The Good, The Bad, The UGLY

Small Group Communication

Welcome Back!

Agenda • Listening Skills Lecture – The Good, The Bad, The UGLY

Listening and Ethics • How responsive a listener are you? – ethical Are you prepared to listen? – fundamental process • initiate relationships • maintain relationships

• How well do you use your listening time? – percentage of information retained=listening skill

• How much of a role do you play in ensuring the integrity of a message? – Chain of command transmission or serial communication

Model of Communication

Message Chain

Listening vs. Hearing Hearing occurs automatically and requires no conscious effort  A natural and passive process  Listening is a deliberate process through which we seek to understand and retain aural stimuli  Depends on a complex set of skills that must be acquired  Who we are affects what we listen to  If information is important to us, we work harder to retain it 

Listening Levels

Quiz #2 •Hearing •Analyzing •Empathizing

Hearing Test As you step onto your front porch from your living room, you observe a delivery truck approaching along the street. You see that your next door neighbor is backing her car from her garage into the street in the path of the approaching truck. You see the truck swerve, climb over the curbing, and come to a stop against a tree, which crumples one of its front fenders.

Hearing Test T/F 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

Your next door neighbor was backing her car into the street in the path of an approaching truck The delivery truck was traveling at a reasonable speed The only damage resulting from the incident was to the truck’s fender You saw the truck swerve and climb over the curbing Your neighbor across the street was backing her car out of the garage The delivery truck driver swerved in order to miss a child playing in the street The man who drove the delivery truck served and ran the truck up over the curb.

Hearing Test T/F 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

Your next door neighbor was backing her car into the street in the path of an approaching truck The delivery truck was traveling at a reasonable speed The only damage resulting from the incident was to the truck’s fender You saw the truck swerve and climb over the curbing Your neighbor across the street was backing her car out of the garage The delivery truck driver swerved in order to miss a child playing in the street The man who drove the delivery truck served and ran the truck up over the curb.

As you step onto your front porch from your living room, you observe a delivery truck approaching along the street. You see that your next door neighbor is backing her car from her garage into the street in the path of the approaching truck. You see the truck swerve, climb over the curbing, and come to a stop against a tree, which crumples one of its front fenders.

Listening Types The Good, The Bad, The UGLY • The ineffective listener criticizes the speaker’s topic by calling it “uninteresting” • Poor listeners attempt to justify bad behavior.

• Good listeners try to find some fact or idea that has value. • Only after listening to the entire presentation would the good listener evaluate the presentation.

Listening Types The Good, The Bad, The UGLY • The ineffective listener criticizes the speaker’s delivery • Poor listeners feel justified not listening when they find fault

• Good listeners notice faults, but concentrate on the message.

Listening Types The Good, The Bad, The UGLY • The ineffective listener interrupts to challenge or disagree with the speaker, or mentally builds arguments against the speaker’s ideas • Poor listeners are easily provoked to disagree.

• Good listeners pay attention to the whole idea before they agree or disagree with the speaker.

Listening Types The Good, The Bad, The UGLY • The ineffective listener listens only for facts.

• Good listeners listen for themes, or meaningful principles being expressed. Not isolated facts.

Listening Types The Good, The Bad, The UGLY • The ineffective listener takes detailed outlines while listening • Poor listeners become so involved in taking notes, that they do not hear the message the speaker is conveying.

• Good listeners take down only key ideas, words, and phrases to ensure they hear and understand the message being conveyed.

Listening Types The Good, The Bad, The UGLY • The ineffective listener creates distractions while the speaker is talking. • Avoids listening to difficult material • Reacts emotionally to some messages by tuning out the speaker • Pretends to listen • Tends to daydream during long presentations.

Listening Types The Good, The Bad, The UGLY • The effective listener can demonstrate knowledge and understanding of relationships among components of the listening process across a variety of contexts, including the ability to receive, interpret, and respond to messages.

