Basic Interpersonal Communication V1.0.docx

Table of Contents

Page No.

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Introduction

3

2.0

Analysis Of The Listening Guidelines

3

2.1 Listening Guidelines 3.0

4.0

5.0

3-4

Analysis Of The Listening Styles

5

3.1

Participatory and Passive Listening

5

3.2

Empathic and Objective Listening

5

3.3

Non-Judgemental and Critical Listening

5

3.4

Surface and Depth Listening

5

3.5

Active and Inactive Listening

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Analysis Of The Listening Obstacles

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4.1

Situational Obstacles

4.2

Internal Obstacles to listening

4.3

Bad Listening Habits

5 -6 7 7-8

Recommendation To Improve The Listening Skill

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5.1

Control Emotions and Biases

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5.2

Observe the Speaker

5.3

Understand What We Just Listen And Provide Feedback

5.4

To Avoid Miscommunication

5.5

Identifying supporting material

8-9 9 9 - 10 10

6.0

Summary

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7.0

Reference

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1.0

INTRODUCTION Interpersonal Communication is the process we communicate with others people every day like friends, family members, colleagues, Business Partner and etc. by giving information or message in verbal or non verbal, face to face and online interaction via e-mail, WhatsApp, Facebook, Line, Twitter, Skype and etc. Listening is the ability to understand message given accurately during the communication process. Listening is important to all effective communication to understanding the message and prevents misunderstanding. Good listening skills can help to make work done more effective, efficiently and success. Listening skill can be used to give and received message and information, influence the attitudes and behavior of others, form contacts and maintain relationships, decisions making and problems solving, express personal needs and understand the needs of others people, give and received emotional support, make sense based on experience and knowledge. Television talk show: Clayton Moss, a boy who was chained up and tortured by his own Family, host by Oprah Winfrey.

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Analysis Of The Listening Guidelines 2.1 Listening Guidelines The main guideline for effective listening is to adapt to specific communication objectives and situation. Among the functions of listening are to: a) Listen

- When listen, need to suspend assumptions. Do not assume others people also have same experience with us. Only listen for understanding not need to believe or agree with what the speaker said.

b) Learn

– To acquire knowledge of others people or world to avoid 2

problem and more reasonable decisions Example

: Listen to the problem face by your employee can help to improve quality and efficiency of work.

c) Entertain

– To give attention or consideration to and idea, suggestion or feeling of the speaker.

Example

: To pay attention to your friend when they try to share some idea or suggestion to solve the problem.

c) Relate

– Form and maintain friendships and love relationship on the basic of social acceptance and popularity because people come to like those who are attentive and supportive.

Example

: Your colleagues will increase their liking to you if they know you take care and concern about him or her.

d) Influence

– Have effect on the attitudes and behavior of the others because people are more likely to respect and follow those who they feel have listened to and understood them.

Example

: The staff will follow instruction from the manager if they feel him or her listen to their points of view and concern.

e) Help

- Be able to assist to others people because you hear more, empathise more and come to understand others more deeply.1

Example

: To listen properly the problem face by your friend and help him or her to solve the problem.

3.0 Analysis Of The Listening Styles Difference people have difference way of listening styles to analysis the contents of 1

Yap Khiam Hong, Massila Hamzh (2010) , OUM, BDKO1103, p84

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the conversation. Figure 3.0 show the five appropriateness of difference listening modes for difference communication situation.

Figure 3.0 Yap Khiam Hong, Massila Hamzah (2010)

3.1 Participatory and Passive Listening An effective participatory listening is expressive. To response to listener nonverbally e.g. maintain eye contact focus concentration on the speaker and express feeling facially or verbally e.g. response with “I see” or “yes” , asking appropriate questions. Passive listening is allowing speaker to completed the conversation without interrupting and reacting. With passive listening, will provide a supportive and receptive environment. 3.2 Empathic and Objective Listening Empathic listening is to understand what the person means and feel the same feeling with them.

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3.3 Non-Judgemental and Critical Listening Listening non-judgementally with open mind to understand and listening critically can help to make a good evaluation or judgement. Making judgment during listening consider as a barrier to understand the person. To apply critical listening when you still want to understand and evaluate what is being said by the person. We need to try to understand the person first before we make the evaluate. 3.4 Surface and Depth Listening Surface listening is an obvious meaning, we will miss out the important information if we just focus on the surface taking and not focus on the whole meaning. Depth listening is a subtext, we focus on what the speaker said on their verbal and Non-verbal messages and use the information to understand what means actually deliver by the speaker. 3.5 Active and Inactive Listening Active listening can help a listener to understanding what the speaker said and meant. With active listening also can let the speaker knowing that you acknowledge and accept the same feeling with his or her. Inactive listening is only simply hearing but not understands what the speaker tries to said and meant.

