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In real life communication, speaking so much is not a good manner to do moreover if we are speaking to a stranger or a person you just met seconds ago. Psychologist says the key in communication is to listen. Listening to someone makes us understand more not just about the topic we are talking about but also the person we are talking to.
As the world keeps moving and globalisation keeps reaching out to every inch of the world, listening with an open mind is a thing people need to know, learn, and understand. However, we as human with feelings most of the time only want to listen to message we want to hear, and it will not help the communication.
According to Communication Skills for Dummies, here are some barriers to open-minded listening:
- Judgemental listening. Some people who are trying to listen sometimes only have a purpose to determine the speaker is right or wrong.
- Distorted listening. In this kind of listening, the receiver listens through filters, such as prejudices, that distort what the speaker is saying.
- Stereotype-based listening. The listener has built-in prejudices that get in the way of receiving message.
- Resistive listening. People who are close-minded usually have an immediate aversion to ideas that are not their own. They can also be very conservative when they see anything.
- Interpretive listening. People use their own life experiences and beliefs to interpret things rather than understand what others are saying.
Tips that the book offers for effective communication below can help us to convey our message clearly and be confident as you have made yourself understood and in turn have understood others.
- Treating the other person with respect. People are alive and breathing is enough for us to respect them. If you do not respect others, then do not wish others will treat you with respect. One obvious way how to treat people with respect is listen them until they finish talking.
- Knowing the preferred form of communication. To start a conversation, we need to know what kind of form of communication they are comfortable with. Some like to talk while thinking and others prefer silence as they organise their thoughts.
- Thinking before you speak. We often speak blatantly to people and not thinking how will our words affect them. Things we said to them can make them thinking longer than we know, although we spit out the word in 5 seconds, people can think about it for 5 days or even 5 months.
- Talking less and listening more. A benefit you can gain from listening more is you can observe and get useful information about them because people talk more with their non-verbal cues.
- Opening yourself to new ideas. This point can lead your thought to think outside the box. It will also increase your personal creativity from time to time. Even if the new idea is not very important or having big influences, it will enhance your way of thinking about various objects
Even though making a good and effective communication is quite tough, we need to learn how to do it in order to grow up as human with great behaviour.
Rahma Faiezati Sofiana