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1. Introduction

Achieving success in workplace is closely associated with the ability to communicate

effectively, both in workplace and with outsiders. Unlike in the past, today we face a high
volatile world where everything is in a state of flux. Most of the changes associated with
this transformation revolve around the processing and communication of information. A
number of communication challengers exist at workplaces. All these challengers call for
effectiveness and efficiency in communication (Raman & Singh, 2006).

Communication can be defined as a function of express, impress and intention.

Communication is the process of exchanging information, usually through a common
system of symbols.

According to Henry Mintzberg (as cited in Locker, 1998), managers have three basic
jobs: to collect and convey information, to make decisions and to promote interpersonal
unity. Every one of those jobs is carried out through communication. Effective managers
are able to use a wide variety of media and strategies to communicate.

Speaking and listening are the communication skills we use most (Nanayakkara, 1996). In
oral presentations, the audience comprises individual listeners and also to address people
effectively, the presenter needs to know the requirements of the audience and it is a must
to listen to the audience. Therefore, being a good listener and an effective presenter are
two key talents a manager must sharpen as they can be treated as twin skills.

2. Being a Good Listener

Listening is an extremely important and surprisingly difficult communication skill in

business. Various studies show that business people spend from 45 to 63percent of their
time listening. Listening is crucial to building trust (Locker, 1998). Managers need to be
effective listeners in various situations.

Listening is the communication channel we use most frequently, yet surveys show that
listening skills are the least developed.

The good managers are good listeners. Managers can achieve lots of benefits from
effective listening. They will be able to gather more detailed information to facilitate the
decision making or problem solving.
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They will learn new ideas or concepts and they will understand people better. That will
enhance employee or customer relations and even increase cooperation.

Being a good communicator is about more than being a good talker. It's about being a
good listener. Listening empowers us to build and maintain relationships, discover the
needs and concerns of clients and co-workers, and understand another person's point of
view. We listen more than we read, write, or speak. In fact, more than 60% of our time is
spent listening, yet only 25% of that information is retained (Adubato, 1998).

In a business setting particularly, miscommunication can be very costly, and nothing

contributes more to miscommunication than poor listening skills. Those costs can
manifest themselves in lost contracts, or even lost jobs. Look at it this way: you can only
be wrong so many times about what the client or the boss asked you to do before they just
decide to start asking somebody else.

Most managers take their listening skills for granted. They generally think that they are
good listeners. They assume further that it is easier to listen than it is to talk (Andrews &
Baird, 1995).

Listening is difficult in most of the situations due to various internal blocks and external
blocks. Therefore it requires positive effort.

3. Keys to Effective Listening

Keys to effective listening can be identified as positive guidelines to better listening and
they are at the heart of developing better listening habits that could last a lifetime.

Raman and Singh (2006) have classified keys to effective listening in the following
manner.

• Find areas of interest

• Judge content, not delivery

• Hold your fire

• Listen for ideas

• Be flexible
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• Work at listening

• Resist distractions

• Exercise your mind

• Keep your mind open

• Capitalize on the fact that thought is faster than speech

To overcome the blocks to good listening, you should consider enhancing your listening
ability by improving how you look, how you think and what you say.

First let us see how to look interested. As a good listener one can show his interest in a
variety of ways. Primarily the listener should stand or sit with an open posture. Secondly,
open and expressive gestures will tend to make the speaker comfortable. Facial
expressions are also important. The most important signal of attentive listening is the eye
contact. Altogether, the important thing to keep in mind about nonverbal signals of
listening is how they make the speaker feel.

Just looking interested is not enough. Good listening must be sincere. That is, you can not
fake good listening by merely mechanically nodding and maintaining eye contact. The
listener must control his feelings and thoughts. He should think non-judgmentally until
the speaker has finished.

