What Is Listening?

What is listening? Do people actually listen to you when you are speaking? The direct definition of listen is “to make an effort to hear; give ear.” The role of a listener is to help empty the large reservoirs of emotion, anger, stress, frustrations and other negative feelings until the individual can see more clearly. Not until then, can an individual consider the needs of the other. “What We Achieve by Listening.

Active listening is an important way to bring about changes in people. Despite the popular notion that listening is a passive approach, clinical and research evidence clearly shows that sensitive listening is a most effective agent for individual personality change and group development. Listening brings about changes in peoples attitudes toward themselves and others; it also brings about changes in their basic values and personal philosophy. People who have been listened to in this new and special way become

more emotionally mature, more open to their experiences, less defensive, more democratic, and less authoritarian.” (ACTIVE LISTENING by Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson). How many people that claim to listen actually serve this particular role? People do not understand to the fullest what being a good listener is. “Most people spend more time listening than they spend on speaking, reading and writing combined. Yet most people know less about listening than they do about the other forms of communication. Further, most people have taken extensive instruction in writing and reading, but have never received any listening instruction. In short, people get the least amount of instruction in the form of communication that they do the most. As a result, there are a lot of poor listeners. In fact, two days after listening to a ten-minute presentation, most people retain only 25% of what they heard.”

“Effective listening is a learnable skill, not an inherent talent. Training yourself to choose to listen will enrich those around you, and guide other areas of your life.” (San Antonio Business Journal - September 28, 2001 by David Flack). As stated we do not out of any where become good listeners or effective ones. We have to work at it, it is a skill that must be learned. Why is listening so difficult? Because there are many of distractions around us. We could hear a cell phone ring, thinking of what we might say next or about the hair cut the speaker has just gotten, or other things similar to these distractions. We must make a conscious effort to listen. Our listening skills become habits and habits are difficult to change. The skills we develop good or bad become a part of us, they are habits. There are many poor listening habits. These poor listening habits are, pseudo listening, stage hogs, selective listeners, fill in gaps, insulated listening, and an ambusher. All of these are things that we know people do but now they have names. Poor listening habits you will soon see consume everyone. Some people may not have these poor habits all of the time, but they do sometimes. Pseudo listening is someone who only imitates actual listening. They will nod there head, they smile, and look you in they eye, but the reality is they don’t have a clue what you are saying. Stage hogs are people who only are interested in their thoughts and opinions and do not care what anyone else has to say. They normally do not allow others to speak and if they do it is only so that they can catch their breath. They have the attitude of me, me, me. Selective listeners only listen to the things that they want to hear. If the person speaking to them does not talk about something that interests them they do not listen. People who fill in gaps think that they know the whole story when in reality they don’t. They think that the parts of a story that they remember is the stories entirety. Insulated listeners is just about opposite of selective listeners. Insulated listeners don’t look for something that they are interested in, if a topic is brought up they don’t like they simply avoid it all together. Defensive listeners make an innocent comment into a personal attack. Ambusher listeners listen carefully to what is being said, but not out of courtesy. The information that they listen carefully to is only to attack you later on. We all know people that have these problems at least once in a while. With these problems and others it becomes clear that no one is a perfect listener all the time. “…listening is appropriately described as the "neglected skill"…” (Journal article by Valerie Priscilla Goby, Justus Helen Lewis; Business Communication Quarterly, Vol. 63, 2000)

“Listening is a great tool to use to learn more about the world around you.

Silence makes you listen a lot more. We take listening for granted. Silence helps you hear things you wouldn't normally hear. Listening is a skill that takes work.