MGMT 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Assertiveness, Plaintext, Institute For Operations Research And The Management Sciences
Listening - active listening, barriers to listening, effective listening
Emotional intelligence (mindfulness, self awareness)
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Assertiveness
Importance of listening
• Most frequent skill used at work
• Affects quality, productivity, and costs
• Good listeners are more successful
Communication importance:
Communication is listed as the most important employment skill.
Listening vs hearing
• Hearing is an involuntary physiological process: passive
• Listening is a deliberate psychological process: active, conscious
• Mindful listening (active)
• Mindless listening (passive)
Types of listening:
• Discriminative:
Most basic type of listening. Ability to discriminate and make sense of the differences between
sounds.
• Comprehension
Ability to comprehend the meaning. Interpret the non-verbal components.
• Dialogical/conversational
Ability to learn through conversation. Engage in an interchange of ideas. Share and respond to the
different levels of meaning.
• Biased
Hearing only what the person wants you to hear.
• Ask questions
• Evaluate/critical
• Partial
Intending to listen to the other person but then becoming distracted.
• False
Pretending to listen but not hearing what is being said.
• Attentive (data only)
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Listening only to the content and failing to receive all the nonverbal sounds and signals.
Active - attending, encouraging, reflective
Empathetic listening without two way emotional involvement to the verbal and non verbal
components.
• Active listening helps the listener to bypass the personal filters, belief assumptions, and
judgements that can distort the speakers message.
• Acknowledges and provides feedback to the speaker, as well as verifying what the listener has
hears.
• Enables the person to reach their own decisions and form their own insights.
• Confirms communication and facilitates understanding between the speakers and the listener.
• Attending skills:
Focuses on the speaker by giving physical attention through:
• Verbal responses: I see, uh hmmmmm
• Eye contact
• Posture
• Body movement
• Personal space
• Environment: avoid distractions
In attending listening, listeners use their body language and words to provide feedback that assures
the speaker of their total attention.
• Encouraging skills:
Invited speaker to disclose thoughts and feelings
• Without pressuring them
• Using encouraging questions
• Using reflective statements : it sounds as if… so you are…
• Allowing for silence or pauses for speaker to reflect and consider
• Reflecting skills:
Restates to the speaker the feeling and content in the message using:
• Paraphrasing: Focuses on content rather than feelings: you are saying that…
• Reflective statements: reflect feelings from the message and help the speaker to focus on the
feelings: sounds like you…
• Clarifying statements: establish with the speaker that the listeners understanding is correct:
could you give me an example of…
• Summarising: lets the speaker know the listener understands their thoughts and feelings: your
main concerns seem to be…
It informs the speaker that the listener has heard and understands the intended message.
Barriers to effective listening:
• Physiological: hearing problems, rapid thought
• Environmental: physical distractions, problems in channel, message overload
• Attitudinal: preoccupation, egocentrism, fear of appearing ignorant
• False assumptions:
We make false assumptions about communication, not about the person or their topic-
• Effective communication is senders responsibility
• Listening is passive
• Talking has more advantages
• Socio-cultural differences: cultural differences, gender differences (Deborah Tannen- not
right/wrong, not superior/inferior, just different)
• Lack of training
Video: Russ Peterson - Rapid thought
Effective listening:
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