My presentation on listening

Last Wednesday Shayna and I presented on the topic of listening in the workplace. To start, we discussed our three pre questions that I'm going to personally reflect on first. The first question talked about a personal time when bad listening caused a problem in the workplace. Ironically, I had an incident a couple of weeks ago that could have been prevented by active listening. I've been working at Dover Fields Hannaford's for four years now and have developed an excellent relationship with my manager. She approached me one day and told me that there was a thief problem going on in my department. After the conversation I mentioned what she said to a couple of kids that I know have stolen items in the past and they decided that it wasn't worth listening to. Unfortunately a couple of days later one of my co workers got caught red handed and the whole department got in trouble for it. If this individual would have listened to me in the first place than this incident could have been avoided.

The second question was asking how to effectively communicate with someone that struggles with listening. In my opinion, I would take this individual to a room that is quiet and rid of distractions to make sure that they can actively listen. Whenever I have a problem listening it usually comes down to outside factors distracting me from the conversation

The third question asked about the factors that can effect listening. Like I stated before, the environment can cause a distraction to anyone trying to listen. However, I feel like body language and tone of voice can effect listening as well. If I'm talking to someone that constantly tries to show they are smarter than me, I automatically shut off and have a hard time focusing on what they are saying.

After the pre work, we had a telephone activity. The activity didn't go as well as planned because there wasn't enough people in the room to mess up the message but it did show how listening is important. We also showed a Ted talk that discussed how learning can impact the workplace. The overall message from the video reminded me of a passage from one of the articles I sent in the pre work. Most people think good listeners are like a sponge and absorb all of the information when in reality a good listener is like a trampoline who can bounce information off to the other individual. I thought this statement really summed up the message we tried to deliver in our presentation. I always thought that a good listener looks someone in the eye, acknowledges what the other person is saying, and acts accordingly. In reality, a good listener should ask questions that clarify the points being presented and than act accordingly once they feel confident that they understand what is being said.