1. Apply Your Best Listening Skills
Chapter Three
Apply Your Best Listening Skills

2. Hearing differs from listening
Hearing is a purely physiological activity
Listening involves the physiological process, but it also involves the psychological processing of the sounds

3. Three factors complicate the listening process
Internal elements
Environmental elements
Interactional elements

4. Internal elements include
Ability to receive the sounds produced by another speaker
Referents for the sounds being produced

5. Environmental elements include
Our individual listening capacity
The presence of noise
The use, or misuse, of gatekeepers

6. Interactional elements include
Self-centeredness
Self-protection

7. To be a better listener, avoid poor listening behaviors

8. Faking attention The “wide asleep listener”
Eyes on speaker, mind elsewhere
Automatic nodding
Commit yourself to the conversation

9. Changing channels Tuning out
Switching between the speaker and your own thoughts
Be patient and listen

10. Listening only for facts
Listen for feelings, impressions, and emotions
Listen for what they are not saying
People buy based on emotions and feelings
Go beyond the facts and words

11. Interrupting/Impatience
We want the speaker to get to the point
We interrupt for clarification
We want information immediately
Be patient and wait for the speaker to finish

12. To improve listening effectiveness, take positive steps to better listening

13. Solicit clarification
Clarify tactfully
Don’t figure it out on your own
Don’t guess or interpret
Don’t worry about sounding uninformed
Take the time and make the effort to understand

14. Use counter-attitudinal advocacy (CAA)
Take the other person’s position
Restate the position that is counter to your own
Defend that position
Ask if your interpretation is correct
If not, try again

15. Of all the sources of information we have when dealing with customers, listening is the most important.