Obviously, most of the time you are listening you are not saying anything. In fact, the
most important step toward becoming a good listener is to stop talking yourself. Even
though, most of us naturally prefer talking to listening, we must at times be silent. A key
to good listening is learning to tolerate silence. Instead of being uncomfortable with
silence, think of it as a chance to let the other person be heard.

Woolcott and Unwin (1983) state that the first requisite for listening is a willingness to
make an effort and there are techniques depending upon this.

• Positive interest

• Preparation

• Silence
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• Listening to the message

• Allow the speaker to finish

• Avoid prejudice

• Time and place

• Integrity

Accordingly, we can identify seven key elements needed for a good listener. Willingness,
preparation or background knowledge, attentiveness, concentration, an open mind,
patience and courtesy and integrity.

Sykes (2008) has presented five keys for effective listening.

• Decide that the encounter is about your listening to what the other person is going
to say.
• Invite the other person to express what he or she has to say while you do nothing
but listen. "Listen from the heart".
• Let the person know what you think they were trying to say.
• Invite the other person to correct your impression or to elaborate on your point of
view—the point is not to make them repeat themselves, but to extend the
conversation.
• Postpone, whenever possible, discussing your own point of view, particularly in
contentious situations. By refraining, you enable the speaker to feel that he or she
is being heard and acknowledged. And this may make him or her more open to
listening to your point of view.
According to Adubato (1998) there are ten keys to effective listening
• Focus on what the speaker is saying rather than jumping ahead and
anticipating what you think is going to be said. You're apt to miss important
information.
• Don't listen defensively. By this I mean don't be planning your rebuttal instead
of listening to the person who is speaking. Before you can actually formulate
an intelligent response, you must hear the speaker's entire message.
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• Concentrate on understanding and remembering what is said, not just on

hearing what someone is saying.
• Paraphrase and ask questions such as: "So what you're saying is..." or "After
all you've said, what is the one thing you would change about the situation?"
Active listening is about showing empathy: "How did it make you feel?"
• Listen more actively. Be empathetic and supportive, not negative and
judgmental. Phrase questions in a positive way.
• Use eye contact and body language to let a speaker know that you're listening.
Look at the speaker instead of looking around the room for the next-possibly
more interesting prospect.
• Use animated facial expressions and gestures to indicate that you understand
or need clarification. Smile at happy endings, laugh at jokes, and show
genuine concern when listening to problems.
• Show your interest. A truly interested listener is open and leans toward a
speaker rather than slouching back in a chair with folded arms.
• Be sincere. Being a good listener is about having a genuine interest in other
people. Really self-centered people are usually terrible listeners. You know the
type who says, "Enough about me, let's talk about you. So, what do you think
of me?"
• The final tip is from Richard Carlson's best-selling book, "Don't Sweat the
Small Stuff." Carlson says, "Not only will becoming a better listener make you
a more patient person, it will also enhance the quality of your relationships.
Everyone loves to talk to someone who truly listens to what they are saying."

4. Being an Effective Presenter

The ability to speak effectively in public is important. As a managers career progresses,

his presentation skills become even more important because, at the entry level, executives
may require mostly technical skills but as they rise in management, they are required to
rely less on technical training and more on their ability to sell their ideas and plans to
their next level of management. Failure to professionally present work or ideas may
significantly affect the organization’s reputation as well as the individual’s career goals
(Raman & Singh, 2006).
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Therefore, speaking effectively and powerfully is a skill that is really worth learning.

Presentations are equally important to express and impress. Also they are essential to
gather an exposure. Presentations are powerful means to create self confidence,
personality and self worth.

5. Keys to Effective Presenting

In order to make an effective presentation, first of all, one should structure the
presentation well in advance. There should be a clear structure for the whole presentation.
Clarity in mind leads to the clarity of words. Nanayakkara (1996) advises think about the
purpose, the main idea and the audience before you speak. He also says to organize
thoughts in a logical way and to decide on a style that suits the occasion. Then it is
necessary to edit remarks mentally. As one speaks, one should watch the other person to
see whether the message is making the desired impression.

