Ch. 4 – Fundamentals of Listening
On page 95 of our text, the authors quote Haas and Arnold as saying, “ One common weakness of many executives is the failure to recognize that listening is equal in importance to talking.” When I read this sentence, I was reminded of a couple coworkers of mine who are twin brothers. When they were children, one brother would do all the talking while the other would keep silent. In an effort to correct this behavior, their parents sent them to counseling. During these counseling sessions, each twin had their IQ tested. Ironically, the “silent” twin’s IQ was significantly higher than the “talking” twin’s IQ! The test-giver’s assessment was that the one who didn’t talk much was in-turn listening and taking in all sorts of information which thus increased his intelligence. The “talker,” on the other hand, inadvertently shut out information because he wouldn’t stop conversing long enough to gain knowledge.
Some scholars, such as Bostrom, who is also quoted on page 95 of our text, suggest that retention may not necessarily have anything to do with listening and all to do with natural born intelligence. However, the correlation between listening and a high IQ in the one twin boy is something that, in my opinion, shouldn’t be too quickly overlooked.
2 comments:
Hi,
I agree that listening is as important as talking if you want effective communication. Just like interviewers need to actively listen to the interviewee, partly to understand what the interviewee is saying but also to be able to ask appropriate and engaging questions, I think it is important to listen and not just hear what a person is saying. I think part of the reason why there are conflicts and misunderstandings is that people don't listen carefully enough to what the other person is saying. We might think we know what the other person is saying, but we might be so preoccupied with what we want to say and our point of view that we truly don't understand the other person. Your story about the "silent" twin having a higher IQ is maybe not so surprising. He (she?) was probably absorbing information from other people and acquiring knowledge at a faster rate than the other twin who didn't have as many opportunities to learn because he was talking most of the time. My point about miscommunication is perhaps a point that the textbook could mention?
Wow! Thats really interesting! It makes complete sense when you think of it that way, that the listening twin was just absorbing information all the time. But wow, child development and psychology can be very fascinating.
Foodie, I like the point you brought up about,
"we might be so preoccupied with what we want to say and our point of view that we truly don't understand the other person"
I think a similar and interesting phenomenon is something my dad does ALLL the time. He always hears what he thinks I will say, not what I actually say. I can always tell when he does that, and thats when I turn into, "annoyed with a little kid mode" and I ask him to repeat back to me what I just said. Kind of funny how that works, huh.
-Aleks
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