Small Group Communication
Welcome Back!
Agenda
• Listening Skills Lecture
– The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
Listening and Ethics
• How responsive a listener are you?
– It is our ethical responsibility to listen
• Are you prepared to listen?
– Listening is the fundamental process through which we
initiate and maintain relationships
• How well do you use your listening time?
– The percentage of information you retain when
listening indicates how good of a listener you are
• How much of a role do you play in ensuring the
integrity of a message?
– Chain of command transmission or serial
communication
Model of Communication
Message Chain
Listening vs. Hearing
Hearing occurs automatically and requires no conscious
effort
 A natural and passive process
 Listening is a deliberate process through which we seek to
understand and retain aural stimuli
 Depends on a complex set of skills that must be
acquired
 Who we are affects what we listen to
 If information is important to us, we work harder to
retain it

Listening Levels
Listening Types
The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
• The ineffective
listener criticizes the
speaker’s topic by
calling it
“uninteresting”
• Poor listeners
attempt to justify
bad behavior.
• Good listeners try to
find some fact or
idea that has value.
• Only after listening
to the entire
presentation would
the good listener
evaluate the
presentation.
Listening Types
The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
• The ineffective
listener criticizes
the speaker’s
delivery
• Poor listeners feel
justified not
listening when
they find fault
• Good listeners
notice faults, but
concentrate on the
message.
Listening Types
The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
• The ineffective
listener interrupts to
challenge or disagree
with the speaker, or
mentally builds
arguments against
the speaker’s ideas
• Poor listeners are
easily provoked to
disagree.
• Good listeners pay
attention to the
whole idea before
they agree or
disagree with the
speaker.
Listening Types
The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
• The ineffective
listener listens
only for facts.
• Good listeners
listen for themes,
or meaningful
principles being
expressed. Not
isolated facts.
Listening Types
The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
• The ineffective
listener takes detailed
outlines while
listening
• Poor listeners
become so involved
in taking notes, that
they do not hear the
message the speaker
is conveying.
• Good listeners
take down only
key ideas, words,
and phrases to
ensure they hear
and understand
the message
being conveyed.
Listening Types
The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
• The ineffective listener creates distractions
while the speaker is talking.
• Avoids listening to difficult material
• Reacts emotionally to some messages by
tuning out the speaker
• Pretends to listen
• Tends to daydream during long
presentations.
Listening Types
The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
• The effective listener can demonstrate
knowledge and understanding of
relationships among components of the
listening process across a variety of
contexts, including the ability to receive,
interpret, and respond to messages.
Listening Types
The Good, The Bad, The UGLY
• The effective listener…
• Senses:
Hears what is important
• Interprets: Assigns meaning to what is seen,
heard, and felt.
• Evaluates: Determines speaker credibility and
message importance
• Responds: Reacts to speech usually through
nonverbal cues
• Remember: Retain parts of speech in memory
Unethical Listeners
Fraudulent – pseudolisteners (nodders)
 Monopolistic – always want to be listened to, but never
want to listen
 Completers – fill in missed gaps with manufactured
information
 Selective – zero in only on parts that interest them
 Avoiders – close their ears to information they’d rather not
deal with
 Defensive – assume others are criticizing
 Attackers – wait for you to make a mistake

Feedback

Feedback is essential to improving your listening skills
 Evaluative feedback
 Positive evaluative feedback
 Negative evaluative feedback
 Formative feedback
 Nonevaluative feedback
 Probing
 Understanding
 Supportive feedback
 “I” messages
Effects of Feedback

The feedback given by the respondent in any encounter
strongly influences the direction and outcome of the
interaction

Feedback usually increases the accuracy with which
information is passed from person to person, as well as
increases the time required to transmit information
The Role of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking
 The careful thought process about what another person
has just said to you
 The evaluation of the believability of the spoken message
Be ready to challenge and raise questions about what
you are listening to


Examine the evidence on which a conclusion is based and
establish if valid or contains weaknesses and
inconsistencies
Listen carefully in an effort to determine if what you are
listening to makes sense and is worth retaining or acting
upon
Technology’s Influence on Listening

Advances in technology continue to add listening wrinkles
 Face to face – real-time, synchronous listening
 Telephone – option of not having to share the same space
when engage in real-time conversations
 Voice mail – serial conversations with people in different
locations and who don’t hear our words when we speak
them; asynchronous listening
 Caller ID – allows us to decide who we want to listen to
 Call waiting – makes it possible for us to not miss a call
from someone important to us
Increasing Your Ear Power

Become aware of the importance and
effects of listening

Become aware of the importance and
effects of feedback

Realize that effective listening includes
both nonjudgmental and critical
responses
Focus Your Attention
Distractions
 Emotions: Red-flag words
 Physical factors
 Other people
 Speech-thought differential
 Constantly focus your attention
 Attention checks
 Nonverbal behaviors that
support listening
 Culture can interfere

Set Appropriate Goals

Know what you are listening for
 To understand content
 To retain content
 To analyze content
 To evaluate content
 To develop empathetic relationships

Adapt goals to each situation or experience
Listening to Understand Ideas

Locate the central concepts in the
speaker’s message

Work to recall the concepts that
are most important

Seek to identify key words and
phrases that will help you
accurately summarize the
concepts being discussed
Listening to Retain Information

Focus your attention

Learn how to make certain you have
understood what you have heard

Aids to retain information
 Repetition
 Paraphrase
 Visualization
Listening to Analyze and Evaluate

Reserve judgment until the comprehension
of the situation is complete

Realize you have a choice; do not feel
compelled to join the crowd

Listen between the lines
Listening Empathetically and Actively
 Empathetic
listening can be used to help individuals
understand their own situations and problems
Try to internalize the other person’s feelings and see life
through his or her eyes
 Acknowledge the seriousness of people’s problems
 Draw them out so that they can discuss a problem
 Show them that you understand the problem
 Paraphrase their statements
 Genuine nonverbal cues
 Do not judge; reflect, consider, and restate your
impression of the sender’s expressions

Listening to Culture’s Influence
We need to be more aware of cultural differences
in listening
 Dialogic listening – the awareness of what
happens between people as they respond to
each other, work toward shared
understanding, and build a relationship
 “Culture” can include social, ethnic,
organizational, racial, etc.
Reflective-Thinking Framework

A system of decision making that is designed to encourage
critical thinking in the group process
 Reflective-Thinking is generally an agreed-upon structure
consisting of six basic components:






What is the problem-what is it not?
What are the facts of the situation?
What criteria must the solution meet?
What are the possible solutions?
Which is the best solution?
How can the solution be implemented?
Reflective-Thinking Framework

Reflective thinking is being used when…
The resources of all group members are being used
 The group is using its time to its advantage
 The group is emphasizing fact-finding and inquiry
 Members are listening to each other and respecting
each other
 Pressure to conform is being kept to a minimum
 Atmosphere is supportive, trusting, and cooperative

GROUP THINK
– Groupthink – a dysfunction in which some group
members try to preserve group harmony by suppressing
the voicing of the dissenting opinion, or to complete the
task quickly
• Groupthink impedes effective group functioning
• When all group members try to think alike, no one
thinks very much
• It is an extreme method groups use to avoid conflict
– Have you ever censored your own comments because
you feared destroying the sense of community in your
group?
– Have you ever applied direct pressure to dissenting
members in an effort to obtain consensus quickly?
The End