Question

In our sender-oriented society, listening is often overlooked as an important part of the communication process. Yet research shows that adults spend about 45 percent of their time listening, which is more than any other communicative activity. In some contexts, we spend even more time listening than that. On average, workers spend 55 percent of their workday listening, and managers spend about 63 percent of their day listening.Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 177.

Listening is a primary means through which we learn new information, which can help us meet instrumental needs as we learn things that helps us complete certain tasks at work or school and get things done in general. The act of listening to our relational partners provides support, which is an important part of relational maintenance and helps us meet our relational needs. Listening to what others say about us helps us develop an accurate self-concept, which can help us more strategically communicate for identity needs in order to project to others our desired self. Overall, improving our listening skills can help us be better students, better relational partners, and more successful professionals.

After reading Chapter 5: “Listening” from Communication in the Real World, reflect on one bad listening practice that affects you the most and one strategy for improving listening competence that you plan to implement right away. Compose your reflection in the form of 300-400-word, two-paragraph discussion post.

Answer 1

Solution:

Listening is a great skill. Many believe they have it but incidentally very few have actually mastered the art of listening well. The skill of listening means the ability to understand what another person is saying. We can understand the other person only if we actively listen to them rather than just hearing them say. This is why, many believe that they are listening but in actual they are simply hearing the things said by others and this is where the major problem lies. In my case, one bad listening practice that I have is that I listen to others only to reply to them, actually, I just hear others and wait till thy stop so that I can reply to them well. In reality, I am not even listening to them, I am just hearing them reply to them without understanding what they mean to say. This is one bad listening practice that I have developed and this is because of a lack of patience to listen and understand other people's thoughts and rather dump my thoughts on them. This style of communication is often the most inefficient one and I know I have to let go of this communication style so that I can improve my ability to listen well and improve my overall listening skills to benefit myself in the everyday environment around me.

The strategy that I have developed and I will be implementing is to be active in any communication process and avoid replying to whatever has been spoken. I would rather focus on whatever is being said, I will make efforts to understand what the person is implying and only when I get a sense of what is being said I would reply to the communication being made. This process will be difficult to implement however with necessary steps I would be able to achieve this. The ability to not reply and respond is extremely important and when I would be able to develop this ability is the time I would be good at communication and thus the listening skills. Also, I would focus on keeping quieter and making efforts to not speak unless I understand the crux and asking questions to help myself understand the crux of the communication and with more questions being raised I will be able to understand and hence my efforts to listen carefully would be heightened. This is the strategy that I have decided to implement at the start and preliminary stage to ensure I start my journey towards developing the actual effective listening skills making me improve my communication and help me understand the importance of effective listening skills.