t

Listening to People

By RALPH G. NICHOLS and LEONARD A. STEVENS

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BusinessReview

September - October 1957

Vol. 35, No. 5

The Harvard Business Review does not assume responsibility forthe points of view or opinions of its contributors . It does acceptresponsibility for giving them an opportunity to express such viewsand opinions in its columns .

ARTICLES

Search for a Managerial PhilosophyO. A. Ohmann

411

Marketing Costs and Mathematical ProgramingWilliam J . Baumol and Charles H. Sevin

52

How to Choose and Use a LawyerLawrence A. Sullivan

61

Can the Businessman Apply Christianity?Harold L. Johnson

68

Never Overestimate the Power of a ComputerRalph F. Lewis

77

Listening to PeopleRalph G. Nichols and Leonard A. Stevens

85

New Dimensions in Top Executive ReadingEdward C. Bursk

93

Strategies for DiversificationH. Igor Ansof f

113

Annual Report on Executive CompensationArch Patton

FEATURES

125

In This Issue : Articles and AuthorsThe Editors

7

Thinking Ahead : On the Side of InflationSumner H. Slichter

15

From the Thoughtful Businessman : LettersReview Readers

139

Looking Around : New Marketing ConceptsStanley C. Hollander

157

Ralph G. .Nichols andLeonard A . Stevens

"The effectiveness of the spokenword," say Ralph G . Nichols andLeonard A. Stevens, "hinges notso much on how people talk butmostly on how they listen ." Intheir article, Listening to People,they open up a subject of tre-mendous practical importance toexecutives . They go on to analyzethe problem and discuss steps forimproving aural skills .Mr. Nichols, who heads up a

Communications Program at theUniversity of Minnesota, is na-tionally known for his many ar-ticles and lectures on communi-cation problems . In 1951-1952he served as President of the Na-tional Society for the Study ofCommunication, an organizationchartered to make a continuingand systematic study of communi-cation as a means to buildingmore harmonious relations with-in groups and among individuals .

From In This Issue

He has also served on the editorialboards of two national publica-tions, has taught in a wide varietyof adult education programs, andhas been President of the StateSpeech Teachers Associations inIowa and Minnesota.Mr. Stevens is a free-lance

writer and a consultant on oralpresentation to a number of lead-ing companies and also is affili-ated with Management Develop-ment Associates of New York. Fortwo years he served as News Edi-tor and Newscaster for educa-tional radio station WSUI in IowaCity. He was doing research onthe comprehension of news writ-ing and broadcasting at the Uni-versity of Iowa when he met Mr .Nichols . They collaborated onsome short articles on listeningand now have a book coming outon the subject - Are You Listen-ing? (McGraw-Hill Book Com-pany, Inc., 1957) .

The busy executive spends 80%fo of his time . . .

LISTENING to PEOPLE

By Ralph G. Nicholsand Leonard A. Stevens

Recently the top executives of a major manu-facturing plant in the Chicago area were askedto survey the role that listening plays in theirwork. Later, an executive seminar on listen-ing was held . Here are three typical commentsmade by participants

Q "Frankly, I had never thought of listeningas an important subject by itself. But now thatI am aware of it, I think that perhaps 8 o % of mywork depends on my listening to someone, or onsomeone else listening to me ."

Q "I've been thinking back about things thathave gone wrong over the past couple of years,and I suddenly realized that many of the troubleshave resulted from someone not hearing something,or getting it in a distorted way ."

a "It's interesting to me that we have consideredso many facets of communication in the company,but have inadvertently overlooked listening . I'veabout decided that it's the most important link inthe company's communications, and it's obviouslyalso the weakest one ."

These comments reflect part of an awakeningthat is taking place in a number of managementcircles. Business is tied together by its sys-tems of communication. This communication,businessmen are discovering, depends more on

AUTHORS' NOTE : The material for this article comesfrom our forthcoming book, Are You Listening? (NewYork, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc ., scheduled forpublication September, 1957)-

'See E . J. J. Kramar and Thomas R. Lewis, "Compari-

. . . and still. doesn't hear half of what is said .

the spoken word than it does on the writtenword; and the effectiveness of the spoken wordhinges not so much on how people talk as onhow they listen .

