Of the four skills involved in effective communication—listening,
speaking, reading and writing, listening is the most important. It is crucial
to listen carefully because we spend more time listening then doing anything
else in our waking hours.
More significantly, the quality of our listening
greatly affects both the personal and vocational dimensions of our lives. Our
ability to listen directly influences our friendships, our family relationships
and our efficiency at work.
Unfortunately, few people are good listeners, as hardly any
attention is paid to the development of this skill. On the contrary we receive
subtle influences that provide early training in non-listening.
Children are exposed to a steady diet of anti-listening
advice. We often come across things like “We do not listen to those things in
our family”, “Don’t pay any attention to him “, “Pretend you haven’t noticed”,”
Do not take it so seriously.”
Our schooling is equally responsible for inculcation of ineffective
listening habits. In most school systems, rigorous training is given to
reading, speaking and writing; however there are no proper training programmes
for the development of listening skill.
So powerful is this training is this training in
anti-listening, that people rarely comprehend what exactly is involved in
effective listening and most confuse it with mere hearing.
In reality, the two are strikingly different and it is
important to understand the distinction between the two. While hearing is the
ability to perceive sounds with the ears, listening is a combination of hearing
what another person is saying and an involvement with the person who is
talking.
To quote the words of a leading ‘guru’ of effective
communication, Professor Drakeford “hearing is a word used to describe the
physiological sensory processes by which auditory sensations are received by
the ears and transmitted to the brain.
Listening, on the other hand, refers to a
more complex psychological procedure involving interpreting and understanding
the significance of the sensory experience. One can hear what another person is
saying without really listening to him”.
It would not be an exaggeration to state that 75 per cent of
oral communication is ignored, mis-understood or quickly forgotten mainly
because of poor listening. All too often the speaker’s words go into one ear
and immediately move out of the other. This improper listening is responsible
for the tussles we so often witness between interpersonal relationships.
In
fact, the so-called generation gap is largely a result of this casual attitude
to listening. We find teenagers often complaining that their parents only hear
them talk. Many conflicts and misunderstandings at the work place also crop up
primarily due to ineffective listening.
For an overall improvement of our listening ability we
should be on guard not to be inattentive and must pay special attention to
avoid interruptions and roadblocks in oral communication. There is little doubt
that improvement of listening skills would help us to lead a more fulfilling
life, both on the personal as well as the professional front.
