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Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people. Jim Rohn |
Active listening is a foundation skill for all communications.
The Handbook of Technical Writing (9e pages 307-309 or 10e pages 324-326) makes many important points about listening.
"...listening is active...requires you to consider the context of messages and the differences in meaning that may be the result of differences in the speaker's and listener's occupation, education, culture, sex, race, or other factors."
"Becoming an active listener requires a willingness to become a responder... A responder is a listener who slows down the communication to be certain that he or she is accurately receiving the message ..."
"Knowing why you are listening can go a long way ..."
Active listening has four stepsMake a conscious decision -- seek first to understand and then to be understood
Define your purpose -- know why you are communicating
Take specific actions -- be impartial, be empathic, clear up misunderstandings, and when needed ask for more information
Adapt to the situation -- change as the requirements change from one situation to another (go back to step 2).
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou |
This site makes frequent references to the required books used for the UW-Platteville On-line course, ENGRG 5000 Engineering Communications.
Oliu, W. E., Brusaw, C. T., & Alred, G. J. (2010). Writing That Works, 10th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martins. ISBN-10:0-312-54182-1 or ISBN-13:978-0-312-54182-8. This represents the basic textbook approach.
Oliu, W. E., Brusaw, C. T., & Alred, G. J. (2012). Handbook of Technical Writing, 10th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martins. ISBN-13:978-0-312-67945-3. This handbook directly corresponds to Writing That Works and provides additional detail and has an easy to use topic lookup approach.
Sobek, D. K., & Smalley, A. (2008). Understanding A3 Thinking. Boca Raton, FL: Productivity Press. ISBN: 1-56327-360-8 This book introduces A3 Thinking and provides a different approach to workplace communications.
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