William Shakespeare once said “Give every man thy ear but few thy voice”. The message that he is trying to put across is to urge people to talk less and to listen more.
Very often than not, we often associate communication to the process of producing words – speaking. However, there is also another part which is associated to communication, which is listening. Listening is actually the most important part in communication, besides speaking, because without listening, there is no interaction between the two communicators. This will cause our communication model, which is the Transactional model, to fall apart and to give rise to the Linear Model.
Listening is important because it allows the listener to receive the message from the sender, decode the message and then communicate his/her points of views back. The exchange is thus called communication. Without listening, communication then becomes a one-way communication. As there would not be any feedback, there would also not be any exchange in views and opinions of a certain subject matter.
One must not confuse listening with hearing. The definition of listening is “to give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing; give ear”, which in simple words is to give attention. On the other hand, the definition of hearing is “to perceive by the ear”. One has to be attentive to the message that is sent to him/her before he/she can understand what the sender is saying and to provide meaningful feedback on the message that has just been sent. If the listener is just hearing the message and not listening, the message would not be processed and some intended messages that are meant to be sent across would be lost.
Ernest Hemingway says that “most people never listen”. This is very true. Every often, people listen to messages, but do not listen. They are willing to listen to the message that is being sent, but are not able to process the message. This often results in miscommunication, or having the sender to repeat what he/she had just said. Thus, it is important to be a good listener, to be able to pay attention that is being sent across and to provide meaningful feedback. Only this way, would we be able to communicate well.
I fully agree that listening is a very important part of communication.
ReplyDeleteWhen I present my proposals in office, it is important for my bosses to listen to me so that they can understand my idea and provide me with feedbacks on how I can improvise on my proposal.
Good point!
Yes agree. Most people never listen. These people are often buried too deep in the core of their self-centeredness.
ReplyDeleteIndeed... People never listen. They only hear what they want to hear...
ReplyDeleteMany people always want to make their point across the room so eagerly that they forget to stop for a moment, listen to their peers and digest what others have just raised.
ReplyDeleteAt work, listening and providing valuable feedback can sometimes be more important and useful than being the one throwing information non-stop. It is often a forgotten chance to showcase one's real knowledge and acuteness in spotting weaknesses in proposals or offerring new ideas from a different viewpoint as the presenter.
At life, you will certainly need a listening ear when feeling down and have to learn to play the role of a listener well if you want to show your care andconcern for your loved ones. For instance, one should absorb and not include your own emotions when listening to your best friend's problems. Rapid large reactions or even cursing the other party does not always help lessen your friend's burden. Listening is more often than not just what they need.
In this face moving society today, people are often overly concern with their daily lives and overlook the need to slow down their pace and to listen to people. Thus, without listening, miscommunications will take place and this will result in misunderstandings.
ReplyDeleteI presume that one of the reason that is contributing to the rise in divorce rates in this society is because of miscommunications. Couples are not able to maintain a healthy relationship because they are too busy with their work, and do not have time to sit down and listen to one another. Over time, relationships turn sour and they end up with a divorce.
This clearly shows that in maintaining a relationship, be in between couples, in work or anywhere, it is important not only to build a strong communication channel, but also to have people who are willing to listen.
I agree that listening is often times more important than speaking. However misunderstandings arises even when people are "listening" because either they are not paying attention to what the other party is saying or they listen to the message with pre-existing perceptions in their minds, hence whatever they listened have often times been understood different from the speaker meant because the message heard was already twisted by the perceptions in their minds. Therefore, as important as listening to the message being spoken attentively, it is vital to listen with without any biasness or pre-notions.
ReplyDeleteAlso, "active listening" is the ideal state of listening in which the listener not only digested the content of the message well but he/she has "listened" deeply to the emotions and the intentions of the speaker even though they were not explicitly expressed through the speaker's spoken words.
I agree that most of us do not listen, or I should say we often choose the messages we want to listen to.
ReplyDeleteHearing is easy, but listening and digesting what someone says is always a difficult thing to do. In this modern society, I think perception plays a more major part in our communication process, even though it isnt the correct way. We choose to judge the person who is speaking not just by the things he/she said, but also how he/she looks, walks, or even dresses.
I agree too, that most people nowadays do not listen. I believe that it is due to our fast paces in this modern society, that is causing lesser people having the patience to listen.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agreed that there is a big difference between listening and hearing. When you hearing something, you will not let it linger in your mind for too long. Whereas, listening requires more attention and it definately linger in your mind for a longer time as you will be thinking over it.
Listening also enables one to communicate well with others, whereas, hearing may have the adverse effect. For example, when one's friends told one about their troubles and one just hear it, instead of helping them by listening to it. And, in turn, when one is in trouble and need a listening ear, he/she may not find someone to listen and thus, causes unpleasant feelings.
Hence, I agree wit you that listening is also an important part of communication.
Often when two parties communicate, assuming A speaks a lot, conveys a lot of ideas across while B simply listens and speaks very few words but constructive comments. I do wonder, does this means that A is really more knowledgable? And does this means that B knows lesser? I suppose not.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, if B has always been the one listening and A has always been the one talking, evaluating from the characteristics while they communicate, I presume B is the one who knows more. Take for example, no matter who the other party is in a communication, B has always been 'absorbing' information from the other party. In comparison, A prefers to convey messages to the other party and seldom 'absorbs'. Eventually, B will have more information than A, and this will also affect one's ability to make the right move in times of making decisions or at work because one who knows more, can perceive a situation from different angles while those who 'absorbs' less will often do things with their individual perception, neglecting the other possibilities.
In the modern society, most people lack of the real ability to listening to others, rather they always try to insist their opinions. ( maybe, this kind of conversation is considered as communication.. ) It’s time to understand the meaning of communication.
ReplyDeleteI guess the main reason why we are not willing to listen is because we are all living in a very fast moving society, whereby we do not have the spare time to sit down and listen to the details that the sender is trying to put across. Very often than not, I have noticed that in all communication, there would definitely be someone who says “ok, so can we just get to the main points?”. This is clearly due to the fact that people nowadays do not have the luxury of time to sit down and to have a detailed conversation with one another. This has also indirectly influenced the listening skills of the person. people only wish to listen to things that are important to them.
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If the world could just listen, maybe there wouldn't be so much conflict.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree, If parents would listen to their children, leaders wouls listen to their people, teachers would listen to their student, husbands would lsiten to their wives,wouldn't it be a better place?
ReplyDeleteCommunication is definitely a 2 way process, and it can't do without listening. Without it, it would be as if you were talking to thin air, or to a wall.
ReplyDeleteHowever, listening seems to be becoming a lost art among the society today. Maybe it's due to the lack of face-to-face interactions? I'm not sure, but what I do know is that often, the people who can listen well make best friends, decisions, and leaders.
Yes, I agree with wai lreng. The use of technology in today’s society has caused people to lessen their interaction time physically. Most of the time, youngsters would either be communicating through SMS or MSN, and no longer through talking over the phone. As a result, youngsters have lost the patience to listen to what the speaker has to say. And in today’s context, youngsters are also beginning to be more hyper active, and with their limited attention span, little would be absorbed.
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