BCRW MBA/MCS/BBA ILM Colleges Khanpur

The Art of Listening

Most people think that to become a good communicator they have to focus on becoming great speakers, but
listening is just as important as speaking in the communication process. Whether you’re dealing with coworkers,
managers, or clients, being a good speaker and a great listener are crucial workplace skills. Our ability to listen
properly can give us insight into the rationale behind decisions and a better understanding of what the speaker is
trying to accomplish.

Whatever the reasons we struggle with being good listeners, honing that skill can have a lot of benefits. Here are
the top 8 reasons to create a workplace where employees both listen and are heard. Listening better to one
another can:

1. Build relationships. Attentive listening can help your workforce come closer together. And as
communications improve among employees, so will their teamwork, leading to increased productivity and
business.
2. Foster learning. The art of listening is about finding out what the speaker thinks about something. When
employees listen to one another, they learn from one another. A free flow of ideas that are truly listened
to can lead to a workplace where employees are constantly learning from each other.
3. Encourage respect. Respect is crucial in any workplace. Fostering attentive listening can help establish
respect, as managers and employers listen not only to their employees’ ideas but also to their issues or
concerns.
4. Establish a culture of communication. By fostering attentive listening, you establish a company culture in
which employees know how to speak and listen to one another. This raises the communication
expectations between employers and employees.
5. Facilitate conflict resolution. When issues or conflicts arise, listening is essential to clarifying
disagreements. Attentive listening helps employees get to the root of a problem, come up with solutions,
and decide the best course of action to take.
6. Promote open-mindedness. Employees all have different viewpoints. Encouraging them to listen to each
other can help promote an environment of open-mindedness and inclusion, where everyone can feel that
their opinions are heard and valued.
7. Further progress. Employees are more likely to be creative and share their ideas if they feel they are
listened to and their ideas are taken into account. Actively listening to employees’ input can reinforce the
acceptance of future contributions.
8. Improve decisions. Making decisions and judgments based on assumptions can cause many workplace
problems. By encouraging attentive listening, you will find that employees are more likely to ask
questions, clarify understanding, and make better decisions based on a more accurate understanding of a
given situation.

Encouraging good listening helps employees work together better as a team, and promotes innovative thinking
and more effective communication. Here are some of the basics of attentive listening.

 Make eye contact. Looking directly at the person who’s speaking is a clear way to indicate you’re paying
attention to him or her. Looking away, even if you’re still listening, will make it seem like you’re distracted
or not interested.
 Make appropriate facial expressions. Nodding, tilting your head, smiling – all of these expressions show a
response to what the speaker is saying, which indicates that you’re grasping the meaning and are
interested in what he or she’s saying.

Instructor: Naveed Akhtar (Manager-Assistant Communication (Engro Foods Limited)

BCRW MBA/MCS/BBA ILM Colleges Khanpur

 Ask questions. Critical listening involves asking questions to get all the information. When you ask the
speaker a question, it also drives the conversation and shows that you’re interested in clarification and
understanding the issues.
 Don’t interrupt. Although it’s good to ask questions, try not to interrupt the speaker. Let the person
complete his or her thoughts before responding or asking questions.
 Paraphrase. When you restate, in your own words, what the speaker is saying, you prove that you’re
listening carefully – after all, you wouldn’t be able to repeat anything if you weren’t paying attention.

Listening is of various types depending upon the speaker

1. Discriminative Listening:  When the listener differentiates between different parts of the speaker messages.

2. Evaluative Listening: Listening is said to be evaluative when the listener evaluates the evidence and reaches a
conclusion.
3. Appreciative Listening: Here the listener shows by words or his body language that he likes some part of a
speech and agrees with the speaker.
4. Empathic Listening: When the listener puts himself in the place of the position of the speaker it is called
Empathic Listening.
5. Active Listening: When the listener genuinely interested in understanding what the other person is thinking,
feeling, wanting or what the message means, and active in checking out our understanding it is called active
listening.

Listening Process
Listening is a seven-stage process of:
1. Hearing
2. Selecting
3. Attending
4. Understanding
5. Evaluating
6. Remembering
7. Responding actively with feedback

This process can be summarized in to four steps. The Four Steps of Listening are:

1. Hearing is the first step in the process. At this stage, Listener has to pay attention to make sure that he heard the
message.

2. The second step is interpretation. Failure to interpret the speaker's words correctly frequently leads to
misunderstanding. People sometimes interpret words differently because of varying experience, knowledge,
vocabulary, culture, background, and attitudes.

3. A good speaker uses tone of voice, facial expressions, and mannerisms to help make the message clear to the
listener. During the third step, evaluation, Listener has to decide what to do with the information he has received.
The judgments make in the evaluation stage are a crucial part of the listening process.

4. The final step is to respond. This is a verbal or visual response that lets the speaker know whether Listener has
gotten the message and what his reaction is.

