Effective listening habits

Identifying their poor listening habits and making an effort to change then can help develop their listening skills. If the listeners pay special consideration to the circumstances that seem to offer such behaviour, they can wilfully attempt to alter their habits. Listening at a workplace and college/ university can be different, since at institutions the professors or lecturers repeat important points and is not the same as workplace. The person must know that their job is to listen carefully and understand what is being said in order to work well. In some situations, listening effectively can be done just by putting our portable devices away or turning them off. More the individuals develop awareness about their listening habits, the more likely they are to alter their bad listening habits. Moreover clearing themselves of bad listening habits, individuals can gain positive listening habits.

Following are some of the behaviours or acts that can help one become effective listener:

1.       Paying attention: The individuals, who really want to be good listeners, they should, at times, force themselves to pay attention to the presenters or speakers. Even though when a the speaker does not have an engaging or attention seeking way of speaking or the topic is uninteresting, the listener must put some extra effort to keep up with the issue and keep them from being distracted by other stuff. Try taking on the challenge to yourself and put out the extra effort to listen.

2.       Listening for the entire communication: Look for a meaning and reliability of similarity in both the verbal and non-verbal messages and keep listening to get some ideas, feelings and purpose including the facts as well. Try to understand the main point by listening and analyzing carefully the clues left by the speaker.

3.       Hearing before estimating: Listening to what others without making any early assumptions can to very helpful for effective listening. In such cases, questioning the presenter in a non-accusing way can be helpful. Rather than giving instructions or judging, a listener can determine what the speaker is trying to say or has in mind, which is often different then the assumptions made by the listener. Asking open ended questions can also get the speaker to speak more about it.

4.       Rephrasing what was heard: The listener can paraphrase the words of the speaker and then ask if that was what s/he meant, then many mistakes and misconceptions can be avoided.

 Sources:

(n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2015, from https://www.cjebaltimore.org/sites/default/files/Improving Your Listening Habits.pdf