The Unused PotentialIt can be stated, with practically no qualifica-

tion, that people in general do not know howto listen. They have ears that hear very well,but seldom have they acquired the necessaryaural skills which would allow those ears to beused effectively for what is called listening .

For several years we have been testing theability of people to understand and rememberwhat they hear. At the University of Minnesotawe examined the listening ability of severalthousand students and of hundreds of businessand professional people. In each case the persontested listened to short talks by faculty membersand was examined for his grasp of the content .

These extensive tests led us to this generalconclusion : immediately after the average per-son has listened to someone talk, he remembersonly about half of what he has heard - no mat-ter how carefully he thought he was listening .

What happens as time passes? Our owntesting shows - and it has been substantiatedby reports of research at Florida State Univer-sity and Michigan State University' - that twomonths after listening to a talk, the averageson of Visual and Nonvisual Listening," Journal of Com-munication, November 1951, p . i6; and Arthur W.Heilman, "An Investigation in Measuring and ImprovingListening Ability of College Freshmen," Speech Mono-graphs, November 1951, P • 3o8 .

85

86 Harvard Business Review

listener will remember only about 25% of whatwas said. In fact, after we have barely learnedsomething, we tend to forget from one-half toone-third of it within eight hours ; it is star-tling to realize that frequently we forget morein this first short interval than we do in thenext six months .

Gap in TrainingBehind this widespread inability to listen lies,

in our opinion, a major oversight in our sys-tem of classroom instruction . We have focusedattention on reading, considering it the primarymedium by which-we learn, and we have prac-tically forgotten the art of listening . About sixyears are devoted to formal reading instructionin our school systems. Little emphasis is placedon speaking, and almost no attention has beengiven to the skill of listening, strange as this maybe in view of the fact that so much lecturingis done in college. Listening training - if itcould be called training - has often consistedmerely of a series of admonitions extendingfrom the first grade through college : "Pay at-tention!" "Now get this!" "Open your ears!""Listen!"

Certainly our teachers feel the need for goodlistening. Why then have so many years passedwithout educators developing formal methodsof teaching students to listen? We have beenfaced with several false assumptions which haveblocked the teaching of listening. For example :

(1) We have assumed that listening ability de-pends largely on intelligence, that "bright" peoplelisten well, and "dull" ones poorly . There is no de-nying that low intelligence has something to dowith inability to listen, but we have greatly exag-gerated its importance . A poor listener is not neces-sarily an unintelligent person . To be good listenerswe must apply certain skills that are acquiredthrough either experience or training . If a personhas not acquired these listening skills, his abilityto understand and retain what he hears will be low .This can happen to people with both high andlow levels of intelligence :

(2) We have assumed that learning to readwill automatically teach one to listen . While someof the skills attained through reading apply tolistening, the assumption is far from completelyvalid. Listening is a different activity from read-ing and requires different skills. Research hasshown that reading and listening skills do not im-prove at the same rate when only reading is taught.

This means that in our schools, where little at-tention is paid to the aural element of communica-

tion, reading ability is continually upgraded whilelistening ability, left to falter along on its own, actu=ally degenerates . As a fair reader and a bad listen-er, the typical student is graduated into a societywhere the chances are high that he will have to lis-ten about three times as much as he reads .

The barriers to listening training that havebeen built up by such false assumptions arecoming down. Educators are realizing that lis-tening is a skill that can be taught. In Nash-ville, for example, the public school system hasstarted training in listening from elementarygrades through high school . Listening is alsotaught in the Phoenix school system, in Cin-cinnati, and throughout the state of North Da-kota. About two dozen major universities andcolleges in the country now provide courses inlistening.

At the University of Minnesota we have beenpresenting a course in listening to a large seg-ment of the freshman class . Each group of stu-dents that has taken listening training has im-proved at least 25% in ability to understandthe spoken word. Some of the groups have im-proved as much as 40% . We have also givena course in listening for adult education classesmade up mostly of business and professionalpeople. These people have made some of thehighest gains in listening ability of any that wehave seen. During one period, 6o men andwomen nearly doubled their listening test scoresafter working together on this skill one nighta week for 17 weeks .

