Skill Building Exercises in Listening

 

Here are a few skill building exercises that prove helpful in discussions of listening in interpersonal communication.

Buzzkills

In addition to the suggestions for responding, consider the buzzkill, one of the negative influences on comfortable interpersonal interaction—the comment that brings down the level of enjoyment or satisfaction. Understanding what to avoid is often as helpful as understanding what to do. For each of the following situations write a one-sentence buzzkill.

1.     Just took the Covid test—Negative! Buzzkill:

2.     I just got my paper back; I got an A. Buzzkill:

3.     Well, Pat said yes and we’re going away for the weekend. Buzzkill:

4.     I finally got that internship with Smith and Wales. Buzzkill:

5.     We’re off to have a great breakfast at the diner. Buzzkill:

One of the problems with analyzing buzzkills is that they often contain legitimate warnings or cautions. For example, buzzkill for No. 1 might be, “You need to take a second test to be sure you’re in the clear.” This is a buzzkill but also a legitimate suggestion. So, don’t be too hard on the buzzkiller. Look over your own responses. Were there any useful aspects to your buzzkills?

 

Identifying the Barriers to Listening

No one can listen apart from their own attitudes, beliefs, values, and opinions; these always get in the way of accurate listening. Your objective is to minimize these effects. Taking into consideration your own attitudes, beliefs, values, and opinions, what obstacles to listening would you identify for each of the following interpersonal situations?

1.  Colleagues at work are discussing how they can persuade management to restrict the company gym to men only.

2.  Students in your computer science class are talking about planting a virus in the college computer as a way of protesting recent decisions by the administration.

3.  A campus religious group is conferring about its plan to prevent same-sex couples from attending the college prom.

4.  A group of faculty and students is discussing a campaign to prevent the military from recruiting on campus.

5. The Library faculty has announced plans to remove all books on race and racism, sexual education, LGBTQ+ issues, and those presenting certain religious views.

 

 

Responding with Empathy

Here are five possible responses to the “simple” statement, “I guess I’m feeling a little depressed.” Assume that Apple and Orange are close friends—not best friends but more than acquaintances.

1.     Identify why each of the five responses is (probably) inappropriate and not empathic. You may also want to consider the motivating factors that contribute to the varied responses. That is, why does someone respond as these Oranges did?

2.     Write what you’d consider an empathic response. Consider too why your response is empathic. What does your response communicate that the varied responses from Orange did not communicate?

APPLE: I guess I’m just feeling a little depressed.

______ ORANGE 1: I’ve been reading about depression and it’s all in your head. This research—it was done at NYU—showed that the ….

______ ORANGE 2: You depressed? Have you talked to Pat? Now that’s depression.

______ ORANGE 3: Well, then, you need to get out more; let’s go and have some fun.

______ ORANGE 4: Me too. I don’t know what it is but I woke up this morning and felt so depressed. I thought it was from a dream but I’m still feeling that way. Do you think I should see a counselor?

______ ORANGE 5: Are you? That’s really serious; it’s often a sign of suicide. Remember Pat? Got depressed after the breakup and jumped off the roof.

 

 

Identifying Examples of Listening Styles

Being able to identify the varied styles of listening is a first step in controlling and adjusting our own style of listening for greatest effectiveness.

Go to YouTube or any online video site and select interpersonal interactions from any of a variety of talk shows) and identify one or two of the following:

1.  An example of empathic or non-empathic listening. How does the person communicate this?

2.  An example of polite or impolite listening. What cues are used to communicate this?

3.  An example of critical or uncritical listening. How were you able to detect this?

4.  An example of active or non-active listening. What does the person say that indicates they’re listening actively or not actively?

 

Interpersonal Communication Skill Building Exercises

Here are a few skill building exercises in interpersonal communication. I wrote some new ones and updated and edited some old ones for the new editions of my interpersonal communication texts. My aim is to post a few exercises each week—following the pattern of most interpersonal communication courses. Here are a few which might prove useful when discussing the nature and function of interpersonal communication.

