Effective Communication Skills

The skill of listening is an important component in developing effective communication skills. listening needs to be practiced and frequently fine tuned to be truly effective. Most people have some listening blocks. Knowing about these blocks can help you to correct them through practice and start to replace them with good listening skills.

Comparison

The block of comparison makes attentive listening very difficult. Comparing involves the listener to compare during the conversation to determine who is more intelligent or more competent, themselves or the other person. Some people try to decide who has undergone more suffering or who the greatest victim is. While the other person is talking, the listener is thinking, “Could I do it that well?… I have had it harder, they do not know what really hard is like…” The listener cannot listen with the complete attention because their mind is occupied in seeing how they feel they measure up to the other person.

The Mind Reader
With the mind reading block the listener does not pay much attention to what people say it and tend to distrust the other person.. The mind reading listener tries to be determine what the other person is really thinking and feeling .
For example, the mind reader listener could think, “She says she wishes to go to the show, but I think that she has gotten tired and really wishes to relax instead of go out. The listener pays more attention to the intonations rather and to the subtle tones of the speaker than to the real words spoken in the effort to see the underlying truth. A reader of the mind tends to make assumptions and judgments on how people react to them. These assumptions come from intuition and hunches but they have little to do with which the person is saying really.

The Rehearsal

The rehearsal listening block also causes the listener not to pay attention to the speaker. The focus of their thoughts and attention is preparing a response to the speaker/. The listener may try to appear interested but their mind is thinking of story that they want to relate or the point they wish to make.

To develop effective communication skills the listening blocks need to be removed. Good listening skills are essential for the effective communication. The listening blocks mentioned in this are barriers to good listening. By having knowledge of these listening blocks is you have the ability to improve listening skills, and develop greater mutual understanding in your communication. The distraction and the destructive patterns of the thoughts, create barriers to good listening. Through developing good listening skills you will see great improvements in your capacity for excellent communication .

For more information about effective communication skills
Learn more about listening skills