One of the keys to effective oral presentations is to be yourself, and thereby communicate
personally to your audience. Of course, this is easier said than done, especially if you are
feeling tense or frightened (Locker, 1998).

Dealing with fear is a key to effective presenting. Locker (1998) further state that feeling
nervous is normal but one can harness that nervous energy to help one do his best work.
As Reidy (2008) said, you don’t need to get rid of your butterflies. All you need to do is
make them fly in formation. Brophy (2008) presented ten tips for presentation battlefield
in his article and those include apologies for nothing, start with a chunk and look at the
audience.

Another key to make an effective presentation is to be prepared. In order to get ready, one
should analyze the audience, prepare visual aids, practice the opener and close, and check
out the arrangements well in advance. Audiences really appreciate having relevant
background information about speakers. It helps them more realistically define their
responses to presenters (Beaver, 2008).
Using eye contact is another aspect of an effective presentation. The point in making eye
contact is to establish one-on-one contact with the individual members of your audience.
People want to feel that the presenter is talking to them.
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Looking directly at individuals also enables one to be more conscious of feedback from
the audience, so that one can modify his approach if necessary.

Developing a good speaking voice is crucial in order to make it easy for people to listen
and enjoy. Varying the volume, pitch and speed to sound energetic and enthusiastic is
useful for an excellent presentation. Moreover, the standing position and gestures are also
important. Gren (1983) provides basic guidelines to presenters regarding the areas of
attitude, clothes, physical movements, voice and language.

The use of notes and visuals should be in the proper manner. Listening is difficult. Our
minds drift away from even the most exciting speaker because we can think faster than a
speaker can talk. In addition, using only our ears to absorb information is not easy. Using
other senses help. Helping people retain information is one reason for using visuals.
Another reason for using them is to clarify our message. The presenter must choose
visuals that are appropriate for the message (Tierhey, 2001).

Finally, the presenter should be prepared for questions by listing every possible fact or
opinion that challenges his position. The key to giving a good presentation and to help get
rid of nerves is to put in lots of preparation beforehand. Rehearsing two or three times in
front of a colleague can help. It is also wise to rehearse your presentation so that it runs a
few minutes shorter than the expected length (Reidy, 2008).

Tierhey (2001) states that feedback provides opportunities for us to develop and enhance
our abilities and therefore welcome feedback.

6. Action Plan

After analyzing the key elements of effective listening and presenting, it is necessary to
take measures to enhance our skills. As both listening and presenting go hand in hand, it
is necessary to under take corrective measures at the same time.

6.1. Sharpening Listening Skills

Good listeners are active not passive. They are interested, prepare themselves and
demonstrate interest by the quality of their silence. They are neither distracted nor
prejudiced, allow the speaker to finish, plan ahead and have integrity.
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To sharpen the listening skills one must become a good listener. Hereafter, I would not
tune out from dry subjects rather I would be opportunistic and ask what’s in it for me.
Basically, I would find areas of interest in every possible opening.

I will never judge the delivery of a presenter. I will always try to concentrate on the
content. Also I would not enter in to arguments or judgments until the comprehension is
complete and try my best to listen for the central theme rather than for facts.

I use to take intensive notes at every presentation and it tends to distract me from the
central idea of the speaker. Within next few months I try to be more flexible and will
adopt new ways of note taking depending on the nature of the speaker.

At the next opportunity that I have to listen for a while, I would keep my mind open and I
would concentrate hardly on the matter by fighting and avoiding distractions.

Finally and essentially, I will capitalize on the fact that thought is faster than speech.
Rather than daydreaming with slow speakers I would challenge, anticipate, summarize
and listen between the lines to tone of voice.

As Andrews (1995) described, I would espouse the HEAR formula when possible to
enhance my listening skills. HEAR is the acronym formed by the first letter of the four
words one should remember when trying to listen to someone: helpful, empathic,
attentive and responsive.

