Listening Barriers, Essay Example

Communication is the transfer of information from the source to the recipient through an established channel. This therefore implies that for communication to be complete there has to be feedback to confirm that the message got to the recipient as expected. This is where the listening aspect in communication comes in.  For someone to give feedback, he must have listened to the message to the point of understanding so that he can know what to respond. However, he might not have heard some or all the details due to some possible barriers. This article will focus on these barriers to know how they can be dealt with.

I have found myself in situations in which I experienced difficulty in listening. Some of them have occurred during a phone conversation, in a class situation and mostly when conversing with someone face to face. I will share about a face to face conversation I had with a friend sometime back. He happens to be very good in speeches because he does that for a living. As we talked about different issues, I could not help but notice that when it was his chance to talk, he could talk like he was giving a speech. That never used to impress me because I did not want to imagine that what I would have called fun had turned to be one of my lectures.

At first I listened to him concentrating on every word he uttered but with time my mind drifted off because he was starting to be boring. The boredom came as a result of relating how he talked with one of my two-hour lectures. This automatically made me shift from listening to him to choosing which one of my lecturers he resembled most. The other thing was the attitude I had towards him even before the chat started. I had predetermined boredom because I knew it was a matter of time and I would start getting bored. As he talked, I could find myself predicting what he wanted to say and this made me end up cutting him off by completing the sentences for him. This was also an attempt to salvage a chance to speak.

These barriers contributed to my inability to listen effectively. In the fist instance, I was busy comparing him to my lecturers instead of listening to him. My mind was also psychologically prepared to drift off due to past experiences with him so I just gave him a few minutes of my time then let my thoughts wander. I also tried to predict what he was about to say and this completely took my mind off the topic of discussion to trying to guess what he would say next.  In the process of predicting, I found myself completing sentences for him so that he could get the impression that I knew what he was talking about. I was also very busy looking for an opportunity to speak that I could hardly listen to him.

Webb (2006) goes into details about eight barriers to effective listening and suggests a strategy for overcoming each barrier. One of the suggestions is that the listener should wait for the speaker to finish talking and take about three seconds before responding. This allows the speaker to express himself fully such that he will satisfactorily give the listener a chance to speak hence reducing the listener’s anticipation to cut him off.  Alternatively, the two parties could schedule who to talk when and this would easily curb most of these barriers. Hann (2005) also analyzes the different ways of overcoming barriers between people. He states that lack of concentration on the listener’s part is the most common barrier and this could be easily solved by trying to view the topic under discussion through the eyes of the speaker.

The strategies by the two authors could work effectively to eliminate the barriers discussed above. For instance, maintaining a schedule of who to speak and when, reduces the chances of boredom, interruption when the other person is speaking and gives the listener anticipation to listen so that he can respond relevantly. Viewing the discussion through the eyes of the speaker also solves so many listening problems. It makes the listener to be more lenient to the speaker hence giving him the deserved attention and increase his understanding ability.

References

Hann. M. (Dec 29, 2005). Overcoming Communication Barriers Between People. Retrieved on July 18, 2009 from http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Overcoming-Communication-Barriers-Between-People&id=119628

Webb. M. (March, 2006). Better communication through better listening. Retrieved on July 18, 2009 from http://www.sklatch.net/../listen.html