Listening Types The Good, The Bad, The UGLY • The effective listener… • Senses: Hears what is important • Interprets: Assigns meaning to what is seen, heard, and felt. • Evaluates: Determines speaker credibility and message importance • Responds: Reacts to speech usually through nonverbal cues • Remember: Retain parts of speech in memory

Unethical Listeners Fraudulent – pseudolisteners (nodders)  Monopolistic – always want to be listened to, but never want to listen  Completers – fill in missed gaps with manufactured information  Selective – zero in only on parts that interest them  Avoiders – close their ears to information they’d rather not deal with  Defensive – assume others are criticizing  Attackers – wait for you to make a mistake 

Feedback 

Feedback is essential to improving your listening skills  Evaluative feedback  Positive evaluative feedback  Negative evaluative feedback  Formative feedback  Nonevaluative feedback  Probing  Understanding  Supportive feedback  “I” messages

Effects of Feedback 

The feedback given by the respondent in any encounter strongly influences the direction and outcome of the interaction

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Feedback usually increases the accuracy with which information is passed from person to person, as well as increases the time required to transmit information

The Role of Critical Thinking 

Critical thinking  The careful thought process about what another person has just said to you  The evaluation of the believability of the spoken message Be ready to challenge and raise questions about what you are listening to 

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Examine the evidence on which a conclusion is based and establish if valid or contains weaknesses and inconsistencies Listen carefully in an effort to determine if what you are listening to makes sense and is worth retaining or acting upon

Technology’s Influence on Listening 

Advances in technology continue to add listening wrinkles  Face to face – real-time, synchronous listening  Telephone – option of not having to share the same space when engage in real-time conversations  Voice mail – serial conversations with people in different locations and who don’t hear our words when we speak them; asynchronous listening  Caller ID – allows us to decide who we want to listen to  Call waiting – makes it possible for us to not miss a call from someone important to us

Increasing Your Ear Power 

Become aware of the importance and effects of listening

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Become aware of the importance and effects of feedback

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Realize that effective listening includes both nonjudgmental and critical responses

Focus Your Attention Distractions  Emotions: Red-flag words  Physical factors  Other people  Speech-thought differential  Constantly focus your attention  Attention checks  Nonverbal behaviors that support listening  Culture can interfere 

Set Appropriate Goals 

Know what you are listening for  To understand content  To retain content  To analyze content  To evaluate content  To develop empathetic relationships

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Adapt goals to each situation or experience

Listening to Understand Ideas 

Locate the central concepts in the speaker’s message

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Work to recall the concepts that are most important

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Seek to identify key words and phrases that will help you accurately summarize the concepts being discussed

Listening to Retain Information 

Focus your attention

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Learn how to make certain you have understood what you have heard

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Aids to retain information  Repetition  Paraphrase  Visualization

Listening to Analyze and Evaluate 

Reserve judgment until the comprehension of the situation is complete

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Realize you have a choice; do not feel compelled to join the crowd

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Listen between the lines

Listening Empathetically and Actively  Empathetic

listening can be used to help individuals understand their own situations and problems Try to internalize the other person’s feelings and see life through his or her eyes  Acknowledge the seriousness of people’s problems  Draw them out so that they can discuss a problem  Show them that you understand the problem  Paraphrase their statements  Genuine nonverbal cues  Do not judge; reflect, consider, and restate your impression of the sender’s expressions 

Listening to Culture’s Influence We need to be more aware of cultural differences in listening  Dialogic listening – the awareness of what happens between people as they respond to each other, work toward shared understanding, and build a relationship  “Culture” can include social, ethnic, organizational, racial, etc.

GROUP THINK – Groupthink – a dysfunction in which some group members try to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of the dissenting opinion, or to complete the task quickly • Groupthink impedes effective group functioning • When all group members try to think alike, no one thinks very much • It is an extreme method groups use to avoid conflict – Have you ever censored your own comments because you feared destroying the sense of community in your group? – Have you ever applied direct pressure to dissenting members in an effort to obtain consensus quickly?

The End