Instructor: Naveed Akhtar (Manager-Assistant Communication (Engro Foods Limited)

BCRW MBA/MCS/BBA ILM Colleges Khanpur

Importance of Listening
1. It helps us to understand the people and the world around us.
2. In our society, listening is essential to the development and survival of the individual.
3. Relationships depends more on listening skills than on speaking skills.
4. A good listener is always in a better position to deal with his problems and relationships.
5. It helps a person to grow in his career.
6. It keeps a person well informed
7. It helps an organization to meet its objectives.
8. Being listened to spells the difference between feeling accepted and feeling isolated.
9. A good listener rarely involves himself in controversies and misunderstanding.
10. Listening skills are critical to effective leadership.
11. Good listeners are often the best speakers because they have taken the time to find out what people are truly
interested in.

Guidelines for Effective Listening

Listening is very important aspect of communication. Around 20% of overall communication is listening. Therefore,
one should strive for adopting good listening habit.
There are following guidelines for good listening:

(1) Preparation before listening.

(2) Listening to understand, not to refute.
(3) Focusing the attention.
(4) Concentration on context.
(5) Taking notes.
(6) Curbing the impulse to interrupt.
(7) Asking questions.
(8) Summary & evaluation.

The details of each point are as follows:

1. Preparation before listening: As already mentioned that listening plays important role in communication. So
one should prepare himself before starting listening. In preparation, there are following guidelines:

(i) Stop talking: Human brain can perform one activity efficiently at a time, so during listening there should be no
talking by the listener.

(ii) Remove distraction: Noisy fan, traffic noise, entrance of unauthorized persons may interrupt the listening
process. All these barriers should be removed.

(iii) Good environmental conditions: There should not be extraordinary cold or warm environment and
ventilations should be proper.

2. Listening to understand, not to refute: There could be many topics to which the listener has reservations. Apart
form these reservations, the listener should try his best to understand the message.

3. Focusing the attention: There may be many objects on which the listener should construct a mental outline of
where the speaker is going in his speech.

4. Concentration on context: The listener should keep in mind the background and theme of speech. This thing
enables him to absorb the material quickly and efficiently.

Instructor: Naveed Akhtar (Manager-Assistant Communication (Engro Foods Limited)

BCRW MBA/MCS/BBA ILM Colleges Khanpur

5. Taking notes: Listener should keep on taking notes. Hence, he should jot down ideas rather than sentences. In
this way, he/she could make the message safe for a long time.

6. Curbing the impulse to interrupt: One should avoid interrupting the speech until the speaker invites questions.
This habit puts the speaker and listener both at ease.

7. Asking questions: Asking right question on right time is quite different form interruption. Listener should have
an idea to know right time to ask questions.

8. Summary & evaluation: The listener should summarize and speech but not during listening process.

Qualities of A Good Listener

Being a good listener requires some basic qualities and has so many advantages. It makes communication so much
easier. Listening demands to interpret verbal messages along with the non-verbal clues.
If a person is in business then the importance of such skills has already been discussed. Poor listening can drag our
work project and makes it more time-consuming.
Good listeners usually have quick and easy solutions. It is known that great listeners are great winners in personal
and professional life. They are great motivators and communicators.
They are also great leaders in all the industries. Therefore, here is a list of a few qualities, which are needed for you
to be an effective listener.

1. Make eye contact

It is really important to look the person in the eye when you are communicating with him/her. It shows that you
are genuinely interested in the conversation. It reflects that you are interested in listening to the problems of the
other individual and would be ready to provide your help if needed.

2. Ask questions one at a time

What happens is that sometimes we ask too many questions and expect the other person to answer them all at
once. Such conversations do no reap the best results since appropriate time was not given to the speaker to
explain and complete what he wanted to say, instead you wanted the answer to all your questions.
Ask one question at a time and let him complete the explanation of the question. After he finishes, you can ask him
if there is anything more to be added.

3. Pay attention
Paying attention is the key component of being a good listener. One should be attentive and present in the place
where the speaker is saying something.
Sometimes what happens is that your mind catches a certain word and then it travels elsewhere, leaving you
distracted. You must try to avoid this by focusing purely on what the speaker has to say.

4. Do not interrupt in between

It is basic manners to not interrupt someone when he/she is talking. You must not talk in between a conversation
and let the speaker finish completely. You must ask your next question only after he/she finishes.
You can give your feedback after that. When you maintain this courtesy, the other person will be fairly interested
in the conversation.

5. Take Notes
This can be a helpful quality for the ones in the business. When you are in an important meeting you must take
notes of the things discussed in short bullet points.

Instructor: Naveed Akhtar (Manager-Assistant Communication (Engro Foods Limited)

BCRW MBA/MCS/BBA ILM Colleges Khanpur

This will make things clear and help you remember them. It can also be helpful in clearing your doubts and
summarize all that has been said and discussed.