Communicating Content and Relationship Messages

Content and relationship messages are both important in interpersonal communication. Here are a few situations where you would need to communicate a content message and a relationship message. What would you say?

1.   After a date that you didn’t enjoy and don’t want to repeat ever again, you want to express your sincere thanks, but you don’t want to be misinterpreted as communicating any indication that you would go on another date with this person. What would you say?

2.   You’re ready to commit yourself to a long-term relationship but want your partner to sign a prenuptial agreement before moving any further in the relationship. You need to communicate both your desire to keep your money and to move the relationship to the next level. What would you say?

3.   You’re interested in dating a friend on Facebook who also attends the college you do and with whom you’ve been chatting for a few weeks. But you don’t know if the feeling is one of friendship or potentially at least one of romance. You want to ask for the date (on the assumption that the relationship can be a romantic one) but to do so in a way that, if you’re turned down, you won’t be embarrassed, and the friendship will remain intact? What would you say?

 

Examining Your Social Media Profile

Heightened awareness of how messages help create meanings will increase your ability to make more reasoned and reasonable choices in your interpersonal interactions. Examine your own social network profile (or that of a friend) in terms of some of the principles of interpersonal communication discussed in this chapter:

1.      How are the verbal and nonverbal messages in your profile related? Do they generally communicate the same meaning?

2.    Does your profile encourage interaction? In what way?

3.  What purposes does your profile serve? In what ways might it serve some of the five purposes of interpersonal communication identified here (to learn, relate, influence, play, and help)?

4.   Can you identify both content and relational messages.

5.   In what ways does your profile exhibit interpersonal power? In what ways, if any, have you incorporated into your profile any of the six types of power discussed in this chapter (legitimate, referent, reward, coercive, expert, or information)?

  6.    Are there any verbal or nonverbal messages on your profile that might be ambiguous to readers?

   7.   What are the implications of inevitability, irreversibility, and unrepeatability for posting a profile              on social network sites?

 

Red Flags

Here are some social media posts employers find problematic and will likely raise red flags about your suitability for a job. Examine your social media posts. Do you see any items that, from an employer’s point of view, might raise red flags?

1.      Inappropriate language such as vulgar, homophobic, sexist (and sexual), racist, ageist, or other terms that discriminate. These tell employers you’re not a good fit with a diverse workforce.

2.      Inappropriate partying photos or videos, especially with alcohol and/or drugs. These tell employers that you may be more interested in having fun than working.

3.      Negative comments on previous employers or companies. These tell employers that you may be hypercritical and that you may be the problem rather than your past employers.

4.      Opinions that may be viewed as contrary to a company’s values. These tell employers that your values don’t align with the company’s and that you would not be a good in furthering the company’s goals.

5.      Poor communication skills, such as misspellings and grammatical errors. These tell employers that you may lack essential skills or that you’re careless.

 

Conversation Infographic

Here's an interesting infographic: 9 Simple Conversation Hacks: How to Turn Any Interaction in Your Favor, sent to me by Sarah Johnson. Thank you, Sarah. It's sure to spark some interesting class discussion on the uses of communication skills or with the section on conversation or persuasion.

50 Communication Strategies

I’ve assembled (and rewrote) some of my blog posts and a variety of other brief pieces into a book that I published with iUniverse, a subsidy publisher (recently acquired by Penguin, a division of Pearson), called 50 Communication Strategies. One of the advantages of publishing a book this way was that I didn’t need an agent. Textbook authors rarely have agents; in fact, I don’t know of one textbook author who does have an agent. The other great advantage is that you don’t have to write a proposal. There are also disadvantages to doing a book this way as well. But, on balance, the procedure was relatively painless and certainly fast moving.  They even set up a website for the book—www.50communicationstrategies.com. In general, I'm very pleased with the finished product.

Changing Behavior

I was asked to participate in a “blog tour” of the book, Changing Behavior: Immediately Transform Your Relationships with Easy to Learn, Proven Communication Skills, by Georgianna Donadio and published by SoulWork Press of Boston. I was asked to do whatever I wished—which is always nice. So, I thought I would simply mention the book and its connection with communication.