4.0 Analysis Of The Listening Obstacles The following are some obstacles will affected the effective listening i n communication. 4.1 Situational Obstacles a) Message Complexity Listening may be impeded by message complexity due to a lot of information and complicated idea. With effective communication can reduce the complexity of message and avoid unnecessary jargon. 5

b) Environmental Distractions Environmental distractions also one of the obstacles of effective listening. If the environment is very noisy e.g. Television sound, music and Telephone will affect us cannot concentrate and listen clearly.

4.2 Internal Obstacles to listening Beside situation impediments, following factors also can hinder listening:a) Preoccupation Preoccupation is the very common obstacles listening. When we have a lot of things to absorb in our mind and concern, we cannot focus on that others people is talking or saying. b) Prejudgement Sometimes we did not listen carefully what someone said because we think we already know what he or she will said.

4.3 Bad Listening Habits Bad listening habits will affect to listen effectively, following are some bad listening habits:a) Over Listening Over listening occur when listener attempt to take note or to memory a lot of details they miss the speaker’s points. b) Failing to observe Non-Verbal Aids To use eyes as ears to expressions the facial and body motions to accompany the speech and contribute to the message.

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c) Getting Overstimulated Listening efficiency drops to zero when the listeners react so strongly to one part of the conversation. This bad habit is so critical and to rememberthat “ Withhold evaluation until comprehension is complete hear the speaker out”. It is important that we understand the speaker's point of view fully before we accept or reject it.

5.0 Recommendation To Improve The Listening Skill 5.1 Control Emotions and Biases The listener should able to control their emotions and not to involve the personal issue during the conversation. Be sympathetic to the people who infortunes and congratulate to people who success. Do not afraid to ask if in doubt and seek opinions for better understanding before make the decision or judgement. Consider what you say will influence or affect others people emotions. 5.2 Observe the Speaker To have an effective listening and be a successful listener, we must be physically and mentally in tune in mode. This means, facial expressions and maintaining eye contact may indicate sincerity or firmness. In another side, we have to turn off any mind chatter because before start the listening, we still thinking about something else. Goods listener will listen and wait until the person finished the conversation and just give a feedback, judgment or response. If not, we might forget some important note. We can also show that we are listening to the speaker by using our body language e.g. smiling, talking rapidly etc.

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For example, if someone is smiling and talking rapidly they’re likely to be genuinely excited and interested in the topic. If you notice slumped shoulders and a chin tilted toward the ground perhaps the person is experiencing sadness or a lack of self-esteem. The clues can be very subtle. It might be that you barely notice a slight side to side “no” headshake at the same time the person is saying, “Sure, we can do that.” 2 To make sure only one person speaks at a time. To pay full attention to the conversation and give each person an opportunity to speak. 5.3 Understand What We Just Listen And Provide Feedback We need to translate and interpret what we just listen and observed, then analysis based on own experiences to understand what the speaker was tying to communicate and provide feedback accordingly. The listener should response with feedback through facial expressions, offer empathetic comments, sound and gestures. Sometimes we will ask some question to confirm we really understand the communication. We also need to pay attention to understand non-verbal communication were the tone of voice, gestures and words all in agreement? Did the body language the word says is equal?

5.4 To Avoid Miscommunication Need to paraphrase what we hear including the content and emotion to confirm understanding what speaker tying to express. Asking question to clarifly and understanding well to explore assumptions.

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Lisa B. Marshall (2012), Smart Talk

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For example, the speaker might say : “It seen like you still not understand how completed the work even I already repeat the instruction for many times” The structure of paraphrasing is:   

lead-in plus feelings summary plus content summary Another example might be, “It seems (lead in) that you are angry and perhaps resentful (feelings summary) because you’re being asked to work overtime (content summary), is that right?” Be careful to be accurate and not overstate what you heard. By repeating back the other’s person’s meaning in your own words, you are letting the other person know you understand what they are telling you. In short, it prevents miscommunication.3

5.5 Identifying supporting material. Try to identify a speaker's supporting material. After all, a person can't go on making points without giving listeners some of the evidence on which the conclusions are based, and the bricks and mortar that have been used to build up the argument should be examined for soundness

6.0 Summary Accuracy in listening plays a very important part in our communication with other people either in verbal or non-verbal every day in our life. We still need to learn how to have a good listening skill to communication because difference type of people we need to use the difference type of listening style to make sure we are really understand what the speaker tying to communicate to avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding.

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Lisa B. Marshall (2012), Smart Talk

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References http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbKJlSRxGgk http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/interpersonal-communication.html http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/listening-skills.html http://www.managementstudyguide.com/effective-listening-skills.htm http://www.ask.com/wiki/Empathy web site http://work911.com/communication/listencritically.htm

Detian Chen (2010), Speech Blog Website:http://springflower2010.blogspot.com/2010/11/surface-and-depthlistening.html

Lisa B. Marshall (2012), Smart Talk Website:

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/public-speaking/how-to-

improve-listening-skills

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