Listening: The Overlooked Skill of the Highly Successful Communicator

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Listening The Overlooked Skill of the Highly
Successful Communicator
"To listen well is as powerful a means of
communication and influence as to talk well."
-- John Marshall
www.businesscommunicationblog.com/ppt/PPT409
"Most conversations are simply monologues
delivered in the presence of a witness." --
Margaret Miller
"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal
from listening carefully. Most people never
listen. -- Ernest Hemingway
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Types of Listening

• Hearing
• process of registering sound waves
• Passive Listening
• record but do not evaluate information
• Active Listening
• make connections between information
• ask questions about information
• Critical Listening
• evaluate and challenge information
• distinguish fact from fiction

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Five-Stage Listening Process
Receive Stimuli
Assess Stimuli
Attend Stimuli
Assign Meaning
Remember Stimuli
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Empathic Listening

• Listening to feeling
• identify, recognize and respond to emotional
  message
• feelings behind words can change message

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Habits of Weak Listeners

• Mostly passive listening style
• receive, understand and maybe retain
• Easily Distracted Pseudolistening
• Competitive Interrupting
• Ive got a better one
• Immediately provide advice to problems

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Habits of Strong Listeners

• More active or critical listening style
• all stages of listening model
• Relate information to own experiences
• Ask questions
• Paraphrasing
• Develop genuine interest
• Let the other person talk