Discussion board | Applied Sciences homework help

1. Evaluate various listening approaches you could use in a specific situation and describe the best approach to accomplish your goals and enhance your career relationships with others.

• Listening at Work “I told her we were meeting this Tuesday, not next Tuesday. Now we

have to reschedule the meeting, and we may not make the deadline.” “He said he was listening, but he didn’t give me a minute to talk before he started interrupting. That’s the last time I’ll try to suggest a better way to do anything around here!” 159 “Something went wrong down the line. I warned those people to watch the temperature carefully, but they don’t listen. Now a whole batch is spoiled. What does it take to get them to understand?” Situations like these are disturbingly common in business. They show how frequent listening failures are and how costly they can be. You may not be able to make others listen better, but you can certainly boost your own ability to listen carefully to the scores of important messages you are likely to hear every day. As you will learn in this chapter, listening effectively is hard work. It involves far more than sitting passively and absorbing others’ words. Listening occurs far more frequently than speaking, reading, or writing, and it is just as demanding and important as those aspects of communication. The Importance of Listening In his best-selling book, Stephen Covey identifies listening— understanding others’ messages before making one’s own understood—as one of the “seven habits of highly effective people.”1 Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca endorsed this belief: You have to be able to listen well if you’re going to motivate the people who work for you. Right there, that’s the difference between a mediocre company and a great company. The most fulfilling thing for me as a manager is to watch someone the system has labeled as just 63 average or mediocre really come into his own, all because someone has listened to his problems and helped him solve them.2 Research backs up these claims. In numerous studies, listening has proved to be the most important communication skill throughout one’s career in terms of job and career success, productivity, upward mobility, and organizational effectiveness.3 Listening is valuable even before your career gets started. Job-hunters can respond best in employment interviews by engaging in active listening.4 Once you have found a new job, listening can help you learn the 160 ropes. Career consultant Andrea Sutcliffe puts it this way: “If you had to choose one interpersonal skill to work on in your first year on the job, pick listening. It will be the single most important tool you will have for getting along and getting ahead.”5 Listening remains important throughout your career. Indeed, when 1,000 executives were asked to list the ideal manager’s skills, listening ranked number one.6,7 Along with promoting individual success, effective listening is vital to organizations. As former corporate executive and entrepreneur Glen Llopis wrote: Leaders who listen are able to create trustworthy relationships that are transparent and breed loyalty. You know the leaders who have their employees’ best interests at heart because they truly listen to them.8 Assumptions about Listening When it comes to communication, most people pay more attention to sending messages than to receiving them. This imbalance comes from several mistaken assumptions. Faulty Assumption 1: Effective Communication Is the Sender’s Responsibility Both senders and receivers share responsibility for effective communication. Senders must communicate clearly and monitor the effectiveness of their communication by being attentive to receivers’ feedback. Receivers should paraphrase and ask questions to ensure that they have understood the messages that senders communicate. As management expert Peter Drucker suggests, even the most thoughtful, well-expressed idea will be wasted if the intended receiver fails to listen. Both the speaker and the listener share the burden of responsibility in reaching an understanding.9 Faulty Assumption 2: Listening Is Passive Some communicators mistakenly assume that listening is easy, requiring only the quiet absorption of a speaker’s words. What these communicators are actually describing is hearing. As John A. Kline says, “Hearing is the reception of sound, listening is the attachment of meaning to the sound.”10 The latter 161 activity is also referred to as active listening, or nonverbal and verbal attentiveness to a speaker. Active listeners maintain eye contact with speakers, nod their heads and smile, provide feedback, and reduce distractions such as cell phones. Sometimes listeners must also speak—to ask questions or paraphrase the sender’s ideas, making sure they have understood those ideas. Good listeners are far from passive. Famous attorney Louis Nizer described how he would often emerge dripping with sweat from a day in court spent mostly listening. Sperry executive Del Kennedy, commenting on his company’s well-known listening training program, says, “Most people don’t know how exhausting listening can be.”11 The benefits are well worth the exhaustion, however: Active listening has been shown to be more effective