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Communicate! Communicate!

Listening. Although most of our time is spent listening, research shows that each person hears accurately what is said only one third of the time; the other two-thirds of the time the information is distorted. Greenberg emphasized five rules for active listening:

• Plan to report and take notes.
• Concentrate on content rather than the speaker's delivery style.
• Never be afraid of silence; give speakers time to think.
• Be adept at asking encouraging questions in a positive tone.
• Summarize what the speaker has told you.

However, there are several obstacles to accurate listening:

• Predetermining a subject is uninteresting or too difficult creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Try to find something of value to you.
• Criticizing the speaker's delivery style or mannerism draws attention away from the subject matter and towards the speaker.
• Getting over-stimulated by something the speaker says makes the listener lose other pertinent information. There will be plenty of time to process the information later.
• Wasting time and daydreaming is distracting. Don't stop listening.

Communication Style. All individuals fall within four communication styles: action, process, people, and idea. Effective speakers know their personal communication style as well as their audience's. The most effective way to communicate is to recognize other people's styles and talk to them on their own level. For example, people with an "action" communication style will talk about results and objectives. They are down to earth, direct, and impatient. The table below summarizes the different communication styles and their associated "content" and "process" characteristics to recognize when speaking or listening to others.

In summary, session attendees received useful tools to become active listeners and effective communicators. The styles and characteristics in the table are guidelines for better communication skills. In fact, they are at the heart of developing better listening habits and communication skills that could last a lifetime.

Style	Content (They talk about: . . . )	Process (They are: . . . )
Action	results, objectives, performance	down to earth, direct, impatient
Process	facts, procedures, planning	factual, systemic, logical
People	people, communication, feeling	spontaneous, warm, empathetic
Idea	concepts, possibilities, issues	imaginative, unrealistic, full of ideas

Originally published on October 1996