Effective Listening: Hear the Message!

Newsletter 24 - 25 May 2005 This is the newsletter for www.mindtools.com. You have received this newsletter because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. If you are not already a member and you would like to subscribe, please visit http://mindtools.com/testspark.htm. To unsubscribe, please send a blank email to leave-mindtools-9074447I@atomic.sparklist.com. This newsletter is published by James Manktelow of Mind Tools Ltd, Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, SN1 3LJ, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email us from this page.

Contents: In This Issue... Mind Tools Store Hear the Message! Creativity Speed Reading A Final Note

In this issue of the Mind Tools newsletter, we review a fantastic CD-based course on speed-reading. Given the amount of information we are all now expected to read and retain every day, this is a tool you are sure to find invaluable. We found the CD to deliver strong results, and are eager to share with you our excitement over it.

We also begin our four-part series on listening, drawing on the three basic listening modes (competitive or combat listening, passive or attentive listening and active or reflective listening) to better explain the underlying theories of listening. In this first article, we show you the distinction between merely hearing words and really listening for the message, making this an article you don't want to miss!

In the issues that follow, you can look forward to this four-part series covering more in-depth the theories of communication, the difficulties that occur most commonly in speaking and listening communications and how you can learn to listen more effectively.

For our tools review, we take a look at how you can develop creative solutions to the problems you face, with a refresher on a useful technique that will help you create new products and services.

And please remember, we’re keen that you share these newsletters with your friends, your co-workers and your team – please feel free to forward it to them to stimulate discussion and to hopefully serve as a catalyst for strong results in the areas we cover and more.

Best wishes, and enjoy this issue!

James & Kellie

James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson
MindTools.com
Mind Tools – Essential skills for an excellent career!

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Effective Listening: Hear the Message!
The first in a four-part series on effective listening.
By Kellie Fowler

From time-to-time, we’re all guilty of listening, but not intently enough or effectively enough to actually hear (and fully comprehend) the message being sent to us. Be it a lack of time or interest that causes the message not to be heard, or that you are just too busy to actually listen and comprehend, this communication mishap occurs far too often and can be disastrous in many workplace settings.

To better understand how and why the listening process can be, at times, so ineffective, you should know that listening and hearing are not the same. Instead, hearing is actually just one stage of listening, which occurs when your ears pick up sound waves and transmit these waves to your brain. On the other hand, listening is a whole communication process. By understanding the process and utilizing the right tools, you can improve your listening skills, ensuring you do more than hear the words; you actually comprehend them correctly.

To receive the communicated message loud and clear, you have to be an active participant in the communication process. In the case of listening, this requires you to understand and evaluate every spoken message, and to follow this with the appropriate action – a response that confirms the spoken message.

Unfortunately, what can happen is that, as a listener, you do the wrong thing, which is to actively work while the speaker is talking to you. You see, our thought speed is much faster than our speech speed, which can prompt your brain to start working ahead of the speaker. Perhaps you are simply considering the speaker’s next comments, or the answer to a question you feel certain will come up. Regardless of the cause, the outcome is the same: a miscommunicated message, which can lead to an inappropriate response or a wrong action - both of which can lead to serious trouble.

Clearly, this also leaves the door open for unexpected delays (while you work to clear up miscommunication messes), setbacks (you cannot progress with that important project if you and your team do not all understand the next step); even undesirable outcomes (if you don’t understand the scope of the work, how can you deliver the desired end result?)

Because people vary in how clearly they express themselves and have different needs and purposes for communicating, messages are sent (and received) in different ways, making effective listening challenging at times.

To help you combat this, you must first understand that there are different listening modes. These are:

Competitive or Combative Listening
This type of listening occurs when the receiver may be more interested in promoting his or her point of view instead of considering the speaker’s thoughts. When this occurs, the listener may look for breaks in the conversation so he or she can deliver his or her own points of view, perhaps attacking any points they may not agree with; hence combative listening. In such cases, the listener may only be pretending to pay attention to the speaker, while actually formulating what they need/want to say next. Unfortunately, as this happens, the listener is often more involved in formulating their argument or rebuttal than in listening, which so often results in confused communication.

Passive or Attentive Listening
This type of listening occurs when the listener is sincerely interested in both hearing and understanding the message that is being spoken to them. This listener is actively listening; however. The problem occurs when this good listener fails to take action (does not verify all he or she is told); hence passive.

