The Listening Process

“Hearing is with ears but listening is with the mind.” Hearing is not same as listening.
Listening is the ability to understand and respond effectively to oral communication. Listening
involves five related activities, which usually occur in sequence:

Receiving: Physically hearing the message and taking note of it. Physical reception can
be blocked by noise, impaired hearing, or inattention.

Interpreting: Assigning meaning to sounds according to our own values, beliefs, ideas,
expectations, roles, needs, and personal history. The speaker's frame of reference may be
quite different from ours, so we may need to determine what the speaker really means.

Remembering: Storing a message for future reference. As we listen, we retain what we
hear by taking notes or by making a mental outline of the speaker's key points.

Evaluating: Applying critical thinking skills to weigh the speaker's remarks. We separate
fact from opinion and evaluate the quality of the evidence.

Responding: Reacting once we've evaluated the speaker's message. If we're
communicating one-on-one or in a small group, the initial response generally takes the
form of verbal feedback. If we're one of many in an audience, our initial response may
take the form of applause, laughter, or silence. Later on, we may act on what we have
heard.

Because listening requires a mix of physical and mental activities, it is subject to a variety of
physical and mental barriers. A large part of becoming a good listener is the ability to recognize
and overcome these barriers.

Barriers to Effective Listening:

Prejudgment is one of the most common barriers to listening. Some people listen defensively,
viewing every comment as a personal attack. To protect their self-esteem, they distort messages
by turning out anything that doesn't confirm their view of themselves.

Self-centeredness causes some people to take control of conversations, rather than listen to
what's being said. For example, if a speaker mentions a problem (perhaps a manager is trying to
deal with conflict between team members), self-centered listeners eagerly relate their own
problems with team conflict. They trivialize the speaker's concerns by pointing out that their own
difficulties are twice as great. No matter what subject is being discussed, they know more than
the speaker does-and they're determined to prove it.

Another common problem is selective listening. When we listen selectively (also known as out-
listening), we let our mind wander to things. We stay tuned out until we hear a word or phrase
that gets our attention once more. The result is that we don't remember what the speaker actually

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 The Listening Process

said; instead, we remember what we think the speaker probably said. One reason people's minds
tend to wander is that they think faster than they speak.

Most people speak at about 120 to 150 words per minute. However, studies indicate that,
depending on the subject and the individual, people can process information at 500 to 800 words
per minute. This disparity between rate of speech and rate of thought can be used to pull our
arguments together, but some listeners let their minds wander and just tune out.

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