Business

Communication
LISTENING
 What is Listening
 Communication begins with
listening
 It is a deliberate effort
 While listening we must
discriminate, evaluate, appreciate
and react.
“The most basic of all human needs
is the need to understand and be
understood. The best way to
understand people is to listen to
them.”
The Process of Listening

Evaluating Remembering

Interpreting Responding

Sensing
 Features
 Paying attention:
One has to resist distractions and tune out noise.
 Focus on the other speaker in a generous way:
Sometimes people listen looking for flaws. They focus on
matters other than the substance of the talk. This must be
avoided
 Avoid making assumptions:
Many listening errors come from faulty assumptions. We should
never ignore instructions thinking it is unnecessary.
 Listen for ‘feelings’ as well as ‘facts’:
-- We must consciously listen for feelings
-- We must pay attention to tone of voice, facial expression
and body language
--We must never assume silence means consent.
Importance

 Listening is vital to any organization.

It can improve quality, boost
productivity and save money.

 Listening skills can help in learning

important information such as how a
contract should be drawn up, how
the management expects to make up
for a bad sales year etc

 The information you gather from

listening can also help you present
your own ideas and needs more
successfully and make advancement
in your career.
 Listening to prospective customers can help you in
selecting the best product or system you have for their
individual needs.

 Listening to prospective customers lets them know you are

interested in their needs-not just making a sale.

 Carefully listening to subordinates or so-workers

suggestions lets them know that they are important to you
and that you value their suggestions.

 Careful listening aids an organization in carrying out its

mission
 Pre-requisites of listening

 Positive interest-
An active listener must have the positive attitude that
something of interest or value is likely to reward his
attention to even a least promising topic
 Preparation-
Any background information helps in making a person a
better listener.
 Silence-
It is necessary to maintain silence while listening to
someone
 Listening to the message-
We have to learn to concentrate on the message and
refuse to be distracted by the speaker’s voice,
idiosyncrasies or clumsy use of visual aid.
 Allow the person to finish-
We generally don’t hear the speaker talking, because
we are already planning our replies.
 Avoid prejudice-
Having a prior opinion about what is being said can
close our minds to the speaker’s arguments
 Time and place-
Planned interview time makes for better listening, and
the planning should include appropriate surroundings
and also removal of interruptions
 Integrity-
A good listener is one who respects confidence and
helps maintain the trust which is very essential.
 Types

Informational listening
Evaluative listening
Emphatic listening
 Informational listening

This is the most common type of listening. We use informational

listening to accurately understand a wide variety of message.
For e.g.-a caller’s phone number, a supervisor’s instruction, a
customer’s need etc.
Strategies to improve informational listening:
With hold judgment-
A common mistake we all make is to confuse informational
listening with evaluative listening, forgetting that your original
goal was to learn not to criticize.
 Be opportunistic-
Sometimes the ideas of the speaker are highly boring or
irrelevant ,in a situation like this we must use our ability of being
able to think 3 times faster than the speaker talks to ask
questions.
 Look for the main and supporting points-
Your ability to listen will improve if you can identify the
reason behind the speaker’s thesis.

Ask questions and paraphrase-

Questions are one of the best ways of building
understanding. Paraphrasing is a valuable tool too. You
can paraphrase by periodically describing in our own
words what you understand the speaker to be saying.
Take notes-
Taking notes is a valuable tool to remember all the
important details that were discussed.

Repeat what you heard-

When taking notes is not possible, repeating what is
said is affective
 Evaluative listening

A good listener does not jump to conclusions based on a

bias or incomplete information. A careful listener will
weigh and analyze the evidence before reaching a
decision.

Pointers for effective evaluative listening—

Seek information before evaluating-

As obvious as this seems, it is tempting to begin judging
an idea before we know enough.
 Examine the speaker’s supporting data—
As an evaluative listener, you need to ask yourself
several questions about the evidence a speaker gives
you to support his or her statements. You must make
sure that the evidence given is valid.
 Consider the speaker's motives—
An argument carries more weight when the speaker
doesn’t have a personal stake in the outcome of our
decision.
 Consider the speaker’s credentials—
A statement when made by a qualified person has
more value than the statement made by someone else..
Competence is not universal: a person can be an expert
in one area and less qualified in others.
 Examine emotional appeals—
Sometimes emotional reactions are a valid basis for
action. In some cases though, emotional appeals can
obscure important logical considerations that might
dissuade you from accepting a proposal.
 Emphatic listening

The primary goal of emphatic listening is to help the

speaker in some way or another. Sometimes the help is
personal and at other times, the help meets
organizational goals.
Various categories of emphatic listening are—
Advising—
Sometimes advice is appropriate, especially on
technical matters.
 Analyzing—
Analysis is especially helpful when you have more
experience or insight than the listener.

Questioning—
The right questions can help you analyze a problem
and offer good advice and help the other person
recognize important facts that were previously buried.
Supporting—
Support can sometimes provide a moral boost, giving
someone added strength to face a tough situation.

Paraphrasing—
Paraphrasing is restating the speaker’s message in
your own words. Here, however, the restatement should
include both the speaker’s thoughts and the listener’s
feelings.
 Reasons for Poor Listening

 Message overload—
It is hard to listen carefully when the phone rings every few
minutes, people keep dropping in to give you quick messages, and
you’re trying to organize your notes for a quick presentation.
Coping with a deluge of information is like juggling, you can only
keep a few things going at one time.
 Preoccupation—
Business and personal concerns make it difficult to keep your
mind on the subject at hand.
 Rapid thought—
Listeners can process information at a much faster
rate than the speaker delivers. This difference leaves a
great deal of mental spare time which often led the mind
to wander.
 Physical distractions—
A stuffy room, noisy machinery, the cold you feel
coming on are only a few of the distractions that can
make listening difficult.
 Hearing problems—
Some people suffer from hearing deficiencies and the
biggest problems come up when a hearing problem
goes undetected.
 Faulty assumptions—
One common, though mistaken, belief is that the
responsibility for successful communication lists with the
sender. Even the most thoughtful, well expressed idea is
wasted if the intended receiver fails to listen thus both
the speaker and the listener share the burden of
reaching and understanding
 Barriers

 Avoiding difficult listening situations—

Many of us watch television programmes
that take no effort to absorb, rather than
watching debates, documentaries etc.
 Tolerating distractions—
We often this practice this habit unaware
that distractions for most speakers and
listeners alike, decrease the quality of our
communication.
 Faking attention—
We have learned to fake attention as our educational
process has conditioned us to look as if we are listening.
 Criticizing speaking style—
Everybody has a different speaking style. We cant
afford to let mannerisms keep us from getting important
points from the message. We must focus on listening
 Majoring in minors—
At times we make an effort to remember only those
facts that stand out and miss out on the speaker's main
point. Thus we may fall into the habit of picking and
choosing only selected tidbits to process.
 Wasting the thinking-speaking time differential.—
Most speakers can use upto 150 words in a minute
but we can listen at a much faster rate. If a person
speaks too slowly then we may get into the habit of
daydreaming, thus wasting precious time.
 Presented By

 Kavya Kumar - 05D0241

 Veera Redkar - 05D0253
 Ajay Kumar - 05D0257
 Priya - 05D0281
 Shanthi - 05D0283
 Ankeet Anand - 05D0206
 Anish - 05D0205