Listening is one of the most common and important things that we do. Recent research on work behaviour suggests that we spend approximately 9% of our time writing, 16% of our time reading, 30% of our time talking and 45% of our time listening.
Listening is a fundamental part of the communication process. Regardless of the type of job you do or the industry in which you work, it is important to understand the listening process, have an awareness of barriers to listening effectively, and learn how to listen actively.
Listening as a process
Hearing and listening are not the same thing. In fact, hearing is just the first of three stages in the listening process, all of which are fairly obvious but still worth remembering.
– Hearing Simply the process of sound waves being transformed by our brains into impulses.
– Attention Important so that we can hear what is being said to us, but often difficult due to distractions such as noise intrusion or internal distractions such as thinking about something else rather than what is being said.
– Understanding This is the most crucial aspect of the process on a number of levels. As...