6. Use whiteboards to understand better

It is not possible that you understand 100% of what the other person says. It is very reasonable that you might not
get some things. In that case, using a whiteboard is advisable.
Some conversations can be explained in a better way when you tend to draw them or represent them in the form
of short notes or tables. This can help to analyze your verbal communication.

7. Give a pause of a few seconds

When a person is about to finish talking, you should let them take at least 3 to 4 seconds break. This will help you
judge if they have finished speaking. There are chances that the person might start talking again after their pause.
Therefore, in that case, they should not be disturbed.

8. Focus on the subject

You must focus on the subject, which is being discussed and you should not direct the conversation towards any
other topic. Do not jump to next question until the person is finished with the previous one. You should not divert
the conversation to unrelated topics.

9. Do not show the gesture signs

This needs to be taken care of that you do not show expressions or gestures that you are ready to talk, before the
other person is done with speaking. Therefore, you must not move your head forward or open your mouth to talk,
etc.
Do not assume anything: You must not assume anything. If something is not understood then you can wait for
them to finish and then put forward your query. You can explain what you have understood from the conversation
and what not. Then you can ask the person to correct you where you go wrong.

10. Do not make early judgments

This is a very important quality for being a good listener. Before you let the speaker complete, you just pick some
words and they revolve around in your mind and everything else the speaker says is not listened to. Therefore, you
must not try to make early judgments and listen to the speaker fully.

11. Do not equate listening with agreeing

This is an amazing quality, which the good listeners possess. They do not equate listening with agreeing. They
understand that good listening is a quality, which equips you to be able to disagree as well. When you listen
carefully you understand clearly, what is it that you disagree with.

12. Willing to speak

Good listeners do not equate listening with silence. They understand the importance of communicating and that
one needs to speak too after listening, to take the conversation further.

Ways to Improve Listening Skills

The importance of listening skills has already been discussed. In this high speed and busy world, communication
skills have become so important. We devote lesser and lesser time to listen to each other. Genuine listening has
become a rare gift of time.
It helps build relationships, ensure understanding, improve accuracy, and resolve conflicts. Therefore, to help you
with all of this efficiently, here is a list of a few ways in which you can improve your listening skills.

1. Face the speaker and maintain eye contact

Divided attention does no good, neither to the speaker nor to the listener. Due to this, the communication fails.
Making eye contact is considered a basic essential for effective communication. When you talk to a person, look
him/her in the eye.

Instructor: Naveed Akhtar (Manager-Assistant Communication (Engro Foods Limited)

BCRW MBA/MCS/BBA ILM Colleges Khanpur

You must have the courtesy to face your partner with whom you are carrying out a conversation. Keep aside the
things causing distractions, such as your mobile phone, papers, book or anything else. You must look at your
partner even if they are not looking at you.

2. Be attentive but relaxed

Once you make an eye contact with the person, it is not that you have to stare at him/her incompetently. You need
to be relaxed, in order to focus on what the person is saying. You are allowed to look away every now and then like
any normal person would do. The only thing is that you will have to be attentive.
You need to deal with your mental distractions along with the background activity or noise. You should not focus
so much on the speech mannerisms of the speaker that it becomes a distraction for you. In the end, obviously, do
not be distracted by your own thoughts.

3. Keep your mind open

You need to be free from any thought to give full attention to the speaker. Therefore, you must listen to him/her
without making prior judgments or criticize what the speaker is telling you.
You compromise your effectiveness as a listener as soon as you make judgmental bemusements. You can feel
alarmed by what the person says but wait until you hear him/her out completely.
It is extremely necessary to hear and absorb without jumping to conclusions. You must take care of the fact that
the speaker is using his/her words to express his thoughts and feelings that you do not know.
You will find out about how he feels only after listening properly. You should not be a sentence-grabber. There’s no
point interrupting and trying to finish other person’s sentences.

4. Try to picture what the speaker is saying

You should allow your mind to work in a creative manner. It should create a model of the information being
communicated in his mind. It can be an arrangement of abstract concepts or make a liberal picture. Your brain will
do the work if it is focused in the right manner. What is required is that your senses should be completely alert.
When the conversation goes on for long stretches, you must try and remember the keywords and phrases. You can
note them down if you want. Also, you should not spend your time planning what to say next when it is your turn
to listen.
You cannot do two things at a time, rehearse and listen in this case. Your only priority should be to concentrate on
what the speaker is trying to convey.

5. Do not interrupt and impose your solutions

Interrupting in between cannot be termed as a good habit. When you interrupt a person, it sends all kinds of bad
messages. It may mean that what you are saying might be more important than what the speaker intends to say.
Or that what you are saying is more interesting, relevant or accurate.
We all have a different pace when it comes to listening or speaking. If you are a quick thinker or nimble speaker,
then you need to control your pace and be a more thoughtful communicator.
When you listen to someone talking about his problems, you should refrain from suggesting immediate solutions.
The person might not want your advice. Sometimes all a person might need is a good listener.

