A Paper on Listening Skills

In today’s life we find it a bit difficult to make important decisions or to perform the tasks in a shorter span of time because we are used to taking our time in analyzing and understand the situation and then acting on it.But on the other hand, the need to be agile and alert is very important these days; and it depends on us how to manage our time and activities. The paper would talk about the skills of listening in detail by first introducing it, then the need of active listening, barriers to active listening, and tips for active listening.There is a significant difference between hearing and listening; hearing is natural process where as listening is a skill. We hear everything ranging from traffic noise to our friend’s voice over telephone, but listening deals with the hearing where we actually understand it and make sense out of it. We might be hearing but we might not be listening. Now let’s discuss the importance of active listening skills.Importance of L istening SkillsWhether it is our daily routine life or our working life, active listening has become so much important for us to remember the facts and things because information is bombarded to us from various sources.Talking about the working environment, active listening can make employees more productive and effective in their work; not only this, there are several other reasons that emphasize the importance of active listening. Employees would be able to understand the assignments in a better way; build up good relationships or rapport with the supervisors, customers, or with other co-workers; perform better when working in teams or groups; resolve problems or complex tasks effectively; manage time efficiently; and answer the questions to others at a later stage when required.Barriers to Listening and Ways to improve itMany students and employees forget the information imparted in the lecture or any meeting because they make certain mistakes while listening; however, they try t o listen actively but some mistakes while listening can put all their effort in vain.First of all, listeners must be neutral and put aside all their biases, prejudices, or emotions attached to a particular matter being discussed. Such biases keep the listener from understanding the gist of the topic being discussed under a certain situation or cause.Secondly, listeners must try focusing on the speaker’s words and not his way of speaking, dressing, color, physique, or accent. Many listeners often trust the speaker who speaks confidently and is well-dressed, even if he or is not accurate or true in his speech.