Views from the Hills by R. E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail views@aol.com

Listening Counts -- The Competitive Edge (It's a skill, tool and a job.)

Listening is one of the most important tools in learning and understanding.  Not just in the areas of research but in all our daily life.  How is it then that we are not taught how to listen effectively or even to listen ineffectively?  We are taught how to write and how to speak from our first year in school 'til our last.  In many companies, we are exposed to seminars on writing and speaking, but when was the last time to your knowledge, a company presented seminars on listening?  Unfortunately, our culture rewards talking and not listening.

A few facts about listening.

In the early 1980s, two of my favorite creatives at Procter & Gamble, Bob Goodpaster and Jim Donovan, put together a program to not only teach approaches to effective listening but also to help us as individuals to understand our personal strengths and most importantly, our weaknesses, in listening.  The program also showed how there are different types of listeners and how these types can work together (effective team building) to better understand the subject at hand.

The one-day program was a very eye-opening experience for me.  It made major changes in how I looked at and extracted information from, business meetings and other sessions like focus group meetings.  One of the things that was done was to start off the session with an exercise that I believe demonstrates differences in how people listen.  The exercise sets the tone for the day and reflects what is the benefit of the day-long experience.

How do I encourage readers to explore the development of listening skills when I have a one or two-page restriction?  Let's try Bob and Jim's introductory exercise.

The task involves a 3x5-inch card which  will end up being our identification card for the day.  One side of the card consists of 32 attributes arranged in 8 rows and 4 columns such as below:
 
 

_____ Egocentric _____ Enthusiastic _____ Passive _____ Perfectionist
_____ Direct _____ Gregarious _____ Patient _____ Accurate
_____ Daring _____ Persuasive _____ Loyal _____ Fact-finder
_____ Domineering _____ Impulsive _____ Predictable _____ Diplomatic
_____ Demanding _____ Emotional _____ Team-Person _____ Systematic
_____ Forceful _____ Self-Promoting _____ Serene _____ Conventioned
_____ Risk-Taker _____ Trusting _____ Possessive _____ Courteous
_____ Adventuresome _____ Influential _____ Complacent _____ Conscientious

Before starting the task, it may be appropriate to make a copy of this page so that others may also do the exercise.  On your copy, look at each row of four attributes (left to right).  Looking at the four attributes in the row, select the one that best describes you and place a two in front of the attribute.  Next, among the three remaining attributes, select the one that best describes you and place a one in front of that attribute.  Do the same two steps for the remaining seven rows of attributes.

After all eight rows of attributes have been assessed, total each column.  On the chart below, graph your totals.  Each space is two unites.  Use the spaces to create a histogram of your scores.
 
 

First Second Third Fourth
_____ _____ _____ _____
_____ _____ _____ _____
_____ _____ _____ _____
_____ _____ _____ _____
_____ _____ _____ _____
_____ _____ _____ _____
_____ _____ _____ _____
_____ _____ _____ _____
____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________
H
E
A
R

The above is your personal Hearing Aide.  It is a part of your natural personality.  It can change, depending upon experiences, even day-to-day.  It can also be changed through skill development.  But for today, it is your personal profile.  What does it mean?  First, this is a shortened version of a much larger Personal Profile System, but for the purposes of understanding our listening skills, it is appropriate.

Following are four personality types.  No one person to my knowledge ever falls completely in one category.  We tend to have a dominant characteristic and elements of others, ergo a profile.
 
 
Listener Type
Possible Strengths
Possible Weaknesses
H-Type "Conclusive Opportunists" Readily grasp the "big picture"
Quickly come to conclusions
Hear possibilities
Impatient with the process
Rule out feeling-type information
Doesn't allow others to add detail
E-Type "Futuristic Feelers" Readily grasp feeling-type information
Easily projects to future/new ideas
Doesn't give others air-time
Ignores factual information
Finds it hard to stay focused
A-Type "Processors" Readily grasp how to or process info
Gives attention to detail
In touch with feelings
Good at seeing interconnections
     among complex variables
Afraid to express insights
Doesn't offer enough intuitively-driven
     hypotheses
R-Type "Factual Understanders" Readily grasp Why-type information
Hear Depth
Tremendous capacity for detail
Don't trust imagination enough
Don't look enough for broad themes

The above just covers the key point of the listening assessment due to the limited space in this paper.  However, I do believe that it can reflect the strengths and weaknesses of an individual.  If you have a friend or a group of friends complete the exercise, I think you can see the diversity among just a small group.  Have fun but remember it is just one point of view.
 
 

ARE YOU LISTENING?



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