily binds the audience but high or low pitch are required
to attract the audience.
(b)Volume - Volume means loudness. Volume should be loud enough for audience to hear. The
volume is affected by mode of communication. For example, if the speaker is speaking on the
phone, his volume has to be low. But if he is addressing a seminar or conference, the volume
is high. It also depends on size of audience and emphasis on words.

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(c)Rate - There are many times in communicating when the speed of voice plays a very
important role in attracting the audience. Speed has to vary with the subject matter. If the
information is complex then the speed of the message will be slow and if the information is
easy to understand then the speed can be increased.

(3) SIGN LANGUAGE

Signs are the symbols that convey almost 50% of what we say.
Sign language can be of the following types
(a) Visual signs – They convey messages through pictures and drawings. Ancient
civilization speaks through carvings and engravings on walls. Examples - posters, pictures,
paintings, maps, diagrams, colours, etc, are used to convey the messages.
(b) Audio signs - Audio signals also support nonverbal communication. Example - Alarm
clocks, siren bells, ambulance, fire brigades and police vans have peculiar sound that conveys
standard meanings. The moment one hears an ambulance, one leaves way, even if it is not
carrying any patient. Organizations use different audio signals to announce emergency lunch
break start of the day, end of the day, etc.
(4) SPACE LANGUAGE, TIME LANGUAGE and SURROUNDINGS
▪ Space language study of communication through space around us is known as space
language or proxemics. Useful space also indicates the way we people interact with
others. People who sit in the front are active communicators, while those who sit in the
back are generally listeners.
▪ Time language. This is also known as Chronemics. Time is money. Work done in time
speaks lot about the worth of the person, an employee who always reaches on time,
reflects loyalty to the job. People who value the time high are also valued high by others.
Directors and secretaries often give appointments to indicate value of time.
▪ Surroundings – Surroundings represent physical environment in which we work, a
well-furnished carpeted softly coloured office with well-designed layout and beautiful
paintings on the walls, speaks lot more than an office with ordinary layout and furniture.
The way we decorate our home also speaks about our taste, status and background.