Ways to ImprovementAny course or any effort that will lead to

listening improvement should do two things :1 . Build awareness to factors that affect listen-

ing ability .2 . Build the kind of aural experience that can

produce good listening habits .

At least a start on the first of these two edu-cational elements can be made by readers of thisarticle; a certain degree of awareness is de-veloped by merely discussing factors that affectlistening ability. Later we shall discuss somesteps that might be taken in order to work atthe second element.

Tracks & SidetracksIn general, people feel that concentration

while listening is a greater problem than con-

centration during any other form of personalcommunication. Actually, listening concentra-tion is more difficult. When we listen, concen-tration must be achieved despite a factor that ispeculiar to aural communication, one of whichfew people are aware .

Basically, the problem is caused by the factthat we think much faster than we talk . Theaverage rate of speech for most Americans isaround 125 words per minute . This rate is slowgoing for the human brain, which is made upof more than 13 billion cells and operates insuch a complicated but efficient manner that itmakes the great, modern digital computers seemslow-witted. People who study the brain arenot in complete agreement on how it functionswhen we think, but most psychologists believethat the basic medium of thought is language .Certainly words play a large part in our think-ing processes, and the words race through ourbrains at speeds much higher than 125 wordsper minute . This means that, when we listen,we ask our brain to receive words at an extreme-ly slow pace compared with its capabilities .

It might seem logical to slow down our think-ing when we listen so as to coincide with the125-word-per-minute speech rate, but slowingdown thought processes seems to be a verydifficult thing to do . When we listen, therefore,we continue thinking at high speed while thespoken words arrive at low speed . In the actof listening, the differential between thinkingand speaking rates means that our brain workswith hundreds of words in addition to thosethat we hear, assembling thoughts other thanthose spoken to us. To phrase it another way,we can listen and still have some spare time forthinking.

The use, or misuse, of this spare thinkingtime holds the answer to how well a person canconcentrate on the spoken word .

Case o f the Disenchanted Listener . In ourstudies at the University of Minnesota, we findmost people do not use their spare thinking timewisely as they listen . Let us illustrate how thishappens by describing a familiar experience :

A, the boss, is talking to B, the subordinate,about a new program. that the firm is planning tolaunch. B is a poor listener . In this instance, hetries to listen well, but he has difficulty concen-trating on what A has to say .

A starts talking and B launches into the listeningprocess, grasping every word and phrase that comesinto his ears. But right away B finds that, be-

Listening to People 87cause of A's slow rate of speech, he has timeto think of things other than the spoken line ofthought. Subconsciously, B decides to sandwich afew thoughts of his own into the aural ones thatare arriving so slowly . So B quickly dashes outonto a mental sidetrack and thinks something likethis : "Oh, yes, before I leave I want to tell A aboutthe big success of the meeting I called yesterday ."Then B comes back to A's spoken line of thoughtand listens for a few more words .

There is plenty of time for B to do just what hehas done, dash away from what .he hears and thenreturn quickly, and he continues taking sidetracksto his own private thoughts . Indeed, he can hardlyavoid doing this because over the years the processhas become a strong aural habit of his .

But, sooner or later, on one of the mental side-tracks, B is almost sure to stay away too long .When he returns, A is moving along ahead of him .At this point it becomes harder for B to understandA, simply because B has missed part of the oralmessage. The private mental sidetracks becomemore inviting than ever, and B slides off ontoseveral of them . Slowly he misses more and moreof what A has to say .

When A is through talking, it is safe to saythat B will have received and understood less thanhalf of what was spoken to him .

Rules for Good ReceptionA major task in helping people to listen bet-

ter is teaching them to use their spare thinkingtime efficiently as they listen . What does "effi-ciently" mean? To answer this question, wemade an extensive study of people's listeninghabits, especially trying to discover what hap-pens when people listen well .

