A.‎ Hearing And Listening:

Employers rarely, if ever, mention listening as a job requirement and mistakenly ‎assume that if employees can hear, they can also listen. They forget that primary ‎difference between hearing and listening is that hearing is a physical ability, while ‎listening is a cognitive action. Listening is one of the most critical skills every ‎employee should have; yet it is one of the most overlooked.‎

 

 

 

B.‎ Importance of listening: ‎

It is a fact that employees spend between 70 to 90 percent of their time listening to ‎others give instructions, discuss problems, or outline goals. Employees and managers ‎spend more time and energy listening than any other communication activity. ‎Therefore developing effective listening skills is necessary if employees hope to ‎communicate successfully in the workplace. Especially that is also known that most ‎people listen at a quarter of their potential, which means that they miss more than ‎three-fourths of a message. This inadequate listening can result in substantial losses ‎for businesses.‎

 

C.‎ Benefits Of Listening ‎

In addition to profiting a company, good listening skills can benefit you in three ways:‎

1-  You gain new information

To become more efficient at making decisions, completing tasks, and solving problems ‎Good listening skills allow you to gain information you need on a daily basis. then you ‎have more information about your responsibilities.‎

2- You are valued

Listening to your superiors’ ideas and requests helps make you a valuable asset to your ‎organization. Effective listening improves your interpersonal skills and your efficiency, ‎which will allow you to gain the appreciation of upper management.‎

3- Your productivity increases

Listening helps you learn new and innovative ways to perform your responsibilities. ‎Listening to other employees describes their successes and applying the same ‎principles to your own tasks helps you increase your productivity, which, in turn, ‎increases your value to the organization.‎

D.‎ Misconceptions about listening:

Many businesses do not encourage employees to improve their listening skills because ‎they hold fast to some long-held myths about listening. You should be aware of these ‎three misconceptions:‎

1-Listening is a passive activity

You need to become an active listener by questioning a speaker’s supporting facts, ‎demonstrating that you are listening, and blocking out distractions. To avoid the ‎misconception that listening is a passive activity and does not require effort that ‎causes many communication problems. Actively listening to a speaker allows you to ‎evaluate the message. Many individuals believe that listening skills are learned over ‎time and without much effort. However, listening is a process in which you determine ‎what information is important. You have to learn how to focus on the information ‎presented in order to gather important facts.‎

2-Listening requires agreement

Some speakers believe that listeners have to agree with everything they say for ‎successful communication to take place. However, your responsibility is to gather and ‎evaluate the information the speaker offers–not agree with everything that is being ‎said. In fact, if you automatically accept a speaker’s message, you may overlook ‎inconsistencies or errors in his or her argument. Do not feel pressured into agreeing ‎with what a speaker says. Successful communication can still occur, even if you ‎question the speaker’s message.‎

3- Speakers are responsible for successful communication.‎

Another misconception about listening is that a speaker is completely responsible for ‎the success of the communication. However, both the speaker and the listener are ‎responsible for establishing effective communication. While a speaker’s responsibility ‎is to speak clearly and accurately, you must make a conscious effort to interpret a ‎speaker’s message.

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