1 Listening Actively: The Receiver’s Challenge "Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk." - Doug Larson

2 Works Cited  Brownell, Judi Listening: The toughest management skill. The Cornell H.R.A. Quarterly, February 1987:  Decker, Bert You’ve got to be believed to be heard: Reach the first brain to communicate in business and life. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.  Decker, Bert The art of communicating: Achieving interpersonal impact in business. Revised edition. Menlo Park, CA: Crisp Learning.  : Listening. Accessed 10/31/03.

3 Verbal & Non-Verbal Communication  Concepts : Rapport Non-Verbal Messages Asking Good Questions Sincere Paraphrasing Active Listening

4 Rapport Being in sync with other people, verbally and non-verbally, so they are comfortable and have trust and confidence in you

5 Non-Verbal Messages “What you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you say.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

6 Non-Verbal Messages  Bert Decker’s book is titled “You’ve got to be believed to be heard” for a reason!  He discusses two factors The Eye Factor The Energy Factor  What people see

7 Non-Verbal Messages  Eye Factor – What Others See Eye Communication Posture and Movement Dress and Appearance Gestures and Smile

8 Non-Verbal Messages  Energy Factor – What Others Perceive Voice and Vocal Clarity Words and Non-Words Listener Involvement Humor

9 Asking Good Questions  Show sincere interest  Deliver questions with “life”  Types of questions: Positive questions(The way you ask) Behavioral questions(How would you…) Situational questions(In this situation…) Probing questions(Elaborate/clarify)

10 Sincere Paraphrasing  This is NOT “What I hear you saying is…”  State in your own words your understanding of what another person says or feels You feel that… You mean that… You think that… As I understand it…  Your Goal: “I hear, I understand, I care”

11 Active Listening  Be engaged  Truly hear and process the message  Avoid distractions

12 Listening in General  The most challenging of all communication skills Requires focus Requires practice  Different degrees Passive at one end of the scale Deeply involved – “Active Listening” – at the other  Different Ways Fact (Discussion or Debate) Feeling (Debate or Dialogue)

13 Maslow’s Four Stages of Learning  Unconscious Incompetence We don’t know what we don’t know  Conscious Incompetence We know what we don’t know  Conscious Competence We work at what we don’t know  Unconscious Competence We don’t have to think about knowing it

14 The Typical Executive  Spends 80% of his or her time communicating  Of that time: Listening45% Speaking30% Reading16% Writing 9%

15 Listening Capacity  We use only about ¼ of our listening capacity  Listening capacity is difficult to measure  Even without using quantifiable measures, what if each of us doubled our individual listening capacity?

16 Brownell’s Model  HURIED Hearing Understanding Remembering Interpreting Evaluating

17 H earing  Essential Actions: Concentrate on what the speaker is saying Allow the entire message to be delivered without interruption  Be comfortable with silence  Avoid Distractions  “It’s about them, not you!”

18 Something to ponder…  Speaking: words per minute  We can process aural information at a rate of up to 700 words per minute  On average, we listen three times faster than most people talk  What can we do with that unused mental time? Listening: The Toughest Management Skill, pg

19 In Closing… “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.” Peter F. Drucker