Active or Reflective Listening
This type of listening occurs when the listener is genuinely interested in the speaker’s message. he or she sincerely wants to know what the speaker thinks, how the speaker feels, and what the speaker wants, and is active in confirming that he or she understands all of this before reacting. This listener is very effective and will take the time to verify the message by repeating it to the speaker. Clearly, this type of listening is most effective and highly recommended for optimal results.

Take the time now to consider what kind of listener you are and consider how you can improve your listening skills. You may want to make notes throughout the day after you meet with coworkers, detailing your listening experience. Next, assign a level that reflects how effective you think your listening was in each situation (with 1 being the lowest score; 10 being the highest). Try this for one week. At the end of the week, take a few minutes to ponder your findings and give yourself an overall weekly score.

Lastly, write down where and what you think you could have done better. For instance, did you actively listen, but forget to verify or reaffirm all you were told? Or, were you put on the spot and, because of such, listened in a combative or competitive way, thinking of your point of view as the speaker worked to convey his or her thoughts to you?

These negative listening modes can be easily changed and in the coming articles in this four-part series on listening, we provide more detail about how to do this and more. In the next articles, we will explore the most common listening hurdles and how to overcome them, we will discuss theories of communication, and we will complete the series by providing proven tips and techniques that you can use to become a more effective listener. More in our next issue!

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Tools Reviewed: Creating New Products and Services:
Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis & Matrix Analysis

On the Mind Tools website, there are many techniques that you can use to come up with creative and imaginative solutions to the challenges you face. Of these techniques, Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis and Matrix Analysis are useful for helping you and your team find new combinations of products or services.

As the name implies, the first step requires that you start this process by simply listing the attributes of the product, service or strategy you are examining. Keep in mind that attributes include parts, properties, qualities or design elements of the product, service or strategy you are considering. For example, attributes of a pencil would be shaft material, lead material, hardness of lead, width of lead, quality, color, weight, price, etc. A television plot might have attributes of characters, actions, locations, weather, etc. For a marketing review you might use attributes of markets open to you, uses of your product, channels available, skills you have access to, etc.

Next, draw up a table using these attributes as column headings, and then write down as many variations of the attribute as possible within these columns. This might be an exercise that benefits from Brainstorming (see http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_04.htm). The table should now show all possible variations of each attribute.

Next, select one entry from each column. Either do this randomly or select interesting combinations. By mixing one item from each column, you will create a new mixture of components. This is a new product, service or strategy.

Finally, evaluate and improve that mixture to see if you can imagine a profitable market for it.

Example: Imagine that you want to create a new lamp. The starting point for this might be to carry out a morphological analysis. Properties of a lamp might be power supply, bulb type, light intensity, size, style, finish, material, shade, etc.

You can set these out as column headings on a table, and then brainstorm possible variations for each property:

Power  Supply	Bulb Type	Light  Intensity	Size	Style	Finish	Material
Battery	Halogen	Low	Very Large	Modern	Black	Metal
Mains	Bulb	Medium	Large	Antique	White	Ceramic
Solar	Daylight	High	Medium	Roman	Metallic	Concrete
Generator	Colored	Variable	Small	Art Nouveau	Terracotta	Bone
Crank			Handheld	Industrial	Enamel	Glass
Gas				Ethnic	Natural	Wood
Oil/Petrol					Fabric	Stone
Flame						Plastic

Interesting combinations might be:

• Solar powered/battery, medium intensity, daylight bulb - possibly used in clothes shops to allow customers to see the true color of clothes;
• Large hand cranked arc lights - used in developing countries, or far from a mains power supply;
• A ceramic oil lamp in Roman style - used in themed restaurants, resurrecting the olive oil lamps of 2000 years ago; or
• A normal table lamp designed to be painted, wallpapered or covered in fabric so that it matches the style of a room perfectly

Some of these might be practical, novel ideas for the lighting manufacturer. Others might not: This is where the manufacturer's experience and market knowledge are important.

Final Note: For more information on Practical Creativity, visit our Creativity Section at http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_CT.htm, where you will find articles on other creativity techniques and other useful resources, such as creativity book reviews, additional sources and stores on the sidebars, all of which are aimed at helping you as you develop your creativity skills further.

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Tools Reviewed: "Speed Reading for Success"
A CD-program by Jane Smith, of Word Smiths.
Reviewed by Kellie Fowler.

Given the amount of information we are expected to read and retain, speed-reading is getting lots of attention. Because of this, a multitude of speed-reading products have hit the market, making it difficult for the consumer who is seeking proven techniques that will increase reading speed to choose exactly what is both practical and effective.

