TEAM BUILDING II LISTENING SKILLS

TRAINING
How Important is Communication?
There are 4 communication skills
Reading
Speaking
Writing
Listening

Listening Skills
We were given 2 ears but only one mouth. This is
because God knew that listening was twice as hard as
talking.
Listening is an art, a skill, a discipline and like other
skills, it needs practice. You must understand what is
involved in listening and develop the necessary
techniques to be silent and listen. Sometimes you
have to ignore your own needs and concentrate
attention on the person speaking. Hearing becomes
listening only when you pay attention to what is said
and follow it very closely.

Why should you listen?

Show your support and help the other preson(s) relax

Show you are accepting them, and open to them
Enable each one to speak and be heard
Be able to ask questions to clarify
Check assumptions
Clear up misperceptions
Re-state or paraphrase
Find the key points or issues
Provide the silence necessary to encourage speech
Know when to bring to closure and when to test for
agreements

You Demonstrate That You Are Listening By:

Your body language

Making eye contact
Keeping your body open
Echoing words
Nods of your head
Leaning toward the speaker
One of the best ways to begin to improve your
listening skills is to have a better understanding of
some of the most common behaviors you and others
demonstrate when not listening effectively.

What is a Roadblock?
Anything that keeps us from listening is called a ROAD BLOCK.
Some common road blocks to listening are:
Feeling a strong urge to answer or decide there and then on what is being
said to you
Making judgments or evaluating what is being said
Being in a rush because of some other important business and only half
listening to the content
Hearing just what you want to hear
Believing that you have something important to say and taking time away
from the other person to make your point.
Disagreeing with the other persons point of view either overly or covertly
Seeing the other person as different to you different skills and
professionalism, different values, different beliefs and therefore unable to
understand your wisdom
Looking away losing important eye contact
Staring fixedly at the other person
Having something a lot more interesting in your head

More roadblocks to listening:

Your whole attention is on designing and preparing your next
comment. You look interested, but your mind is going a mile
a minute because you are thinking about what to say next.
Some people rehearse whole chains of responses: Ill say,
then hell say, and so on.
Negatively labeling people can be extremely limiting. If you
prejudge somebody as incompetent or uninformed, you dont
pay much attention to what the person says. A basic rule of
listening is that judgments should only be made after you
have heard and evaluated the content of the message.
When using this block, you take everything people tell you
and refer it back to your own experience. They want to tell
you about a toothache, but that reminds you of your oral
surgery for receding gums. You launch into your story before
they can finish theirs.

More roadblocks to listening: (Continued)

You are the great problem solver. You dont have to hear
more than a few sentences before you begin searching for
the right advice. However, while you are coming up with
suggestions and convincing someone to just try it, you may
miss what is most important.
This block has you arguing and debating with people who
never feel heard because you are so quick to disagree. In
fact, your main focus is on finding things to disagree with!!
Being right means you will go to great lengths (twist the
facts, start shouting, make excuses or accusations, call up
past things) to avoid being wrong. You cant listen to
criticism, you cant be corrected, and you cant take
suggestions to change.

More roadblocks to listening: (Continued)

Right..Absolutely.I know..Of course you
are..Incredible..Really?? You want to be nice, pleasant,
supportive. You want people to like you. So you agree with
everything. You may half-listen just enough to get the drift,
but you are not really involved.
When we dream, we pretend to listen but really tune the
other person out while we drift about in our interior
fantasies. Instead of disciplining ourselves to truly
concentrate on the input, we turn the channel to a more
entertaining subject.
Through the normal course of a day, listening is used nearly
twice as much as speaking and four to five times as much
as reading and writing.

Reasons Why We Just Dont Listen Very Well:

3 Reasons Why We Just Dont Listen Very Well:
We were not ever taught specifically to listen. In schools we
absorb massive amounts of instruction in reading, writing
and even public speaking. But most people have had
absolutely no instruction on the art of listening.
Most of us think true power resides in speaking, not in
listening. We believe that its the speaker who controls the
conversation. The truth is more complex: Attentive listeners
have control, too, for they are gaining useful information,
and information is power.
Living in the Information Age, we are bombarded with a
blizzard of data bits every day. Because we feel
overwhelmed, we start to block out whatever we believe is
less than immediately useful.

What is Attending?
You need to show you are listening carefully, this is called
ATTENDING. Following are a few Attending Skills

Listen without interrupting

Pay attention
Use supportive body language
Paraphrase facts and feelings
Watch someone who listens attentively. He makes eye
contact and focuses on the other person while he/she
listens. He listens with his eyes as well as his ears. While
listening, he nods or makes attentive noises from time-totime.

Suggestions For Improving Skills:

You can improve your Listening Skills by:
Stop Talking
Empathize with the
other person
Ask questions
Dont give up too soon
Concentrate on what
the person is saying
Look at the other
person
Leave your emotions
behind

Control your anger

Get rid of distractions
Get the main points
Share responsibility for
communications
React to ideas, not the
person
Dont argue mentally
Focus on content, not
delivery

Practice Makes Perfect

REMEMBER!!!!
LISTENING SKILLS CAN ONLY BE DEVELOPED WITH
PRACTICE!

TEAM BUILDING II
LISTENING SKILLS QUIZ