for retaining information, and it also makes a speaker feel more comfortable. Faulty Assumption 3: Talking Has More Advantages At first glance, it seems that speakers control conversations while listeners are the followers. The people 64 who do the talking are the ones who capture everyone’s attention, so it is easy to understand how talking can be viewed as the pathway to success. case STUDY Careless Listening Leads to Ridicule On the first day of her social studies class, York University student Sarah Grunfeld was outraged when she heard Professor Cameron Johnston say, “All Jews should be sterilized.” Grunfeld immediately reported her account of the lecture to a campus advocacy group, accused Johnston of being a bigot, and called for him to be fired. Within a few hours, the story went viral and Johnston came under immediate pressure and scrutiny. 162 The university’s investigation found that Grunfeld missed an important point in Johnston’s comment—one understood clearly by several hundred other students in the class. Johnston had explained that the belief that “all Jews should be sterilized” is an example of an unacceptable and dangerous opinion. When it became known that Professor Johnston (who is Jewish) did not make an anti-Semitic statement in class, Grunfeld came under attack. She was publicly ridiculed by bloggers and mainstream media for her poor listening skills, hair-trigger reaction, and unwillingness to accept even partial responsibility for the misunderstanding. Source: Kennedy, B., “Jewish Prof Forced to Defend Himself Against Anti-Semitism Claims,” Toronto Star, September 14, 2011. Talking instead of listening can lead professionals to miss important information. One analysis of physician–patient interviews revealed that the more doctors talked, the more they got off track and failed to address concerns raised by the patients.12 Despite the value of talking, savvy businesspeople understand that listening is equally important. Consider the advice of communication consultant Bill Acheson: “For every minute a salesperson spends listening, he or she will save four minutes overcoming objections.”13 Communication expert Susan Peterson reinforces the value of superior listening skills: Too many times, whether it’s with e-mail, voice mail, or Internet, we are concentrating on the art of telling, not listening. Yet good listening, in my opinion, is 80 to 90 percent of being a good manager and an effective leader…. Listening is one of the best ways to keep high touch in your organization. In your day-to-day meetings with customers, clients, or employees, if you listen—really listen with full eye contact and attention—you can own the keys to the communication kingdom.14 Faulty Assumption 4: Listening Is a Natural Ability Listening might seem to be a natural ability—like breathing. “After all,” you might say, “I’ve been listening since I was a child.” Of course, we could all say 163 the same thing about talking. Even though almost everyone listens, however, that does not mean most people do it well. Evidence suggests that most people overestimate their ability to listen well. In one study, a group of managers rated their listening skills. Astonishingly, not one of them described himself or herself as a “poor” or “very poor” listener, while 94 percent rated themselves as “good” or “very good” listeners. The favorable self-ratings contrasted sharply with the perceptions of the managers’ subordinates, many of whom said their bosses’ listening skills were weak.15 Most organizations, including major corporations such as 3M, AT&T, General Electric, and Dun and Bradstreet, have invested in developing their employees’ listening skills.16 Xerox Corporation’s program for improving listening has been used by more than 1.5 million employees in 71,000 companies, and Sperry Corporation invested more than $4 million to advertise its message: “We know how important it is to listen.” In 65 addition, Sperry set up listening seminars for its 87,000 employees to ensure its advertising campaign was more than just a string of empty slogans. ETHICAL challenge Monitoring Employees’ Emotions Some companies, such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, are becoming increasingly interested in technology that can monitor employees’ physiology, thereby allowing those companies to boost performance, productivity, and compliance. Humanyze, a Boston-based employee analytics company, has used technology developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop high-tech badges that hang around employees’ necks on a lanyard. The badges are slightly larger than a credit card and are equipped with sensors, motion detectors, and two microphones that track how often employees talk, move, and where they go. These “people analytics” 164 badges do not record the content of what people say, and employers are unable to review individuals’ personal data. Employees are also given a choice in whether they participate in the program. According to Ben Waber, CEO of Humanyze, “it’s exactly like a Fitbit for your career.” What implications does this technology have for privacy in the workplace? Sources: Heath, T., “This Employee ID Badge Monitors and Listens to You at Work—Except in the Bathroom,” Washington Post, September 7, 2016; Ben Waber.

