Enhancing Your Listening Skills

Overview/Description
 Have you ever been taken by surprise by an unexpected deadline? Have you ever left a meeting unsure about what was decided? Have you ever asked a supervisor for advice, only to later forget what your supervisor told you? You can avoid problems like these by using effective listening skills. Effective listening helps you to know what's going on in your organization, get cooperation from your co-workers, solve problems, and be successful in your work. However, most people don't listen very well. This course will help you to improve your ability to listen to others. You will learn the skills you need to understand what people say, read their unconscious nonverbal messages, and get others to want to listen to you. You also learn how to apply these skills in a variety of business situations such as interviews, business meetings, and negotiations.

Target Audience
 People at all levels of an organization. This course is particularly useful to those who need strong listening skills, such as managers and team members, to be effective in the workplace.

Expected Duration
3.0 hours

Lesson Objectives:

Improving Your Listening

  • recognize the benefits of improving personal listening skills.
  • identify the best practices for listening to yourself.
  • match the strategies for effectively listening to others with an example of each.
  • use strategies to listen effectively to another person in a given scenario.
  • identify strategies for effectively handling emotional "hot buttons."
  • use the strategies for effectively handling emotional "hot buttons," given a scenario.

    • Getting Others to Listen

  • identify the benefits of getting others to listen.
  • identify nonverbal behaviors that speakers can use to encourage others to listen.
  • identify the guidelines for encouraging others to listen.
  • use the guidelines to encourage others to listen in a given scenario.
  • apply the strategies that encourage others to listen during a confrontation, given a scenario.

    • Listening in Professional Situations

  • identify the benefits of listening effectively in professional situations.
  • select the best practices for taking good notes.
  • use strategies for listening effectively to a given job candidate during an interview.
  • choose examples that appropriately describe the strategies for listening effectively in a small group discussion.
  • select the best practices for listening effectively to lectures and presentations.

    • Course Number: COMM0154