Effective Listening-Dr Pramod Kumar

We always talk about the importance of communication skill in our life. We also try to improve our verbal communication skill so that we can express our views well as a leader and achieve success in life. But most of us do not realise that listening skill is equally important. Without possessing the quality of effective listening we can't become a successful communicator. It is proper listening, which helps us in understanding other person and knowing his viewpoint on the particular subject. It helps us in gathering information and enriching our knowledge. Moreover, it promotes mutual respect, good relations and avoids conflicts. The relevance of listening skill can be understood from the fact that the nature has endowed us with two ears and only one mouth because:

a)  we should listen twice as much as we talk,
             b) listening is twice as difficult as talking,
             c) as a reminder to use them in that proportion.

To listen means to hear something attentively. Attentive hearing is only possible if we hear with some objective; if we hear with entirety because without involving all our senses and mind we can’t hear attentively. We can’t hear two things at a time effectively. We can’t truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time. When the blind man listens, his other senses also activates; even sense of sight also starts preparing image of the heard scene.

Effective listening is, therefore, possible only if we hear with our mind. We should feel the voice. If we start collaborating the verbal voice with the voice of others' feelings (non-verbal voice), we will get the unique result.  If we want to become a successful communicator, we should listen to the voice of speaker’s face, his eyes, movements of his hands and body and even clothing, etc. Each transits a message. The body is full of silent signals. Success in communication depends upon effective listening. Without proper listening, we can't understand the mind of others. Successful listener does not listen only to reply but he listens to understand the person. If we listen to reply, we won’t understand or learn as much as if we listen to understand. Communication without understanding other would only result in communication gap or in ‘one way communication’ to a great extant.

With high-quality listening, we can understand the intention of the person- what is the real meaning behind his/ her words? It is possible if we develop empathetic attitude. Empathy brings listener and speaker, both together and helps us in understanding the mind of other person. We don’t need to agree with someone’s view or belief in order to understand him.  Have we observed two deaf and dumb persons talking with each other? Despite their incapacity and deficiency, they listen more effectively to the non-verbal voice.

We observe that some birds fly to other places in-group, thousand of miles away. They also come back to their original place after some period of time. How does it happen? It is possible because they attentively listen to the voice of jungle- trees, river, etc.; they listen carefully to the feelings of birds in group; they understand whole of the nature.

            Similarly, a mother listens successfully to her small baby’s non-verbal voice. She knows what the problem with the baby is, even though the baby does not speak in her language.

            Sometimes, pure verbal hearing may misguide us. We all know about Mahabharata War. At one place Yudhishtra speaks-“Ashavthama Hatah”. If we set aside the mythological sense of the words, we observed that he wanted to hide information about the death of Drona’s son- Ashavathama. Since Ashavthama was also a name of an elephant, he wanted to give an impression to others that it was elephant that died and not the son of Drona.

We can develop the skill of effective listening by improving our observation power and also by removing barriers in listening which most of us have in some way or other.

            True listening requires us to temporarily set aside our own thoughts, biases and desires. We cannot listen to a person effectively if we already have preconceived ideas in our mind. These thoughts, values and beliefs are our concepts about what is right and wrong, good and bad, important and unimportant, what should be and shouldn’t be. We should realize that nothing in the world has any inherent meaning. We only give it name and meaning.  These beliefs are prearranged, organized filters to our perceptions of the world. These thoughts, values and beliefs are commanders of the brain. When we believe something is true, it is like delivering a command to our brain as to how to represent what is occurring. Belief delivers direct command to our nervous system. We all have different types of beliefs, thoughts and values because of our different social environment, knowledge level and experiences. We can’t listen effectively if we are already having such brawny beliefs in our sub-conscious mind. We will only listen what suit us. If we want to listen effectively we must set aside these values, beliefs and thoughts for the time being. Fixed ideas close some of the windows of our mind and regulate and restrict our listening capacity. They make us prejudice. We can’t get real benefit from listening in case we don’t set them aside. Differences in values, thoughts and beliefs are strong barriers in successful listening. Despite attentive hearing, effective listening would not be possible if we assume and evaluate the person pre-maturely or think that we already know better than speaker and start hearing selectively. It is also necessary not to jump to conclusion without empathically listening to the person with open mind.

We can become a successful communicator only if we learn the skill of effective listening. Let us become good and effective listener.

Dr. Pramod Kumar

1-10-2004

Email: drpk1956@gmail.com

            drpramod.kumar@yahoo.in