• Barriers to Effective Listening Despite the importance of understanding others, research suggests that misunderstandings are the rule, rather than the exception. Conversational partners typically achieve no more than 25 to 50 percent accuracy in interpreting each other’s remarks.17 Research shows that immediately after a 10-minute presentation, a normal listener can recall only 50 percent of the information presented. After 48 hours, the recall level drops to 25 percent.18 As you read earlier in the book, three types of “noise” get in the way of receiving messages: environmental, physiological, and psychological.

Environmental Barriers The racket on a factory floor or the conversational buzz in a crowded room can make it difficult to hear and process messages. Nevertheless, not all environmental barriers involve sound. An overheated office or uncomfortable chairs can also make listening difficult. Ironically, some environmental distractions come from the tools we use to communicate. Incoming phone calls, text messages, notifications, and e-mails can all distract us from focusing on a conversational partner. You cannot eliminate all environmental barriers, but you can often manage them. Suggest moving your conversation to a quieter location. Eliminate distractions and annoyances (“That perfume at the table next to us is getting to me. Can we move?”). Choose more reliable communication channels (“Let me call you back on a landline.”). 165 Physiological Barriers For some people, poor listening results from actual hearing deficiencies such as hearing loss. Once recognized, these deficiencies can usually be treated. Other hearing problems, such as earaches and headaches, are temporary. Whether the problem is short term or permanent, the effects can be problematic for communication. 66 Another physiological challenge comes from the difference between the relatively slow rate of most speech and the brain’s ability to process messages more quickly. Listeners can process information at a rate of approximately 500 words per minute, while the rate of speech for most speakers is about 125 words per minute. This difference leaves us with a great deal of mental spare time. While it is possible to use this time to explore the speaker’s ideas, it is all too easy to let your mind wander. Psychological Barriers Some of the most pervasive and daunting barriers to effective listening are psychological. These issues interfere with people’s willingness to listen as well as their mental capacity for effective listening. Preoccupation Business and personal concerns can make it difficult to keep your mind on the subject at hand. Even when your current conversation is important, other unfinished business can divert your attention—the call to an angry customer, the questions your boss asked about your schedule delays, the new supplier you heard about and want to interview, the problems you have with the babysitter or the auto mechanic. Figure 3.1 illustrates several ways in which preoccupation can cause listeners to stop focusing on a speaker’s message. FIGURE 3.1 Thought Patterns 166 Source: Wolvin, A. D., & Coakley, G., Perspectives on Listening. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1993. Message Overload In a world filled with smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other personal digital devices, individuals face a challenge today that earlier generations never encountered: “multicommunicating.”19 It is difficult to listen carefully when people keep dropping in to give you quick messages; a coworker has just handed you cost estimates on a new product line; and your smartphone continuously beeps to let you know you have incoming calls, mail, text messages, and appointments. Coping with a deluge of information is like juggling—you can keep only a few things going at one time.20 Many students pride themselves on their ability to multitask, but neurological evidence suggests that people really are not effective when they work on multiple tasks at the same time.21 Human brains waste lag time each time we switch gears. As a consequence, we are much more effective and efficient when we complete one task at a time— and pay attention to one message at a time. Egocentrism One common reason for listening poorly is the belief— usually mistaken—that your own ideas are more important or valuable than those of others. Besides 67 preventing you from learning useful new information, such an egocentric attitude is likely to alienate the very people with whom you need to work. Self-centered listeners are rated lower on social attractiveness than communicators who are open to others’ ideas.22 As an old saying puts it, “Nobody ever listened themselves out of a job.” 167 CULTURE at work Cultural Differences in Listening Listening is often regarded as a fundamental aspect of business. Understanding how individuals from different national cultures perceive listening is especially important in today’s globalized business world. The distracted and attentive listening behaviors of male and female managers and nonmanagers in India, Malaysia, and the United States were studied by one team of researchers. They found that differing national cultures, organizational position (manager versus nonmanager), and gender affect listening in the workplace. Their key findings include: Males are more prone to engage in distracted listening than are females. American females and males are less likely to be attentive. Managers are less likely to engage in distracted listening than nonmanagers. American managers are more distracted in their listening than nonmanagers. Indian and Malaysian managers are less distracted listeners than nonmanagers. Indian managers are more likely to be attentive. American and Malaysian managers are less prone to being attentive listeners than nonmanagers. Source: Roebuck, D. B., Bell, R. L., & Ean, C., “The Effects of Home Country, Gender, and Position on Listening Behaviors,” Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 19(2), 2015, 93–120. Ethnocentrism Cultural ignorance or prejudices can create psychological noise that interferes with understanding others. Consider accents: Some communicators mistakenly assume individuals with 168 accented speech are less intelligent and less able to understand spoken words.23 When operating a company in a foreign market, brands often suffer when staff at the company’s headquarters refuse to listen to prospective customers and meet their cultural needs in the foreign market in which they wish to operate. Nissan experienced this form of ethnocentrism early in its international operations when it attempted to market the company’s cars abroad using the same strategies it utilized in the domestic market (Japan). Tetyana Panchuk, director of a marketing company in London, explains, “[A]fter several years of its international trading, the company realized that [an] ethnocentric international marketing orientation is no longer relevant for some industries, including the automobile industry in which they were operating.”24 Fear of Appearing Ignorant Some businesspeople perceive asking for clarification as a sign of ignorance. Rather than seek clarification, they pretend to understand—often with unfortunate consequences. In truth, a sincere desire to seek clarification can pay dividends, as management guru Tom Peters recalls: My first boss … is one of the smartest people I know. He was smart enough and comfortable enough with himself to ask really elementary (some would say dumb) questions. The rest of us were scared stiff; we assumed that since we were being paid an exorbitant fee, we shouldn’t ask dumb questions. But the result was we’d lose 90 percent of the strategic value of the interview because we were afraid to display our ignorance. Mostly, it’s the “dumb,” elementary questions, followed up by a dozen more elementary questions, that yield the pay dirt.25 68