6. Wait for the speaker for clarification

It is not possible for anyone to understand anything completely. It is human to have doubts or not to understand
anything and it would be considered good if you look forward to talking to the speaker about the same. However,
you must not interrupt. Wait for the speaker to take a pause.

7. Ask questions only to ensure understanding

You must only ask relevant questions. One question can take the conversation in a completely different direction.
That direction might not have anything to do with the real topic being discussed or talked about.
However, sometimes you might get back to the original topic but most of the time, one is not able to. Therefore,
you must think before asking a question as it should disturb the original flow of the issue being discussed.

Instructor: Naveed Akhtar (Manager-Assistant Communication (Engro Foods Limited)

BCRW MBA/MCS/BBA ILM Colleges Khanpur

8. Try to feel what the speaker is feeling

Your effectiveness as a good listener is assured when you try to feel every emotion that the speaker is going
through and you convey it to them by your gestures, such as you can use your facial expressions or your words.
You must try to feel their sadness when they are upset, their joy when they are happy and so on.
To be a good listener, empathy is a quality, which can be termed as the heart and soul of good listening. To be
empathetic, you should try to put yourself in the place of the person narrating their experiences, and then feel
their emotions or thoughts.
However, this takes a lot of concentration and energy but this facilitates communication at its best. It is very
generous and helpful to do this.
9. Give regular feedback to the speaker
When you give regular feedback to the speaker, you make him feel that he is being heard and listened. Feedback
not just means, getting back to him by speaking. It can also be in the form of a simple nod while he is discussing the
topic.

Improve Your Listening Skills to Win the Job

Miriam Salpeter-American University

WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY qualified candidates, it is even more important to do everything you can to make the
best impression possible during an interview. If you’ve been preparing, it’s likely you’ve been rehearsing how to
answer questions. Of course, it’s important to be ready for typical inquiries and be able to respond to questions
with well thought-out stories detailing your skills and highlighting accomplishments as they relate to the job.

Good listening skills are worth honing at any point in your career, but when in job-search mode, they can be even
more crucial to improve.

Active listening is a skill most people do not practice, and studies suggest we only remember between a quarter
and a half of what we hear. (And possibly even less when in a stressful situation, such as a job interview.)

MindTools.com outlines the following five key elements of active listening, which requires you not only to hear the
other person, but also understand what he or she is asking you to do:

1. Pay attention. Try not to be distracted during the interview. Even if the interviewer has on an ugly tie or seems
preoccupied or unfocused, be sure to hone in on both what he is saying and his body language. Make eye contact,
avoid preparing your response during the conversation, and focus all of your energy on the current discussion.

2. Show you’re listening. Again, your body language speaks volumes; attention to non-verbal communication can
help you become a better listener. Mindtools.com suggests you make a point to nod occasionally, smile and

Instructor: Naveed Akhtar (Manager-Assistant Communication (Engro Foods Limited)

BCRW MBA/MCS/BBA ILM Colleges Khanpur

positively respond with your face, maintain an open and inviting stance and posture (don’t interview with your
arms folded), and provide verbal acknowledgements, such as “Yes” and “uh huh.”

3. Provide feedback. Even during an interview, it’s okay to clarify what the questioner is saying, to ask him or her
to rephrase something, and to summarize what the questioner says. (Though you wouldn’t want to do this for
every question.) If you know you missed the question because you were distracted, you’re better off asking for
clarification rather than responding with unrelated or non-specific details.

4. Defer judgment. Don’t interrupt or start responding to the question before the employer finishes.

5. Respond Appropriately. Demonstrate you have been listening and paying attention by providing an honest,
candid, respectful reply.

[See Don't Make These Mistakes in a Job Interview.]

Practice your listening skills as often as possible—any time you have a conversation, listen to the radio, or watch
television, you can practice focused listening. Test yourself by recording television programs or signing up for
podcasts you can re-review. Listen to what’s said, and then see how much you can re-tell or explain. If you miss a
lot of details, start over and try to focus more. Slow your listening down and make more of an effort to be in the
moment with your attention. Practice shifting positions, or making more eye contact (for a television show) to see
if that helps your retention. If you’re having a difficult time concentrating, try repeating the words in your head as
they say them to try to reinforce what you’re hearing.

Improving your listening skills will make a difference and help you stand out in a crowd—exactly what you need to
differentiate yourself in a competitive market.

Students!!!
After completion this topic there would be class presentation on Interview,
and the agenda/situation will provide your instructor.

Instructor: Naveed Akhtar (Manager-Assistant Communication (Engro Foods Limited)