The book ranges widely in its coverage of various suggestions “to enhance and enrich your own personal relationships”—the book’s overarching aim. Not surprisingly, there’s a great deal that focuses on communication skills (as its subtitle notes). And, again not surprisingly, the skills are similar to those we teach in interpersonal communication—listening, emotional expression, mindfulness, equality, self-awareness and self-assessment (with lots of personal reflection questions), and relationship improvement (as its subtitle also notes).

This book is a not a textbook (it’s 8 ½ x 11, 142 pages, and larger type than we find in our texts) but a kind of self-help manual and will appeal to those who enjoy lots of anecdotes, an informal (not textbookish) style of presenting research, and a focus on transforming oneself and one’s relationships.

It’s interesting to note that the reviews on Amazon are extremely positive. On May 31, 2012 there were 68 reviews with an average review rating of 5 stars (the highest rating) and a rank of 10,846, indicating considerable popularity. Today (June 6, 2012), the Amazon rank was 66,523 (not sure why there’s such a large difference); there were 73 reviews with an average rating of 5 stars.

Communication skills

A brief article in USAToday (1/21/10, p. 7D) noted that a report from the Association of American Colleges and Universities points to a variety of failures in preparing students for the real world--nothing we didn't already know. What was especially interesting was that USAToday included as a sidebar to this report, the results from a study conducted last fall in which 302 employers were asked what skills they wanted students to have: 89% (the highest percentage)reported that it was effective communication skills(oral and written) and 81% (the next highest) noted critcial thinking and analytical reasoning skills--exactly what we teach in our basic courses. One wonders why so many colleges do not offer their students the opportunity to learn these essential skills--why are they stacking the deck against their own students? I just don't get it!

Suicide

Here's a sobering article on the percentage of college students who have attempted or have considered suicide--7% have attempted suicide. Among the causes mentioned are emotional and physical pain, problems in romantic relationships, and school related issues. I can't help but think that general communication skills and perhaps especially the skills of interpersonal communication (or the lack of them) have to be a part of the picture.

Interpersonal Communication and . . .

Here's an interesting discussion of interpersonal conflict training for police. Also, click on "anger management" on this same page and you'll find some interesting material on fair fighting and on using communication skills to reduce stress. It seems like there's nothing we can't do with communication.

