Business Communication EssentialsTopic 9Listening and

Business Communication Essentials
Topic 9
Listening and Thinking in
the Communication Process
Copyright © 2019, 2016, 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All
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Reserved.
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Hearing versus Listening
Hearing
• Passive, physiological process
• Sound is received by the ear
Listening
• Active, cognitive process
• Requires energy, desire, focus, and attention

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The Importance of Effective Listening
Effective Listening Skills
• Most misunderstandings due to poor listening habits
• We spend much of our time listening
• Learn to be an effective listener
• Listen to all types of people
• Shut out distractions; technology
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Proportional Time Spent by College Students
in Communication Activities
The graph indicates how typical college students spend their
waking time. The
proportions given in this graph are averages and, of course, can
vary
dramatically from person to person and from situation to
situation. Source: Flying
Colours Ltd/Photodisc/Getty Images

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Effective Listening (1 of 9)
The Harfield Cognitive Listening Model
• Both a cognitive and relational model
• Primarily a cognitive function
• Relational: people listen to respond not to understand
• Identifies things that can affect us while listening
• Internal filters
• Behavioral skills
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Harfield Cognitive Listening Model
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Sensing
• Hearing: sound is received by the ear
• Accurate hearing requires listener to concentrate on
speaker and discriminate among sounds
• Listener takes in information through all senses
• Information is processed in the brain
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Information Processing: Evaluation, Interpretation,
and Understanding
• Information processing is assigning meaning to
stimuli you sense
• Evaluation: assessing meaning of information
• Interpretation: explaining meaning of the information
• Understanding: knowing meaning of the information in our
minds

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Remembering
• Recalling something from stored memory
• Working memory and long-term memory both
essential processes
• Selective perception and selective attention can
cause loss of information
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Listening Occurs Constantly
Effective listening is important to success in all aspects of our
lives. It
may surprise you to realize how much of your waking day you
spend
listening. When you are not talking or reading, you are probably
listening to something or someone. Source: Monkey Business
Images/Shutterstock

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Thinking
• Thinking/cognitive preferences, or preferred modes
of knowing, affect how we prefer to learn and
communicate
• Hermann’s cognitive profiles
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Whole Brain Model
This figure depicts the four quadrants of the brain and identifies
the type of thinking that
occurs in each quadrant. Ned Herrmann created the concept of
brain dominance as a
way to demonstrate how different parts of the brain work.
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Our Four
Different Selves
This figure identifies the
specific thinking skills of
each of the four quadrants of
the brain. Herrmann
suggests that each quadrant
engages the thinker in
different behaviors.
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Interpreting
• Two main parts of interpretation
• Taking into account total communication context so you are
better able to understand the meaning of what was said
• Letting the speaker know you understand the message

• Specific situation and nonverbal aspects important
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Listening with Undivided Attention
The elements of the Chinese character “ting” for the phrase “to
listen” incorporate a
person’s entire being: the eyes (the left character), the ears (the
upper-right character),
and most especially the heart (the lower-right character); the
line separating the ears and
heart represents undivided attention. Many Eastern cultures
have similar figures and
each is illustrative of the emphasis on the importance of
listening in their culture (an
example of the subjective nature of listening).
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Evaluating
• Listener analyzes evidence

• Sorts fact from opinion
• Determines intent of speaker
• Judges accuracy of speaker’s statements
• Judges accuracy of own personal conclusions
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Responding and Sending Feedback
• Responding: overt behavior of listener; indicates to
speaker what has and has not been received
• Feedback helps to ensure understanding
• Feedback helps speaker determine success of
communication
• Beware of pseudolistening
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Responding and Sending Feedback continued
• Techniques for using “working memory”
• Association
• Categorization
• Mediation
• Imagery
• Mnemonics
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The Functions of Listening (1 of 3)
Listening to Obtain Information
• We listen to gain comprehension
Listening to Evaluate
• We listen to judge or analyze information
• Important to listen critically in most situations
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Listening with Empathy
• Empathy: intellectual identification with or vicarious
experiencing of feelings, thoughts, attitudes of others
• Empathic listening: listening to understand what
another person is thinking and feeling
• Reflect and clarify feelings using perception checking
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Empathic Listening
Empathic listening occurs when we listen to what someone else
is
experiencing and seek to understand that person’s thoughts and
feelings.
When we empathize, we try to put ourselves in the other
person’s place to
understand what is happening to him or her. Source: Stockphoto
Mania/Fotolia

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Listening for Enjoyment
• Purely for pleasure, satisfaction, and appreciation
• More than just merely sitting back and hearing
• Still engages the thinking process
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Barriers to Effective Listening (1 of 8)
Consider the Topic or Speaker Uninteresting
• We put more effort into listening when we think the
topic or speaker is important
• Deciding the person or topic is boring can lead us to
conclude the information being presented is
unimportant
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Criticize the Speaker Instead of the Message
• Speaker should try to eliminate distracting quirks
• Listeners must not allow superficial behaviors of
speaker to inhibit their ability to listen
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Concentrate on Details, Not Main Ideas
• Many of us tend to listen for specific facts
• Listening for too specific of details causes listeners to
walk away with disjointed information
• Competent listeners focus on the big picture
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Avoid Difficult Listening Situations

• Technical complexity of messages increasing
• Important not to shy away from these challenges
• Concentration, energy, and asking questions is
needed to overcome difficulty
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Tolerate or Fail to Adjust to Distractions
• Listeners must try to eliminate distractions
• Some distractions can be overcome physically
• Other distractions must be overcome mentally
• Technology often creates distractions
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Fake Attention
• Pretending to pay attention can become a habit

• It is easy to give fake attention without realizing it
• Competent listeners conscious; they notice when
they are distracted and return attention to speaker
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Bias and Prejudice
• We have trouble listening to messages or people
whom we are biased against
• Worthwhile to learn the views of others
• If we give in to our biases, we limit ourselves in what
we know and can do
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Preferred Thinking
• Each individual has a preferred way of thinking

• Ways of thinking can divided into quadrants
• Different quadrants may misinterpret one another
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Improve Listening Competence (1 of 2)
Competent Listeners
• We are able to become better listeners
• We must recognize the importance of effective listening
• We must think of listening as an active, conscious behavior
• We must be willing to work and have a desire to improve
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Improve Listening Competence (2 of 2)
Competent Listeners continued
• Demonstrate three main skills
1. Knowledge and understanding of the listening process
2. Ability to use appropriate and effective listening skills for

given communication situation and setting
3. Ability to identify and manage barriers to listening
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Technology and Listening
Technology can both enhance and detract from effective
listening; it
sometimes creates sensory overload and multiple distractions.
We
need to focus on the ways technology can help us be effective
listeners. Source: Westend61/Getty Images
1. What is the purpose of the Harfield Cognitive Listening
Model? What do the internal filters and behavioral skills
identified in the model represent?
2. Think about the four quadrants of the brain identified by Ned
Hermann. Select one "self" and describe an individual whose
thinking is dominated by that quadrant.

3. Discuss 6 barriers of effective listening and describe ways to
overcome them

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