It takes no special skill, just a very specific desire: To see things the way they see them, even if we don’t want to or don’t agree with them.

Selective listening is the act of hearing and interpreting only parts of a message that seem relevant to you, while ignoring or devaluing the rest. And during conflict, empathic listening is a very rare animal.Įmpathic listening is learnable. Check out this guide for similar communication activities, that stress both good listening and good articulation. While it is possible to learn it simply by reading, it’s always helpful to see it in action and practice with other people. Active listening is a straightforward skill, and taking a short course is the perfect way to learn how to do it effectively. How often do we listen with the pure desire to see it the way they see it, to step even briefly into their universe and take a look around? I suspect most of us don’t do it very often, probably not daily, perhaps not even weekly. 3 Courses for Training on Effective Communication. Only empathic listening, to the right of Covey’s line on the continuum, is listening from within the other person’s frame of reference. That’s the point of view from which we listen most of the time. Everything to the left of that line, he said, is listening from within our own frame of reference. Being aware or conscious of the habits we have is the first step to improving how we listen. We’re paying attention but primarily to feel good about our good listening or our good advice.Ĭovey drew a vertical line between attentive listening and the fifth type, empathic listening. Selective listening is listening for the things that will serve us - listening for the holes in their argument, perhaps, or for other things we can use to promote our own position or point of view.Īttentive listening is listening so we can do something with what we just heard, like giving advice. Very little of what they say is actually registering and we don’t really care what’s on their mind. Pretend listening is a patronizing form of listening. Selective listening, or selective attention, is a psychological strategy of anticipation, effectively to intend to see only what we want to see and hear only. Ignoring doesn’t sound like listening at all, but we recognize it when we’re on the ignored end of it: The other person continuing to type while we’re speaking, or checking their phone multiple times during dinner conversation. He described a listening continuum that runs from ignoring all the way over on the left, to pretend listening, then selective listening, then attentive listening, and finally to empathic listening on the right. Listening is key to all effective communication, without the ability to. I once saw Stephen Covey speak about the types of listening. You must consistently communicate the same message in diverse ways for effective communication.When you say you’re listening, which type of listening are you really practicing? Of the five types, there’s only one that that’s the kind of deep listening that helps you resolve conflict better, be more persuasive, and strengthen the personal or business relationship. Use these capabilities to your advantage. With modern tools, we can track and assess the engagement level with each communication channel. Asking the customer to join the loyalty program: You may want to tell its importance over the counter, send SMS, email and repeat the cycle until success.

So, you may want to communicate the message verbally during a Team meeting, via email, Teams chat and keep on repeating.

Asking staff to send timesheets by the end of the week: Most employees hate this admin work.So, our communication plans should incorporate much repetition. Assess the response on each channel and make necessary changes.Īs we grow, we get smarter is selective listening. Then, use different channels to broadcast your message (Radio, TV, Monthly meeting, Social media, Email). First, repeat the same message with the subtle differences. So, how to deal with selective listening? How do we make sure staff and customers pays attention to our message? We smartly ignore the information that we don’t want to listen. Like kids, we selectively pay attention to the information that interests us. We grow up, but we continue to be kids in many ways.

Selective listening communication