We think we’ve found the answer for you, and it lies in Jane Smith’s easy to understand CD course, Speed Reading for Success. Initially we were not convinced that the products claims to be able to increase reading speed up to two or three times faster than the user’s current reading speed. And, because I am already somewhat of a speed-reader (it comes with the job), I must admit, I was even more skeptical than most.

However, I could not have been more wrong.

Now, I have not yet had enough time to honestly say if my memory has improved or if I am communicating better (most of my communications are Web-based), both of which the product claims to help. But I can tell you that I am reading faster and that was the point, right?

What’s more, this nifty CD course comes with a reading progress chart (so I know I am not kidding myself), an action plan that I will utilize more in the coming days, and clear, concise overviews of the tracks (chapters, so to speak) that I found particularly useful. It also comes with exercises that serve to reiterate the important points, while ensuring your reading speed is indeed getting faster and you are retaining more.

Broken down into 11 tracks, the course starts with an introduction by the program’s developer, Jane Smith. (I should also tell you now that the music used as the backdrop for Smith’s narration is quite pleasing.)

After the introduction, Smith details how listeners can “harness that huge reserve capacity of their mind,” allowing users to better manage the lengthy reports, research papers, emails and more that flood our desks. For, as Smith points out, we cannot function in this world without knowledge; knowledge in our field of expertise and beyond, and speed-reading allows us to take in and retain more of that knowledge, while allowing us to simultaneously take control over the “unmanageable proportions” that are piling up on our desks, in our email inboxes, etc.

So, if you’re ready to get your head above water again, you can rely on what Smith terms “simple mathematics,” which, translated means the obvious: Once able to get through more material faster, you also expand the capacity of your brain, allowing you to learn more. Talk about a nice perk!

Now, you will have to continue practicing Smith’s techniques “in a structured way” if you want to achieve long-term results, but I have to tell you, this truly small amount of work and effort truly pays off!

Are You an Average Reader?
The average person reads about 240 words per minute. With diligence and practice, you can achieve up to around 1,000 words per minute using this CD course.

Just think, you can finally tackle all your notes, all your projects and have time left to leisurely read the newspaper or a novel.

The course thoroughly covers speed-reading theories and practical approaches, and then explains the techniques needed to being about the most change. I particularly liked the timed exercises because I had the chance to use the watch timer on my Timex Ironman, the one that I previously only used for timing my runs and swims. Boy, was it starting to collect dust!

Anyway, you certainly don’t have to do the course all in one go. I did it track by track, listening to the entire CD first in my car and then in tracks on the treadmill at the gym.

In doing so, I learned about my eyes, the role they play in speed reading (which is more than just “seeing” the words), how to use a pointer to increase my reading speed and comprehension, even how to monitor my performances (Read at normal speed for one minute, then count the words. Next, record the speed, which is the average number of words on a line multiplied by the number of lines read).

I also learned that poor reading speeds and good reading speeds are differentiated by:

1. Subvocalization – speaking the words in your mind as you read (you may do this aloud in your head). Nonetheless, this is very distracting and dramatically slows your reading down.
2. Regression – re-reading the material just read. Obviously, interrupts the flow and takes up time.
3. Reading every word, which is boring and may cause you to lose sight of what the material is all about. (If you’re like me, you may be convinced that the more you stare at the words on the page, the more you retain. Once again, I couldn’t have been more wrong.)

On Track 4, Smith discusses techniques for speed-reading, utilizing the “clues” she provided in Track 3 (making your eyes take in groups of words, taking shorter fixations, keeping the eye on the page and moving forward).

All of the tracks are short and to the point, easy to understand and provide practical and invaluable information, making this a product you don’t want to be without. But, as Smith cautions, long-term results are obtainable only if you continue to practice what she preaches, which I am happy to say I am still doing.

Happy reading!

"Speed Reading for Success" by Jane Smith is available at Amazon.co.uk.

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A Final Note...

In the next issue, we'll look at part two of our four-part series on Effective Listening, and hear how you can overcome some of the most important listening hurdles.

We'll look at imagery, a useful technique for relaxation and mental rehearsal. And we'll review a unique audio class called “Developing Your Mind”.

And we'll update you on something we're getting increasingly excited about: Our upcoming teleclasses on goal setting and life design, which we're preparing right now. I can't wait to share more on these with you - I'm sure that once you've experienced the depth of understanding that these teleclasses bring, you'll be as passionate about them as I am!

Best wishes, and until next time!

James & Kellie

James Manktelow & Kellie Fowler

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