• Listening Styles Not everyone listens the same way. Research has identified that people have a general listening style, or a particular motivation for listening. Each style has its own advantages. Ideally, after you identify your preferred

169 style, you should try to develop skill with the listening styles that do not come naturally to you, thereby expanding your listening capabilities. An effective listener is a flexible listener. Relational Listening People who are primarily focused on relational listening are most concerned with emotionally connecting with others. They listen to understand how others feel, are aware of their emotions, and are highly responsive to those individuals. Relational listeners are usually nonjudgmental about what others have to say. They are more interested in understanding and supporting people than in evaluating them. A key strength of this listening style is that the people being “listened to” tend to be more satisfied with their relationships and life in general. Thus, when a relational listener attends to a subordinate or even a peer at work, there can be a positive benefit. Listening is not without drawbacks, however. It is easy to become overly involved with others’ feelings, and even to internalize and adopt them. In an effort to be congenial and supportive, relational listeners may lose their ability to assess the quality of information others are giving. They also risk being perceived as overly expressive and even intrusive by speakers who don’t want to connect on a personal level. Analytical Listening People who are most interested in analytical listening are concerned with attending to the full message before coming to judgment. They want to hear details and analyze an issue from a variety of perspectives. More than just enjoying complex information, these listeners have a tendency to engage in systematic thinking. Many companies have an ombuds staff to investigate and attempt to resolve complaints. Analytical listening is particularly important to the ombuds personnel, as they must carefully consider all of the information they receive about the complaint before making a recommendation. Analytical listeners can be especially helpful when the goal is to thoroughly assess the quality of ideas, and when there is value in looking at issues from a wide range of perspectives. On the downside, their 170 thorough approach can be time consuming. It may take them a long time to reach a conclusion, so when a deadline is approaching they may not respond as quickly as desired. Task-Oriented Listening People who are inclined to task-oriented listening are most interested in getting the job done. Because efficiency is their biggest concern, they expect speakers to get their point across quickly and to stay on topic. Not surprisingly, task-oriented listeners are often impatient. ©Graham Bell/Corbis RF In a fast-paced business environment, task-oriented listeners can help keep things functioning efficiently. Unfortunately, their impatience can sometimes strain relationships because task-oriented listeners are generally not good at responding empathetically 69 and have a tendency toward verbal aggressiveness. Also, an excessive focus on time can hamper the kind of thoughtful deliberation that some jobs require. Critical Listening 171 People engaged in critical listening have a strong desire to evaluate messages with the purpose of accepting or rejecting them. Critical listeners go beyond trying to understand the topic at hand by seeking to assess its quality. Not surprisingly, critical listeners tend to focus on the accuracy and consistency of a message. Critical listening can be especially helpful when the goal is to investigate a problem, as in a police interview or a safety concern at an oil and gas refinery. More problematically, people who are critical listeners can frustrate others, who may think that they nitpick everything others say.

• Listening More Effectively Social scientists have identified two levels of listening—mindless and mindful.26 Mindless listening occurs when we react to others’ messages automatically and routinely, without much mental investment. The term mindless sounds negative, but sometimes this sort of low-level processing can be useful because it frees us to focus our minds on messages that require more careful attention.27 The challenge, of course, is to pay enough attention to decide which messages need more careful attention. By contrast, mindful listening involves giving careful and thoughtful attention and responses to the messages we receive.