ABCD: Metacommunication

The prefix meta- can mean a variety of things but as used in communication, philosophy, and psychology it’s meaning is best translated as about. Thus, metacommunication is communication about communication, metalanguage is language about language, and metamessage is a message about a message.
Look at it this way. You can communicate about the world—about the desk you’re sitting at, the computer you’re using, or the passage you’re reading right now. We refer to this as object communication; you’re talking about objects. And the language you’re using is called an object language. But notice that you’re not limited to talking about objects; you can also talk about your talk; you can communicate about your communication. And this is referred to as metacommunication. In the same way, you can use language (i.e., metalanguage) to talk about language (i.e., object language). And you can talk about your messages with metamessages.
The distinction between object communication and metacommunication is not merely academic; it’s extremely practical and recognizing the difference between these two forms of communication is essential in untangling lots of conflicts and understanding a wide variety of interpersonal communication interactions.
Actually, you use this distinction every day, perhaps without realizing it. For example, when you send someone an e-mail with a seemingly sarcastic comment and then put a smiley at the end, the smiley communicates about your communication; it says something like “this message is not to be taken literally; I’m trying to be humorous.” The smiley is a metamessage; it’s a message about a message. When you say, in preface to some comment, “I’m not sure about this but. . .” you’re communicating a message about a message; you’re commenting on the message and asking that it be understood with the qualification that you may be wrong. When you conclude a comment with “I’m only kidding” you’re metacommunicating; you’re communicating about the communication.
In relationship communication you often talk in metalanguage and say things like, “we really need to talk about the way we communicate when we’re out with company” or “you’re too critical” or “I love when you tell me how much you love me.” In fact, it might be argued that relationship or couples therapy is largely (though not entirely) a process of exploring your communication patterns through metacommunication, through talking about the way you talk to and about each other.
And, of course, you can use nonverbal messages to metacommunicate. You can wink at someone to indicate that you’re only kidding, look longingly into another eyes when you say “I love you” to show that you really mean it, or sneer after saying “Yeah, that was great,” with the sneer contradicting the literal meaning of the verbal message.
In a similar way, meta- can prefix a large number of terms to distinguish them from their object counterparts. Thus, you can have, say, a theory about the way communication works or about first encounters or about persuasion but you can also have a metatheory, a theory about theories. For example, when you consider the qualities that a theory must have (say, it must have clearly defined terms and be capable of being disproven), these are metatheoretical statements; they are statements about theories and not about the way communication works or about first encounters or about persuasion; they are about theories as theories.
Like all your communication, your metacommunication may be used both effectively and ineffectively. Generally, it’s helpful to analyze your talking patterns and the ways in which you and your partner or management and workers, say, relate to each other. This is good; this is the effective use of metacommunication and can often lead to significant improvements in your own relationships. But, when you substitute talking about your communication for talking about a problem, you’re likely to create more problems than you had originally. For example, let’s say you’re part of a couple discussing your child’s getting into trouble with the police. As long as the conversation is focused on the child and the trouble with the police, it seems you’re addressing the problem at hand. But, there is also a tendency to substitute talk about the talk for talk about the problem. Let’s say one person says “You’re just an uncaring parent.” Then the other person focuses on being called “uncaring” and the conversation now veers off into whether “uncaring” is justified and may entail a list of all the actions that demonstrated a great deal of caring. The conversation (and soon-to-be argument) is now between the parents and their view of each other. When this type of talk becomes the sole or main topic of conversation, you’re into what is called a metacommunication spiral, with your talk focusing more and more on the ways you talk and less and less on the problem of the child.
So, the lessons to be learned from metacommunication are two fold: (1) use metacommunication to improve your interpersonal and relationship communication—to preface important messages or to analyze and ultimately improve relationship communication, for example, and (2) avoid metacommunication when it substitutes for addressing an immediate problem.

Training for Teens

Here is an interesting development I've been made aware of only recently. It's a plan to establish centers for teens to help them in a variety of ways. Here is just a little blurb with a link to more information. The possibilities for communication skills training seems a natural here.

O2 MAX does fitness training and nutrition counseling exclusively for teens. Next month they will open their first ‘fitness
hub’ at the Spectrum Club in Manhattan Beach, a pioneering break‐thru at the adults‐only facility. O2 MAX @ Spectrum
will be a “third space” destination for teens that combines fitness with key elements in their daily lives – music,
technology and social networking. In addition there will be a homework Lounge and onsite tutoring by The Princeton
Review. To learn more, visit the O2 MAX homepage at http://www.o2maxfitness.com.

To Beginning Students

Here is an amended and edited note I sent to my niece, Christina, as she was preparing to go off to college this week and I thought it might be of interest to students beginning their college career this semester. It’s a simple list of do’s and don’ts about courses to take and courses to avoid.