Moreover, the good manager encourages others to express views that differ from his or
her view. Hence, I will always accept criticisms offered by others.

Listening is crucial to building trust. Listening is essential and more difficult at the
workplace. In the listening process, there are possibilities to make errors and I would try
to minimize these errors as much as possible. Some listening errors happen because the
hearer was not paying enough attention to a key point. To avoid error caused by
inattention, I will make a list of questions as early as possible and at the end of the
conversation, I will check my understanding with the other person. Afterwards, I will
write down the key points that affect deadlines.
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Many listening errors are errors in interpretation. To reduce listening errors caused by
misinterpretation, I will not ignore instructions that I think are unnecessary. Always I will
consider the other person’s background and experiences in order to have an understanding
of his or her position.

6.2. Sharpening Presenting Skills

Regarding presentations I never go in front of the audience without getting prepared.

Even after practicing and arranging presentations, most people have experienced the
quivering, fidgeting, shaking, trembling, sweating, stammering and fluttering associated
with stage fright.

In order to deliver an effective presentation, I would keep control of the presentation, but
do so in a relaxed way. Different people relax in different ways. So I would find the best
way to relax my body, mind and voice before my next presentation.

I will rehearse the presentation well in advance in front of my closest colleagues and
adjust it according to there feedback.

According to the appropriateness, I will develop clear notes and visuals for my next
presentation and make sure it all work properly.

During the presentation, I will seek feedback, confirmation and agreement as to the
relevance of what I am saying. Essentially, I would try my best to constantly maintain the
eye contact with the audience and to show them the enthusiasm of the subject matter.

As I always have invited questions at the end of a presentation, I would try to invite
questions at any time in order to make the audience more involved. To do so, I should be
well prepared and comfortable regarding the subject matter.

All of the actions discussed so far are interrelated. No one can become a good presenter if
he is not a good listener. Therefore, I will try my best to develop these skills within the
limited timeline of next three months in order to make myself competent.

7. Conclusion
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Listening and presenting are two twin communication skills that a manager must
essentially develop in order to function well in an organization. Bambacas (2008) found
that senior HR managers expected managers to be effective in interpersonal
communication focusing mainly on the clarity and frequency of the messages, their
ability to actively listen and the ability to make presentations in a collaborative way.
However, these skills were also the ones found most lacking.

With the emergent of the information technology these processes have become much
different. Communication in business teams continues to be essential for effective
teamwork, technical excellence and customer responsiveness. Technology has increased
the speed and ease of much communication, and the reliable stand-by of the team briefing
remains a core component. Yet perhaps the most effective ways of improving
communication are also the simplest – taking the time to really notice your colleagues,
listening to how they speak as well as what they say, and remembering that what happens
inside of us, in particular how we feel, will have a profound influence on what we do
(Reidy, 2008).

The need for effective communication does not exist in isolation from day-to-day work
demands; neither should the development of communication skills be isolated from the
development of technical skill. More companies are now recognizing the advantages of
integrating these “people skills” with technical training to maximize their return on
training investment (Connolly, 1996).

A series of books and journal articles have concentrated on key elements of effective
listening and presenting. Accordingly, keys to effective listening can be summarized as
willingness, preparation, attentiveness, concentration, having an open mind, patience,
courtesy, objectivity and integrity. Dealing with fear, keeping eye contact, managing
voice, language, proper standing and gesturing, handling questions and knowing the
venue and the audience are keys to effective presenting. Moreover, some authors pointed
out tips for effective listening and presenting as those skills are identified as skills that
could be learnt.

Accordingly, an action plan has been set for the next three months and it will be exercised
in order to make sure the advancement of the skills.
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Conclusively, it is indispensable to state that listening and presenting are vital skills that
are in need for any profession. Hence, sharpening it would make any person competent
and valuable.

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