Importance of Listening Skills in Effective Communication

What is listening?

People usually tend to confuse listening with hearing. However, in a true sense, they are not the same. We all hear others but listening involves understanding and comprehending what we hear. This is where the importance of listening lies. Listening is an art but unfortunately, majority of the people take it for granted. Listening requires deliberate efforts to understand the context and meaning of somebody’s words. A good listener is more likely to become a good communicator.

Hearing and listening may be confused as the same things however, they are absolutely different from each other. These are the  major differences:

• Hearing is a sense that is given naturally to an individual. On the other hand, listening is a skill that is developed and mastered over a period of time.
• Hearing can be accidental. One may hear something that he was not intended to hear. On the other hand, listening is always focused and requires attention by the listener.
• Hearing is involuntary. We can hear anything that happens within the range of our ears. However, listening is voluntary.
• Hearing does not require any effort, but listening does require intention and effort by the listener.

People fail to understand the importance of listening due to several reasons. It involves certain internal and external factors which result in distracting the individual from listening. Some of the reasons which make an individual not listen to another person include:

• Thinking of something else
• Paying attention to anything more interesting to you
• Feeling that we already know about this and already have a composed response
• Not finding something relevant to our values and beliefs.

Importance of Listening Skills and their Role in Effective Communication

Effective communication plays a major role in the development and growth of relations in practical life, be it personal life or professional life. The importance of listening cannot be denied because it plays a major role in making communication effective. One can experience visible positive change in life after ensuring listening, rather than hearing. Active listening helps an individual in multiple ways.

• It helps an individual to develop a better understanding of its social and professional environment.
• It helps an individual ensure improved socializing with family, friends, and colleagues.
• Listening helps in developing better sympathies with family and friends.
• It helps to make others feel that an individual value them hence, resulting in stronger relations than before.
• It helps a person in understanding a piece of information in a better way.

1. Is Listening to a Natural phenomenon?

Although importance of listening is pertinent. However, it is interesting to know that listening is not a natural phenomenon. Nature has blessed us with the ability of hearing. The ability of listening is something that we have to carefully develop over time by realizing its importance for our peaceful existence. It requires continuous practice and effort. One may find it difficult to master but it is not impossible. With determination, one can certainly excel in it.

2. How to Listen?

As mentioned earlier, one may find it difficult to develop listening skills however, it is not impossible. An individual can reach this goal by adopting a few habits. These are the  habits that can help an individual enjoy the importance of listening:

• Ensure concentration: One should make sure that he pays full concentration while listening to someone. The focus should be on listening and not on preparing the response.
• Show engagement: A good listener should nod from time to time to tell the speaker that he is being listened, to carefully.
• Let the speaker finish: A good listener should make sure that he does not interrupt the speaker while he is speaking. Even if there is a question, the listener should wait for the speaker to finish and then ask questions.
• Be able to summarize: The listener should be able to summarize what the speaker shared. It will help him understand the speaker’s point of view better.

These few steps, if adopted with care and determination, can bring noticeable constructive changes in the life of an individual. These little steps have the ability to change a person’s personal as well as practical life.

3. The Listening Process

Several studies have been carried out and are still being made to understand the listening process in detail. Enormous studies on the subject are self-sufficient to highlight the importance of listening in our daily lives. The phenomenon of ‘listening’ may seem easy, however, it is one of the most important activities that an individual can indulge in. The interesting listening process can be broken down into five major steps.

The five distinct stages of listening include:

• Receiving
• Understanding
• Remembering
• Evaluating
• Responding

The five major steps are following:

• Receiving: This is the most fundamental step of the listening process. It requires the listener to grasp the information being provided by the speaker. Any misconception or flaw at this step will leave an impact till the last step of the listening process. It involves both verbal and non-verbal communication and information provided. This step involves paying attention to the speaker and avoiding distractions as well as making sure not to interrupt the speaker.
• Understanding: This is the second stage in the listening process. It accounts for comprehending the information provided by the speaker in the previous step. At this stage, the listener is expected to plan a response to make the communication more interactive. However, before responding, the listener needs to make sure that he listened and understood the complete information.
• Remembering: The third step looks very similar to the previous two steps of the listening process. However, it is different from theirs. This stage requires the listener to lock the information provided by the speaker, in his mind. This can be done by focusing on the keywords of the conversation and sending them to long-term memory from short-term memory. To achieve this, the listener can identify the fundamental points of the conversation as well as make the message familiar to him by relating it to something that he already knows or remembers.
• Evaluating: At this stage, the listener can start preparing a response for the speaker. However, he should keep in mind that he is still the listener. At this stage of the listening process, the listener can break down the provided verbal content into little pieces of information. He should bring himself answers to questions from his recent memory, like:

What is the opinion shared in the conversation?

Was the speaker biased towards something?

Did the speaker try to exaggerate something during his talk?

What the speaker was intended to establish?

Responding: Provided that all the previous four steps of the listening process have been dealt with carefully, responding becomes really easy for the listener. However, the listener should avoid completing sentences for the speaker as well as try to address the key points highlighted by the speaker during his talk in the response.

Although it may look like a lengthy method, the fact is that it takes place within seconds. This fact makes an individual take benefit from the importance of listening in a much better way.

4. Barriers to effective listening

The effective process of listening may get interrupted due to several barriers thus damaging the importance of listening.

• The realization by a listener that he already knows the answer.
• The listener trying to impress the speaker.
• He will not be able to develop an interest in the conversation.
• The listener not being able to understand the language.
• The listener treats a simple discussion as a competition

Conclusion

It is really important to carefully understand the difference between hearing and listening. Progressive societies should focus on working out the habit of listening. In any communication, personal or professional, the message cannot bring an effective result unless there is active listening. Lack of listening is the major cause behind misunderstandings, complications, and arguments which makes the life of an individual difficult. To lead a happy and peaceful life, it is mandatory to realize the importance of listening and ensured as a habit.