CHAPTER 3: WORKPLACE LISTENING AND NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

· Becoming an Effective Team Listener

· Most workers spend 30 to 40 percent of their time listening, while executives spend 60 to 70 percent of their time listening.

· Experts say that we listen at only 25% efficiency. In other words, we ignore, forget, distort, or misunderstand 75% of everything we hear.

· Types of Workplace Listening

· At work, you can be expected to be in different listening situations.

· Superiors – listening to instructions, assignments, and explanations

· Employees – listening works in both directions, this encourages ideas, creativity, and builds commitment.

· Customers – improves sales and profitability

· The Listening Process and its Barriers

· Listening takes place in four stages. (1) Perception - the listening process begins when you hear sounds and concentrate on them. (2) Interpretation - once you have focused your attention on a sound or message, you begin to interpret, or decode it. Interpretation is colored by your cultural, educational, and social frames of reference. The meanings you attached to words may be quite different than someone else.
(3) Evaluation - this involves separating fact from opinion and judging messages objectively. (4) Action - responding to a message

· Tips for Better Team Listening

· Control External and Internal Distractions - External - surrounding physical distractions. Internal - if other projects are on your mind, put them on the back burner temporarily.

· Become Actively Involved - lean forward and maintain eye contact.

· Identify Important Facts - find the important parts of a message (my dumb stories)

· Don't Interrupt

· Ask Clarifying Questions - use to expound ideas

· Paraphrase to Increasing Understanding

· Take Advantage of Lag Time - review main points in your mind or on paper

· Take Notes to Ensure Retention

· Communicating Through Nonverbal Messages - eye contact, facial expression, body movements, space, time, distance appearance.

· Functions of Nonverbal Communication – (1) To complement and illustrate – amplify, modify or provide details (Size, direction) (2) To reinforce and accentuate – tone and diction to make a point (3) To replace or substitute – shaking your head (4) To control or regulate – eye movements, posture, arms (5) To contradict – sarcasm

· Nonverbal communication includes all unwritten and unspoken messages, both intentional and unintentional.

· When nonverbal and verbal communication conflict, most people believe the nonverbal part.

· Eye Contact - we tend to believe someone who looks at us we are speaking or listening.

· Facial Expressions

· Posture and Gestures - posture can convey anything from high status to shyness.