Listening Skills

One of the hardest yet most important skills of all when it comes to communication is definitely listening. I’m sure that everyone has experienced a time when they were conversing with someone and could tell that they were not listening to a single word that you had said. It can be frustrating and offensive. While this person may have just been distracted or zoned out, it seems disrespectful. Poor listening skills need to be avoided, especially in business.

Richard C. Huseman wrote a book titled Business Communication: Strategies and Skills. Within this book, there was a very detailed chapter that focused on effective listening skills in business. One point he made that I thought was very important was this: “Motivation is one of the most significant elements of listening proficiency. Specifically, motivation, in terms of interest, emotion, and mindset, helps determine a person’s aural competence. Listeners’ comprehension improves if they are interested in the topic before the speech, if the speech creates interest, or if they know they are to be tested after the speech,” (Huseman 329). In other words, if you have particular interest or excitement, or are eager to learn about what someone is saying, your listening skills are going to be most effective. On the other hand, if you have no interest in what someone is saying, you will easily get distracted, daydream, or zone out.

After reading that quote, I was completely in agreement with Huseman’s ideas. This is something that I actually have been practicing for a long time now. About a year ago, my boyfriend Dan brought this concept up to me. I was complaining to him that my Meteorology professor basically put me to sleep in every class. While I have never had an interest in science, meteorology was the worst of all. After telling him this, Dan told me that if I could find just one little thing that really interested me about meteorology, it would make me a lot more interested and alert in class, therefore helping me pay attention and understand better. After that, going to my 9am meteorology class was a lot less painful.

Although that may seem a little off-topic, it directly relates to listening skills in business. When in a business meeting or conversing with a co worker, you must find a way to stay interested and engaged in order to be respectful and improve your listening skills. If not, you may really frustrate whoever you are communicating with, and come across as very unprofessional.

Some more helpful tips that Huseman discussed were his ‘Skills for Effective Listening.’ These skills were as follows:

1. Listen for total meaning
2. Respond to feelings
3. Note all cues: verbal and nonverbal

These listening tips are very important because they consider more than just the literal words that are being said; they also consider the way that these words are said. Voice inflection, facial expressions, gestures, and more are very important when understanding the true meaning of what someone says. For example, if your boss says, “Have you finally completed your assignment?” while rolling his eyes, that has a completely different meaning from him asking, “Are you just about finished with that assignment?” with a smile. Paying attention to more than just the words being said can make a huge difference in how you respond and react afterwards. This will also eliminate a lot of confusion in communication.

Huseman, R. C. (1988). Business communication: strategies and skills. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada.