Part one:
The limited attention to listening skills among people is disturbing. Obviously, individuals tend to spend much of their time listening, a behavior that makes them to think that they are active listeners (Fischhoff & others, 2009). The observation made on the listening behaviors of employees in a simple study I conducted attest to the fact that people have different listening behaviors in particular situations. First, the observation revealed that most employees were busy writing while listening. Alternatively, some workers would take instructions better if given time to read written scripts. Worse, less than 50% of the workers would listen actively without taking notes. Moreover, it was a common belief for some employees that writing notes while listening was a form of active listening. Further, when the information given was not of concern to employees, there was little attention to listening observed among them. Similarly, workers would become more attentive to listening if the communication made directly impacted upon their lives. For instance, all employees appeared to be actively listening when told about the stiff competition in their industry.
In essence, most people believe that they are better listeners than their friends or colleagues. Obviously, from the observations, there are different situations and behaviors that characterize ineffective listening among people. Some of the non-listening behaviors included not watching the speaker, defensive habits in an attempt to control the speaker, showing superiority, being certain and dogmatic, monopolizing conversation, facing away from the speaker and engaging in other work not connected to the listening activity. Notably, for managers, some were not good listeners because they would limit dialogue with employees, a behavior that is connected to the need of showing superiority and monopolizing a conversation.
Part two:
1. Pseudo listening is a habit where individuals pretend to be listening when they are actually not attentive to what communicated. In fact, this is an ineffective listening approach because it is difficult for persons to remember whatever that has been communicated. Essentially, there are several reasons why pseudo listening may occur. For instance, it can arise in situations where the listeners feel tired, lazy, bored or not interested. Essentially, the workers engaged in pseudo listening when discussing a boring topic. Here, the employees would nod their heads to give a false impression that they were listening. However, the manager would note this form of inactive listening because workers would fail to do the right thing at the end of training tests.
2. Monopolizing is another form of ineffective listening common among people. Notably, this form of listening occurs in situations where individuals have a focus to listen to themselves and avoid the speaker’s communication. Usually, the listeners shift the topic of communication to themselves. In fact, the listener makes sense out of the communication only when the topic focuses on them. Obviously, this represents a narcissistic and selfish approach to listening because the individual wants the discussion to be always about them.
3. Similarly, selective listening is another form that has demerits. Normally, it is characterized by listening to selected parts of the conversation. In essence, selective listening involves behaviors where people vary their concentration during a conversation to grasp what they feel is pertinent to them because it may not be possible to absorb every word. Usually, this form of listening creates information overload and burdens the listener after the conversation in an attempt to search for the skipped portions.
4. Certainly, defensive listening is evident in some people. Usually, it occurs when individuals perceive personal attacks on themselves from the speaker. For instance, when the manager alludes that the listeners or employees have lost good working posture, they try to become defensive thinking that they are being criticized.
5. Additionally, literal listening is also ineffective. Normally, literal listening occurs under circumstances where the listener ignores the relationship level of meaning. Occasionally, the manager would become insensitive to the employees’ norm of taking leave two weeks to the end of the fourth month. By literal listening, the manager becomes insensitive to the workers’ feelings.
In conclusion, the aforementioned forms of listening need to be discarded. Therefore, individuals should learn to show interest in conversations, avoid interruptions, take turns, avoid diverting the discussion to themselves and shun from rude habits of taking over others.
References
Fischhoff, B., Bostrom, A., & Quadrel, M. J. (2009). Risk Perception and Communication. Annual Review of Public Health. doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.14.1.183