We found that good listeners regularly en-gage in four mental activities, each geared to theoral discourse and taking place concurrentlywith that oral discourse . All four of these men-tal activities are neatly coordinated when listen-ing works at its best. They tend to direct a maxi-mum amount of thought to the message beingreceived, leaving a minimum amount of time formental excursions on sidetracks leading awayfrom the talker's thought . Here are the fourprocesses :

(1) The listener thinks ahead of the talker,trying to anticipate what the oral discourse is lead-ing to and what conclusions will be drawn fromthe words spoken at the moment .

(2) The listener weighs the evidence used bythe talker to support the points that he makes ."Is this evidence valid?" the listener asks him-self. "Is it the complete evidence?"

88 Harvard Business Review(3) Periodically the listener reviews and men-

tally summarizes the points of the talk completedthus far .

(4) Throughout the talk, the listener "listensbetween the lines" in search of meaning that is notnecessarily put into spoken words . He pays atten-tion to nonverbal communication (facial expres-sions, gestures, tone of voice) to see if it adds mean-ing to the spoken words . He asks himself, "Is thetalker purposely skirting some area of the subject?Why is he doing so?"

The speed at which we think compared tothat at which people talk allows plenty of timeto accomplish these four mental tasks when welisten ; however, they do require practice be-fore they can become part of the mental agilitythat makes for good listening . In our trainingcourses we have devised aural exercises designedto give people this practice and thereby build upgood habits of aural concentration .

Listening for IdeasAnother factor that affects listening ability

concerns the reconstruction of orally communi-cated thoughts once they have been received bythe listener . To illustrate

The newspapers reported not too long ago thata church was torn down in Europe and shippedstone by stone to America, where it was reassembledin its original form . The moving of the churchis analogous to what happens when a person speaksand is understood by a listener . The talker hasa thought. To transmit his thought, he takes itapart by putting it into words . The words, sentthrough the air to the listener, must then be men-tally reassembled into the original thought if theyare to be thoroughly understood . But most peopledo not know what to listen for, and so cannotreconstruct the thought .

For some reason many people take great pridein being able to say that above all they try to"get the facts" when they listen . It seems logicalenough to do so . If a person gets all the facts,he should certainly understand what is said tohim. Therefore, many people try to memorizeevery single fact that is spoken . With suchpractice at "getting the facts," the listener, wecan safely assume, will develop a serious badlistening habit .

Memorizing facts is, to begin with, a virtualimpossibility for most people in the listeningsituation . As one fact is being memorized, thewhole, or part, of the next fact is almost cer-tain to be missed . When he is doing his very

best, the listener is likely to catch only a fewfacts, garble many others, and completely missthe remainder. Even in the case of people whocan aurally assimilate all the facts that theyhear, one at a time as they hear them, listeningis still likely to be at a low level ; they are con-cerned with the pieces of what they hear andtend to miss the broad areas of the spoken com-munication .

When people talk, they want listeners to un-derstand their ideas . The facts are useful chief-ly for constructing the ideas . Grasping ideas,we have found, is the skill on which the goodlistener concentrates . He remembers facts onlylong enough to understand the ideas that arebuilt from them . But then, almost miracu-lously, grasping an idea will help the listenerto remember the supporting facts more effec-tively than does the person who goes after factsalone . This listening skill is one which defi-nitely can be taught, one in which people canbuild experience leading toward improved auralcommunication .

Emotional FiltersIn different degrees and in many different

ways, listening ability is affected by our emo-tions? Figuratively we reach up and mentallyturn off what we do not want to hear . Or, onthe other hand, when someone says what weespecially want to hear, we open our ears wide,accepting everything - truths, half-truths, orfiction . We might say, then, that our emotionsact as aural filters . At times they in effectcause deafness, and at other times they makelistening altogether too easy .

If we hear something that opposes our mostdeeply rooted prejudices, notions, convictions,mores, or complexes, our brains may becomeoverstimulated, and not in a direction that leadsto good listening. We mentally plan a rebut-tal to what we hear, formulate a question de-signed to embarrass the talker, or perhaps simplyturn to thoughts that support our own feelingson the subject at hand . For example :

The firm's accountant goes to the general man-ager and says : "I have just heard from the Bureauof Internal Revenue, and . . . ." The generalmanager suddenly breathes harder as he thinks,"That blasted bureau! Can't they leave me alone?Every year the government milks my profits to apoint where . . . ." Red in the face, he whirls

' See Wendell Johnson, "The Fateful Process of Mr . ATalking to Mr . B," HBR January-February 1953, P• 49 .

and stares out the window. The label "Bureau ofInternal Revenue" cuts loose emotions that stopthe general manager's listening.