You might imagine the value of mindful listening is so obvious that it hardly needs mentioning. In fact, business and professional communicators recognize that thoughtful listening is difficult and needs cultivating. At General Mills, for example, employees at all levels—including more than 80 vice presidents and directors—have voluntarily signed up for mindfulness programs ranging from a half-day to seven weeks in duration.28 One important step toward mindful listening is to be clear about your goal in a given situation. Are you listening to understand the other person, or are you listening critically to evaluate the message? Once you have answered this fundamental question, the following tips can help you listen more effectively. Listening to Understand 172 Most of us would claim we always aim to understand what others are saying, but a little introspection will show we are often focused on other tasks: mentally (or overtly) arguing with the speaker, daydreaming, thinking about other tasks, and so on. Following the advice here can boost your accuracy in listening mindfully to the message. Withhold Judgment In his study of highly effective people, Stephen Covey said it best: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”29 It is often difficult to try to understand another person’s ideas before judging him or her, especially when you hold strong opinions on the matter under discussion. For example, you might ask for a customer’s reaction to your company’s product or service and then spend your mental energy judging the answer instead of trying to understand it. (“Doesn’t this guy have anything better to do than make petty complaints?” “Yeah, sure, he’d like us to deliver on a tighter schedule, but he’d scream his head off if we billed him for the overtime.”) Or you might find yourself judging the ideas of a boss, coworker, or subordinate before he or she has finished explaining them. (“Uh-oh. I hope this doesn’t mean I have to spend a week in the field, trying to get market information.” “These college kids come in and want to take over right away.”) Listen first. Make sure you understand. Then evaluate. 70 TECHNOLOGY tip Listening to Voice Mail Hearing problems are not just an issue for communicators with physical impairments. The racket of background noise often makes it difficult to hear and understand messages—especially those played back on the tinny speakers in most telephones. Some products seek to decipher voice mail messages more clearly by transcribing the caller’s spoken words into text that can be viewed on the display of a smartphone or computer. Besides 173 saving you the time it takes to replay voice mail (perhaps more than once!), these services allow you to check for calls in a noisy environment, do so unobtrusively, and obtain a text record of what callers said. This technology has become so popular that Apple added the voice mail transcription feature to its iOS 10 update in September 2016.30 Of course, transcription apps are not foolproof. They do not capture the vocal qualities that can affect the meaning of a message, and they often bungle specific words. When in doubt about the accuracy of a transcription, it is smart to listen to the audio version of a message before jumping to conclusions. Talk and Interrupt Less Sometimes the best approach to listening is to stay out of the way and encourage the other person to talk. One marketing expert explained how, even in sales, silence can be more effective than talking: The 20/80 rule is a standard in small-business principles. Twenty percent of your customers account for 80 percent of your business. Here’s a variation of the theme…. When meeting with prospective customers for the first time, listen 80 percent of the time and talk the other 20 percent. Your job is to listen attentively and determine what your prospects require. Before they are prepared to listen to your pitch, they want to tell you what they’re looking for.31 If you are normally a talkative person, consider rationing your comments when trying to listen. Imagine you have only a finite number of words available so that you speak only when it is absolutely necessary. You may be surprised at how the quality of your conversations and your level of understanding improve. Ask Questions Sincere questions are genuine requests for information. They can be a terrific way to gather facts and details, clarify meanings, and encourage a speaker to elaborate. Former University of Kentucky basketball coach Rick Pitino learned the importance of asking questions after he lost a key recruit by trying to sell the virtues of his 174 program instead of listening to what concerned his prospect. Later, when he courted another potential star (Tony Delk), he used a more effective approach: This time, instead of trumpeting Kentucky’s virtues, he