Renderas:sect2. The Price of Poor Listening Skills

The opportunities for understanding or misunderstanding in a typical workday are countless. A working person spends at least 30 percent and sometimes as much as 60 percent of his or her day listening. If people in an organization have poor listening skills, the costs may be high and include many of the following:

• wasted meeting time

• inaccurate orders and shipments

• lost sales

• inadequately informed, misinformed, confused, or angry staff and customers

• unmet deadlines

• unsolved problems

• wrong decisions on interviews

• lawsuits

• poor employee morale

Of course, poor listening is likely to affect people's private lives adversely too, and an unhappy private life may be a distraction or disaster that diminishes job performance. As a rule, adults have formally studied reading, writing, and speaking, but not listening. Although we spend about 45 percent of our time listening, it is the least taught skill. (See figure 1.) Listening is a skill that can be developed, however. In the following pages you will learn:

• basic concepts and terminology

• barriers to understanding and tips on avoiding them

• common myths and misunderstandings about listening

• stages of listening

• basics of nonverbal communication

• kinds of listening

• advice about responses after listening

• training techniques and activities for improving listening skill