In the meantime, the accountant may go on tosay that here is a chance to save $3,000 this yearif the general manager will take a few simplesteps. The fuming general manager may hear this- if the accountant presses hard enough - butthe chances are he will fail to comprehend it .

When emotions make listening too easy, itusually results from hearing something whichsupports the deeply rooted inner feelings thatwe hold. When we hear such support, our men-tal barriers are dropped and everything is wel-comed. We ask few questions about what wehear; our critical faculties are put out of com-mission by our emotions . Thinking drops to aminimum because we are hearing thoughts thatwe have harbored for years in support of ourinner feelings . It is good to hear someone elsethink those thoughts, so we lazily enjoy thewhole experience .

What can we do about these emotional filters?The solution is not easy in practice, althoughit can be summed up in this simple admonitionhear the man out. Following are two pointersthat often help in training people to do this :

(1) Withhold evaluation - This is one of themost important principles of learning, especiallylearning through the ear. It requires self-control,sometimes more than many of us can muster, butwith persistent practice it can be turned into avaluable habit. While listening, the main objectis to comprehend each point made by the talker .Judgments and decisions should be reserved untilafter the talker has finished .- At that time, andonly then, review his main ideas and assess them .

(2) Hunt for negative evidence - When welisten, it is human to go on a militant searchfor evidence which proves us right in what webelieve. Seldom do we make a search for evidenceto prove ourselves wrong. The latter type of effortis not easy, for behind its application must lie agenerous spirit and real breadth of outlook . How-ever, an important part of listening comprehensionis found in the search for negative evidence in whatwe hear. If we make up our minds to seek outthe ideas that might prove us wrong, as well asthose that might prove us right, we are less indanger of missing what people have to say .

Benefits in Business

The improvement of listening, or simply aneffort to make people aware of how important

Listening to People 89their listening ability is, can be of great valuein today's business. When people in businessfail to hear and understand each other, the re-sults can be costly. Such things as numbers,dates, places, and names are especially easy toconfuse, but the most straightforward agree-ments are often subjects of listening errors, too .When these mistakes are compounded, the re-sulting cost and inefficiency in business com-munication become serious. Building awarenessof the importance of listening among employeescan eliminate a large percentage of this typeof aural error .

What are some of the specific problems whichbetter listening can help solve?

Less Paper WorkFor one thing, it leads to economy of com-

munication. Incidents created by poor listeningfrequently give businessmen a real fear of oralcommunication . As a result, they insist thatmore and more communication should be putinto writing. A great deal of communicationneeds to be on the record, but the pressure towrite is often carried too far . The smallest de-tail becomes "memoed ." Paper work piles high-er and higher and causes part of the tangle wecall red tape. Many times less writing and morespeaking would be advisable - i f we could planon good listening .

Writing and reading are much slower com-munication elements than speaking and listen-ing. They require more personnel, more equip-ment, and more space than do speaking andlistening. Often a stenographer and a messen-ger are needed, to say nothing of dictating ma-chines, typewriters, and other writing materials .Few people ever feel it is safe to throw awaya written communication ; so filing equipmentis needed, along with someone to do the filing .

In oral communication there are more humansenses at work than in the visual ; and if thereis good listening, more can often be communi-cated in one message. And, perhaps most im-portant of all, there is the give-and-take featureof oral communication . If the listener does notunderstand a message, he has the opportunityto straighten matters out then and there .

Upward CommunicationThe skill of listening becomes extremely im-

portant when we talk about "upward commu-nication ." There are many avenues throughwhich management can send messages down-

90 Harvard Business Reviewward through a business organization, but thereare few avenues for movement of informationin the upward direction. Perhaps the most ob-vious of the upward avenues is the human chainof people talking to people : the man working atthe bench talks to his foreman, the foreman tohis superintendent, the superintendent to hisboss; and, relayed from person to person, theinformation eventually reaches the top .