asked questions: what Delk wanted from a coach, what the family wanted for their son in college. For an hour, he just asked questions and nodded a lot, listening to their answers…. Not only did Pitino get Delk, but four years later, Delk helped lead Kentucky to its sixth national championship and Pitino’s first. “That’s one of my favorites,” Pitino says. “That’s one I like to tell business groups because it illustrates how important it is to listen to people.”32 While sincere, focused questions can be a powerful tool, counterfeit questions are really disguised forms of advice or subtle traps: “Have you ever considered offering more money to get experienced people?” or “Why haven’t you told me about this?” Counterfeit questions like these can pollute a communication climate just as quickly as any direct attack.33 71 Paraphrase Paraphrasing involves restating a speaker’s ideas in your own words to make sure you have understood them correctly and to show the other person that fact. Paraphrasing is often preceded by phrases such as “Let me make sure I understand what you’re saying …” or “In other words, you’re saying …” When you are paraphrasing, it is important not to become a parrot, mindlessly repeating the speaker’s statements word for word. Understanding comes from translating the speaker’s thoughts into your own language and then playing them back to ensure their accuracy. After paraphrasing, it is important that you invite the speaker to verify your paraphrase so you know whether you accurately understood him or her or to clarify your paraphrase and clear up what you have misunderstood. The following conversations illustrate the difference between effective and ineffective paraphrasing: Ineffective 175 Print Supervisor: I’m having trouble getting the paper to run that job. That’s why I’m behind schedule. Plant Manager: I see. You can’t get the paper to run the job, so you’re running behind schedule. Print Supervisor: Yeah. That’s what I said. After this exchange, the plant manager still does not have a clear idea of the problem—why the print supervisor cannot get the paper, or what he means when he says he cannot get it. Rather than paraphrasing the message by putting the print supervisor’s statements into his or her own words, the plant manager simply repeats what was said. More effective paraphrasing could help get to the root of the problem: Effective Print Supervisor: I’m having trouble getting the paper to run that job. That’s why I’m running behind schedule. Plant Manager: In other words, your paper supplier hasn’t shipped the paper you need for this job. Print Supervisor: No, they shipped it, but it’s full of flaws. Plant Manager: So the whole shipment is bad? Print Supervisor: No, only about a third of it. But I’ve got to get the whole batch replaced, or the dye lots won’t match —the paper won’t be exactly the same color. Plant Manager: No problem—the colors can be a little off. But I need at least half of that order by Tuesday; the rest can wait a couple of weeks. Can you print on the good paper you have now, then do the rest when the new paper comes in? Print Supervisor: Sure. 176 72 At first glance, questioning and paraphrasing may seem identical, but a closer look reveals they are different tools. Questions seek new, additional information (“How far behind are we?” “When did it begin?”), whereas paraphrasing clarifies what a speaker has said. This is an important difference. Three types of paraphrasing can be used. Although they all involve reflecting the speaker’s message, each focuses on a different part of that statement. Paraphrasing content The preceding example illustrates content paraphrasing, which plays back the receiver’s understanding of the explicit message. It is easy to think you understand another person, only to find later that you were wrong. At its most basic level, paraphrasing is a kind of safety check that can highlight and clarify misunderstandings. People who practice paraphrasing are astonished to find out how many times a speaker will correct or add information to a message that had seemed perfectly clear. Paraphrasing intent Besides helping you understand what others are saying, paraphrasing can help you learn why they have spoken up. Imagine that, at a staff meeting, the boss announces, “Next week, we’ll start using this display board to show when we’re out of the office and where we’ve gone.” It’s easy to imagine two quite different reasons for setting up this procedure: (1) to help keep customers and colleagues informed about where each person is and when he or she will return, or (2) to keep track of employees because the boss suspects some are slacking off on company time. Paraphrasing intent can help you understand what people mean when they make statements that can be interpreted in more than one way. 177

