The Importance of Listening in a Work Environment
By Shelly Wilson
Listening is a vitally important skill. Good listening skills are important in day-to-day life and are critical in many industries and organizations. They can contribute to career success or failure. Good listening skills require that not only the speaker’s message content, but also his feelings, intent, and the context are carefully considered. There are four types of listening styles along with pertinent examples of each in specific work situations.
The people-oriented listening style is a style of listening in which the listener is most concerned with creating and maintaining positive interpersonal relationships. A situation in which this listening style would be effective is one in which management encourages employee feedback in a discussion. By inviting this type of dialogue, they are cultivating feelings of expression. On the other hand, a discussion in which facts are required and opinions are discouraged, people-oriented listening would not be as appropriate.
Action-oriented listeners are concerned with understanding and organizing facts to accomplish a task or get a job done. A budget meeting concerning fiscal matters requires action-oriented listening. Taking care of business is the primary concern in this type of situation. This type of listening isn’t necessarily fitting when personal feelings are involved and require emotional involvement.
A content-oriented listener hears details; then analyzes and evaluates what is said. A project involving a large amount of information from many sources will require analysis and idea exploration. This type of examination where the goal is to assess the quality of ideas, and when there is value in looking at issues from a wide range of perspectives demands a conscientious content-oriented listener. This type of listening style would be annoying to others who don’t share their analytical orientation or if time is an issue.
Time-oriented listening is a listening style in which the listener thinks most about efficiency and prefers a fast pace. This type of listening style probably works well for the daily morning meetings. The information from management is expressed in a timely manner and the employees are back to work in a short amount of time. Once again, meetings involving interpersonal relations would not work well with time-oriented listening.
The key to success as a listener is to recognize that you can control the way you listen and to use the approaches that best suit the situation at hand. By evaluating each listening situation individually, a proper assessment can be made as to what listening style is appropriate. Although these scenarios are primarily business related, applying these examples to your own real-life situations will assist you tremendously.
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Shelly Wilson is an Intuitive Medium, Reiki Master and Spiritual Teacher Shelly Wilson would love to assist you on your spiritual journey. With respect, truth, integrity and love, Shelly honors your free will and recognizes that you are co-creating your reality with the Universe. She offers private readings, intuitive coaching, Reiki sessions, and teaches workshops. Shelly’s book, 28 Days to a New YOU, is now available. Her courses, Stop Existing and Start Living! and Opening Your Heart to Love are available through the DailyOM. Shelly has a BS in Business with a minor in Psychology. Visit Shelly at: http://shellyrwilson.com
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