1. Don't take a course because your friend is taking it. In fact, going into a course with a friend may prevent you from making new friends. More important, that's not a good reason to spend 45 hours in class, 90 hours of homework, and a few thousand $.
2. Don't take a course just because it's reported to be an easy A or because there's little homework. While courses like this may raise your GPA, they really won't help you in life.
3. Don't take a course because the teacher seems nice. Nice and competent are two different things and while it's nice to have a nice teacher, it's a lot less important than having a competent one.
4. If you have the opportunity--and you may not in your first year or two—take a look at the syllabi for the courses you’re interested in. Many of these are readily available on the Web; just search for the course title and the instructor’s name or perhaps go through the college website. Reviewing the syllabus will give you an idea of the topics covered in the course and what will be expected of you.
5. Take courses that will educate you--that is, make you a well rounded intelligent individual--this doesn't mean that you're not one already, only that everyone can improve or so we educators assume. Take courses (at least introductory ones)in the fine arts, in art and music and theatre. Take a philosophy course or two--it will show you how the great thinkers thought. Take a course or two in economics (even if it may seem dry and uninteresting to you now). Take a course in anthropology; it will help you become less ethnocentric (my assumption is that we're all ethnocentric to some degree and our task is to try to reduce it and not let it blind us to the tremendous values to be derived from other cultures). Anthropology will help you see other cultures from other perspectives and in the process your own culture with a somewhat different lens. And last take communication courses--English and Speech Communication. Learn to write and speak as effectively as you possibly can. If you just glance at the want ads in the Sunday paper, you'll see that "communication skills" is almost always mentioned, regardless of the type of job. And if you read the first chapter of just about any textbook in communication, you’ll find additional evidence on the importance of communication skills.
6. Don't avoid courses because you may not do well in them. Although you need to keep up a good GPA, you also need to learn what you don't already know--after all, that's the purpose of college--and that often entails courses that you may not do well in. Many schools have systems in place which encourage students to take courses outside their area of competence without damaging their GPA, such as Pass-Fail options. Take advantage of them.
7. Don't worry about locking yourself into a major so early. Just explore, don't commit. You'll always have the opportunity to concentrate in your area of specialization. Devote yourself now to exploring the world of ideas and there's no better place to do that than college.
8. Work hard in the courses even when you don't have to. Remember, what you do in these courses is going to become part of who you are and who you become. You can't do mediocre work and expect to become excellent; you can only become excellent by acting excellently :-)
9. Approach your courses positively, with the idea that you're going to enjoy them and learn a lot from them. Learning can and should be fun. Too often, the bad reputation of a course or perhaps simply because it's required, gives students a negative attitude toward the course and perhaps the subject matter. This only makes learning more difficult.
10. Use your course work to continue keeping up with technology. For example, if you're taking public speaking, learn PowerPoint in and out and make use of it (even if you don’t have to). If possible, take a few computer science courses. And if your coursework doesn't help you keep up with technology, seek out the information and skills elsewhere on campus. It’s essential that you become comfortable with and proficient in the newest technologies; your competence here (as with communication) will prove useful throughout your career, regardless of what that career turns out to be.

What Not to Say

There's an interesting article in USA Today (August 7) that talks about weddings. In a box there are tips on what not to say if you're the mother of the groom: Don't criticize the bride, put your son in the middle, speak negatively of the bride's family, act like someone you're not, talk about the newly marrieds having kids. These suggestions, btw, come from Sharon Naylor's Mother of the Groom. This got me thinking that we don't talk enough about what not to say in our textbooks and classrooms. Generally, our instruction is of the what to do type, not the what not to do type and when you think of it, both seem equally important. And so I thought that a useful experience might be to ask students to generate "what not to say" lists for a variety of occasions--to the son at the funeral of his mother, to a new mother, to a new physician, to new neighbors who moved in next door, to the neighbors' children who make too much noise, to the interviewer's assistant as you wait to be interviewed, to the aging aunt who has to go into a nursing home, to your partner after the worst date in your life, and on and on, depending on your specific students and specific teaching goals.

Persuasion book

If you want a book on persuasion that's practical for today’s world and at the same time discusses the roots of rhetoric (Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian—the entire group is here), take a look at Jay Heinrichs’ Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion (Three Rivers Press, 2007). The subtitles of just a few of the chapters will give you an idea of the book’s perspective and range: Cicero’s Lightbulb, Eminem’s Rules of Decorum, The Belushi Paradigm, Quintilian’s Useful Doubt, Aristotle’s Favorite Topic, Monty Python’s Treasury of Wit, The Brad Pitt Factor. It’s definitely a book worth looking into.

Here is some useful advice for organizational communication from the point of view of engineers.

Stress and Communication

Here's an interesting article on reducing stress. What makes it particularly interesting to me is that the techniques are wholly or largely communication techniques that we teach our students and write about in our textbooks: assertiveness; conflict resolution; verbal, nonverbal, and listening skills; social networking, selective awareness, humor, self-esteem, and such techniques as thought stopping, systematic desensitization, and re-labeling. Seldom do we take the skills we teach and apply them to such everyday problems like stress. This article is an interesting example of how to take what we all know so well and apply it to make life easier and, in this particular case, less stressful.