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Paraphrasing feeling Often, the speaker’s feelings are the most important part of a message.34 Despite this fact, most people do not express—or even recognize—their emotions. Ask yourself which emotions might be contained in these statements: “That’s the third time he canceled an appointment on me—who does he think he is?” “Whenever a deadline comes, I get excuses instead of results—this can’t go on much longer.” “One minute she says we have to spend money to make money, and the next minute she talks about cutting costs—I can’t figure out what she really wants.”

In each of these examples, there are at least two or three possible emotions:

Statement 1: anger, hurt, and self-doubt. Statement 2: anger, frustration, and worry. Statement 3: anger and confusion. Paraphrasing the apparent emotion can give the speaker a chance to agree with or contradict your interpretation: “Yeah, I guess it did hurt my feelings” or “I’m more worried than mad.” In either case, this sort of response can help the other person clarify how he or she is feeling and deal with the emotions. 178 Attend to Nonverbal Cues Focusing on a speaker’s nonverbal cues may tell you more than his or her words. Watch for the “iceberg tips” that let you know if the speaker might say more, especially if encouraged to do so.35 The next chapter explains in detail the wealth of nonverbal cues that are always available to you—gestures, postures, vocal tones, facial expression, and more. 73 Nonverbal cues can be especially useful in interpreting another person’s feelings and attitudes. You can get a sense of how emotions are communicated nonverbally by imagining all the different messages that might be conveyed by the following statements. How many different ways can you imagine each could be expressed? Which different meaning might each set of nonverbal cues convey? “No, nothing’s the matter.” “We should get together one of these days.” “I would like to talk with you in my office.” “Nobody’s ever had that idea before.” Besides attending to others’ nonverbal cues, it is also useful to pay attention to your own. To understand why, visualize how a conversational partner would react depending on how you behaved in a discussion. What signals would you be sending if you leaned back in your chair, gazed around the room, or yawned? By contrast, what messages would you be sending if you sat forward, kept eye contact, and occasionally nodded or uttered “mm hmm”? You may say you’re listening, but how you behave nonverbally will create a stronger impression. Take Notes When the conversation involves details or ideas you need to remember, notes can be essential. Note-taking can also signal to speakers that you care enough to write down what they are saying. It can even cause speakers to consider their words more carefully. As an added bonus, if a question ever arises about the details of a conversation, you can say with confidence, “Let me check my notes.” 179 Listening to Evaluate Once you are sure you understand a message, you are ready to evaluate its quality. Most evaluations are based on two levels of analysis: evidence and emotion. Analyze the Speaker’s Evidence As a critical listener, you need to ask yourself several questions about the evidence that a speaker gives to support his or her statements. What evidence does the order fulfillment manager give that the current computer system is causing problems or that a new one will be better? Does a sales representative back up the claim that a product will pay for itself in less than a year? Once you have identified the evidence, you need to make sure it is valid. The success of the flexible-hours program instituted in the New York office does not mean the same program will work as well in the factory in West Virginia, where a certain number of people have to be operating the machinery at any given time. The two or three employees who are unhappy with the new office furniture might be the exceptions rather than the majority, while the one or two satisfied customers you hear about could be the only happy ones. Carefully researched statistics that look at more than a few isolated cases are a much stronger form of proof than a few random examples. The following questions can help you to examine the overall validity of supporting material: Is the evidence given true? Are enough cases cited? Are the cited cases representative of the whole being considered? Are there any exceptions to the points the speaker is making? Do these exceptions need to be considered? 74 180 CAREER tip Use a Telephone Log E-mail provides a virtually automatic record of your correspondence, but telephone conversations are ephemeral. Keeping a simple written log can help you maintain your records, prevent false claims, and reestablish contacts. For example, a log can remind you of the name of the agent to whom you spoke, the date and time of an appointment you have set up, or the model number of a product you are researching. Weeks later, it may be important to tell a client, coworker, or supervisor of all the attempts (successful and unsuccessful) you made to contact that person. You can also rely on your notes to remind others about information and commitments they have made, such as a reservation, promised delivery date, or a price quote: “The job won’t be ready until November 15? But last Friday, Rose in your office promised me that it would be done by the first of the month.” A log can even remind people about what they did not say or do. For example, you might respond to a complaint that you have not kept a customer informed by explaining, “Actually, I’ve phoned three times before today: on April 4, 11, and 18. Each time your voice mail picked up, and I left a message telling you the job was ready.” For most purposes, a phone log does not have to be elaborate, but it should usually include the following information: Date and time the call was placed. Subject of the call. Phone number called. Whether this call is a part of a series (i.e., a follow-up or response to an earlier call). Unsuccessful attempts to contact (busy signal, no answer, malfunctioning voice mail). Messages left on voice mail or with another person. 181 Name of the person with whom you spoke. Key points you and the other person made. Examine Emotional Appeals Sometimes emotional reactions are a valid basis for action. The sympathy we feel for underprivileged children is a good reason for donating money to their welfare. The desire to cut down on your own fatigue may be a good reason to hire an assistant. In other cases, emotional appeals can obscure important logical considerations that might otherwise dissuade you from accepting a proposal. We can see this by thinking about fund-raisers who seek money for underprivileged children. Your sympathy might not justify allowing a fund-raiser to wander around your building soliciting funds from employees: Your employees could resent being asked to give money to your favorite cause rather than one of theirs, especially if they have just been asked to donate to another cause. The particular agency asking for your donation might not be the best vehicle for helping underprivileged children: It may have excessive overhead so t

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