YOU MAY BE LISTENINGBut do you really HEAR what is being said??

Communication Skills

There are four basic communication skills Reading, writing, speaking and LISTENING

Listening is the ONLY communication skill that is not taught

The advantage of becoming good at listening: You will give yourself a competitive

advantage in the world of customer service!

Definition of Listening

Listening is the way that we put sounds and their meanings together to create understanding.

Problems with listening

We listen faster than anyone can talk to us…so our minds and thoughts wander when we are listening to others When our minds wander we fill in the gaps

with irrelevant off the topic thoughts Studies have shown:

We speak at a rate of about 120 words per minute, our listening capacity is about 500 words per minute

Problems with listening

Listening is also a psychological process based on our own needs, we think from a SELF-CENTERED ORIENTATION which makes our listening self-centered We may listen in anticipation of the person

finishing their thoughts and begin to plan our response before they complete their thoughts

We may not listen to what the person is saying, we may listen to how the person’s views will affect our position

We may listen through a set of our own biases (this may negatively affect how we listen)

Why Listen?

We spend more time LISTENING than any other communication activity. When dealing with patients/clients listening is extremely important.

When attention is given to our patients/clients and coworkers by listening we will see an improvement in or ability to meet client needs and win their loyalty.

EVERYONE SHOULD WORK ON IMPROVING THEIR LISTENING!

Take the following tests to find out

How good are your listening skills

Listen to the following commercial

Answer the following questions What is the name of the main company giving the

great deal in the commercial? How many people can you call with the service

provider mentioned in the commercial? What time does one of the guys free minutes kick

in? On average, viewers who just watched and listened to

the evening news could only recall 17.2% of the content (Stauffer, Frost, & Rybolt, 1983).

What does this mean, you probably have answered at least one of the questions correctly if you are an average listener.

Listening to a list of words

In a linear one-way listening task, when presented with a list of words, people can remember, on average, 7 items (Miller, 1956). Were you able to recall at least 7 words, if

you did, you fall into the average category of listeners

Listening to sentences

When presented with a series of unrelated sentences and asked to remember the last word of each sentence, people can remember, on average, 2.805 items (Janusik, 2004). What does this mean? You probably

remembered the last word of at least 2 or maybe 3 of the sentences given

Do you think listening is an easy task?

Many people confuse listening with hearing. Listening involves mentally absorbing the message.

Without listening what you hear is just NOISE. Lack of effective listening may the be most

common human communication problem—it is a great factor in customer dissatisfaction.

When you become a skilled listener, you become a better communicator and you will improve your customer service skills. The greatest gift we can give our clients/patients is OUR

ATTENTION.

The difference between HEARING and LISTENING

HEARING—is a physical activity. Acoustic energy in the form of sound waves is changed to various types of energy that the brain can understand.

LISTENING—refers to the psychological processes that allows us to attach meaning to the patterns of energy we ‘hear’. An example of hearing vs. listening is the

Cocktail Party Effect At a party there are several conversations going on at

once. All of the conversations may be HEARD, but we actually have to make an effort to LISTEN to any one of the conversations.

Environmental and Interactional Elements that affect listening

LISTEN to the following series of 2 minute skits. On completion of each skit identify either an Environmental element or Interactional element that can have a negative effect on ones listening capacity Textbook Reference: pages 43 to 46 Briefly scan pages 43 to 46 in your text

(look at the dark blue titles) to familiarize yourself with the Environmental and Interactional elements that may affect listening

Interactional Elements that affects listening

Self-Protection We protect ourselves by playing out an anticipated

conversation in our own minds before the real conversation occurs to make sure that we don’t get caught saying something stupid. We figure that we know where the conversation is going, so we anticipate

what we expect to hear and plan out a counter argument rather than listening to the actual message

Self-protection = playing a scene ‘conversation’ in your mind and adjusting what you are going to say because you don’t want to be hurt or embarrassed Self-protection is dangerous in a healthcare setting, when dealing with

internal and external customers. If we anticipate what we believe might be said and react to that instead of what the client/patient is really saying, you may miss the entire point of the conversation.

Environmental Elements that affects listening

Noise Noise is sounds that are not important to

conversation Noise may be:

Environmental—sound of machinery, other conversations, buzzers, bells, etc…

Internal—having a headache, dislike for the person we are listening to, pre-occupation with another problem

Noise distracts us from listening

Interactional Elements that affects listening

Self-Centeredness Self-centeredness refers to the degree of ‘vested interest’ we may

have in our own point of view. When a DIFFERENCE OF OPINION arises amongst people our vested interest can create a listening barrier.

Why does self-centeredness occur? We have made an investment in our ideas, we need to verbalize it

publically and it is hard for us to change our ideasListening is a psychological process based on own needs, we think

and listen from a self-centered orientation. We don’t listen to what the other person is saying we listen to how

his/her views will affect our position We listen through a pre-determined set of biases (looking for flaws in

our opponents views) OFTEN we listen to others to try to find the weak spots in their positions

so we can formulate a convincing response. At that time we stop listening and begin planning what we will say in responseSELF-CENTERED LISTENING HAS A DIRECT IMPACT ON THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION THAT WE RECEIVE

Environmental Elements that affects listening

Individual Listening Capacity We can be overloaded with too much information, or we

may receive too little information Both of these may result in a listening breakdown 

You spend a huge portion of your day listening—or tuning out Listening breakdowns happen when we exceed our capacity to listen

Once our capacity for listening has been reached we develop defense mechanisms for coping We develop psychological strategies for selecting what we will

attend to and what we will tune out The selection mechanisms although often unconscious are

normally based on our individual needs which are always changing

Environmental Elements that affects listening

Misuse of Gatekeepers Gatekeeper—is a person who previews incoming information to

determine if it is appropriate to the needs of the person the message is aimed at (receptionist to a healthcare professional)

If the message is determined to be non-essential the gatekeeper will block it from the person

The gatekeepers' job is to do some of the listening for us Doctor’s/Dentists usually have at least one gatekeeper Some doctor’s/dentist’s use gatekeepers to insulate them from

clients/patients or other important sources of information BENEFITS OF GATEKEEPING—REDUCE COMMUNICATION

OVERLOAD Disadvantages—when information is finally received it has come

through an extra interpretation (the gatekeepers), the gatekeeper may accidentally filter out messages that the medical/dental professional needs to hear