T3. w. 11 Communication & Feedback Flashcards
listening process
- Being mindful - affected by being tired or stressed
(We can interpret 300 words/per min, but can person speaks 100 words/min lots of time to sort and interpret communication) - Selecting and organising communication
(Control thoughts, being mindful, organise perceptions of them) - Interpreting communication
(Must be able to understand others on their terms) - Responding (Show engagement)
- Remembering info
Obstacles to effective listening
- Incomprehensibility - transmission problems
- Message overload - too many messages to effectively process, often in educational contexts - hard to decide which to focus on
- Message complexity - harder to follow and retain
- Environmental distractions - interruptions fragment our concentration, hard to resituate ourselves
Internal obstacles to effective listening
- Preoccupation - too absorbed by own thoughts and concerns
- Prejudgement - before ideas are heard, don’t listen carefully enough, eg doctors likely to give wrong info if they do that
- Lack of effort - better to postpone interaction if you’re too tired
- Reacting to emotionally loaded language - we don’t learn about what person is saying when we react, fail to critically analyse the info
- Not recognising diverse listening styles
Forms of ineffective listening
1) Pseudolistening - pretending to listen, minds are elsewhere
2) Monopolising - focus communication on ourselves rather than person talking (interrupt or shift convo)
3) Selective listening
4) Defensive listening - even when you feel less valued or competent if affects your interpretation of signals
4) Ambushing - listening to attack speaker, ie politicians
5) Literal listening - failing to link content to relationship level of meaning, or context
communication and different patterns of communication
play a critical role to building teams
Found that having coffee breaks at the same time improved performance at the call center, whilst employee satisfaction rose
Features of successful teams:
1) Talk and listen equally, keep contributions short and sweet
2) Members face each other, energetic gestures and convos
3) Connect directly with one another not just with the team leader
4) Carry on back channel or side conversations within the team
5) Periodically break go exploring outside the team and bring info back
→ found that individual reasoning and talent contribute far less than expected
key elements of communication
1) Energy
Face-to face most valuable force, then by videoconference, but less effective as more people participate
2) Engagement → distribution of energy among team members → need similar amounts among team
3) Exploration → communication that members engage in outside their team,
Higher performing teams seek more outside connections,
Communication and interpersonal skills viewed as
the most important skill in the workplace
communication process
- Sender encodes the message
- message decoded by receiver
- receiver encodes feedback to sender which is then received and decoded by sender who then encodes new message …
noise occurs throughout this process (enviro, nerves, distractions, emotions)
effective communication occurs when
the sender and receiver encodes and decodes the information in the same way. Need to learn about the elements of being an effective sender and receiver.
persuasive communication components (aristotle)
- logos
- ethos
- pathos
logos
→ argument or reason → logical argument that’s relevant to audience, must make sense.
ethos
→ character must be credible, trustworthy and have some authority or knowledge, more convincing. Ie, your degree from a good uni vs an online course. Eg, Malala Yousasfi’s speech to UN, powerful because of her story and who the messenger was
pathos
→ power to produce deep emotion, connects with the audience in a way that evokes emotion, through stories, a hook, metaphors
Follow Aristotle’s components to build persuasive argument
assertive communication
- -projecting your ideas clearly, with confidence, and belief
- –finding a balance between your own and others’ interests
- –respecting your own and others’ autonomy and rights
aggressive communication seen as
“ my interests, concerns and agenda are the most important)
Ignore others perspectives
submissive communication
(reads as: “ other people’s interests, concerns and agenda are more important than my own)
There are differences between men and women in their use of assertive communication (Brescoll, 2011).
Deferring to others views
Women less likely to be assertive in their communication
Study 1 - male senators speak more as their power increases, but not for females
Study 2 - the difference was due to women’s concern over -ve consequences for backlash
Study 3 - female CEO who spoke more frequently as less suitable for the position
components of assertive behaviour
1) Communicate assertively when it is important – be selective (don’t always have to express views, may not always be appropriate, cultural differences may also need to be considered)
2) Be direct, not blunt or rude (don’t drop hints, not open honest)
3) Be open and honest
4) Treat others with equality and respect (don’t take advantage of power)
5) Be positive as well as negative (use I statements instead of you statements, so they don’t feel defensive, angry, upset etc)
6) Be open and responsive to others
Receiving messages and listening
‘Listening’, however, is not the same as ‘hearing’. Listening requires both focus and a concentrated effort. You need focus in order to understand the messages that are being sent to you. Active listening is an important listening skill. Active listening means fully concentrating on what is being said and trying to understand it, rather than judging the message, or just passively hearing the message of the speaker, or hearing what you want to hear.
what is the key skill in the listening process?
mindfulness
(Wood, 2011) → attending to present situation to increase the likelihood of understanding what is being communicated.
5 keys to mindful listening
- Physically receive messages - physically present (not being distracted)
- Select and organise information - helps you to process what is being said effectively
- Interpret information - work hard to understand what the other person is trying to communicate,
- Respond mindfully - to show you’re listening, look up etc
- Remember information - use effective techniques, actively listening enhances retention as you take time to understand the points
active listening is important because
poor listening hinders effective communication and can be costly. To improve skills (Carl Rogers, 1957):
5 ways to ensure active listening
1) control the environment (by preventing distractions
2) Try to understand the other person’s view - use open, clarifying questions, suspend judgement, ask what they think
3) Paraphrase and summarise what you hear - shows you’ve listen plus you can check you’ve understood, the other person can clarify what they mean
4) Acknowledge and validate - not just content but also the emotion behind the message, lets them know you understand what and how they feel
5) Empathise and support - don’t have to agree, show your willingness to view their point of view