This communication chain has potential, butit seldom works well because it is full of badlisteners. There can be failure for at least threereasons :

•

Without good listeners, people do not talkfreely and the flow of communication is sel-dom set in motion .

• If the flow should start, only one bad listeneris needed to stop its movement toward the top .

• Even if the flow should continue to the top,the messages are likely to be badly distortedalong the way .

It would be absurd to assume that these up-ward communication lines could be made tooperate without hitches, but there is no reasonto think that they cannot be improved by bet-ter listening. But the first steps must be takenby top management people . More and betterlistening on their part can prime the pumps thatstart the upward flow of information .

Human RelationsPeople in all phases of business need to feel

free to talk to their superiors and to know theywill be met with sympathetic understanding.But too many superiors although they an-nounce that their doors are always open - failto listen ; and their subordinates, in the face ofthis failure, do not feel free to say what theywant to say . As a result, subordinates withdrawfrom their superiors more and more . They failto talk about important problems that shouldbe aired for both parties' benefit . When suchproblems remain unaired, they often turn intounrealistic monsters that come back to plaguethe superior who failed to listen .

The remedy for this sort of aural failureand it should be applied when subordinates feelthe need to talk - is what we have called "non-directive listening." The listener hears, reallytries to understand, and later shows understand-ing by taking action if it is required. Above all,during an oral discourse, the listener refrainsfrom firing his own thoughts back at the person

talking or from indicating his displeasure ordisapproval by his mannerisms or gestures ; hespeaks up only to ask for clarification of a point .

Since the listener stands the chance of hear-ing that his most dearly held notions and ideasmay be wrong, this is not an easy thing to do .To listen nondirectively without fighting backrequires more courage than most of us can mus-ter . But when nondirective listening can beapplied, the results are usually worth the effort .The persons talking have a chance to unburdenthemselves . Equally important, the odds arebetter that the listener can counsel or act ef-fectively when the time comes to make a move .

Listening is only one phase of human rela-tions, only one aspect of the administrator'sjob; by itself it will solve no major problems .Yet the past experience of many executives andorganizations leaves no doubt, in our opinion,that better listening can lead to a reduction ofthe human frictions which beset many busi-nesses today .

Listening to SellHigh-pressure salesmanship is rapidly giving

way to low-pressure methods . in the marketingof industrial and consumer goods . Today's suc-cessful salesman is likely to center his attentionon the customer-problem approach of selling .

To put this approach to work, the skill of lis-tening becomes an essential tool for the sales-man, while his vocal agility becomes less im-portant . How a salesman talks turns out to berelativelyy unimportant because what he says,when it is guided by his listening, gives powerto the spoken word . In other words, the sales-man's listening becomes an on-the-spot form ofcustomer research that can immediately be putto work in formulating any sales talk.

Regardless of the values that listening mayhold for people who live by selling, a great manysales organizations seem to hold to the convic-tion that glibness has magic . Their efforts atimprovement are aimed mainly at the talkingside of salesmanship . It is our conviction, how-ever, that with the typical salesman the abilityto talk will almost take care of itself, but theability to listen is something in real need ofimprovement .

In ConferenceThe most important affairs in business are

conducted around conference tables . A greatdeal has been said and written about how to talk

at a conference, how to compromise, how to getproblem-centered, and how to cope with certaintypes of individuals . All these things can bevery important, but too frequently the expertsforget to say, "First and foremost you must learnto listen at a conference ."

The reason for this is simple when we thinkof the basic purpose for holding almost any con-ference. People get together to contribute theirdifferent viewpoints, knowledge, and experienceto members of the group, which then seeks thebest of all the conferees' thinking to solve acommon problem . If there is far more talkingthan listening at a conference, however, the oralcontributions made to the group are hardlyworth the breath required to produce them .

More and better listening at any conferenceis certain to facilitate the exchange of ideasso important to the success of a meeting . It alsooffers many other advantages ; for example,when participants do a good job of listening,their conference is more likely to remain cen-tered on the problem at hand and less likely togo off on irrelevant tangents .

The first steps toward improved conferencelistening can be taken by the group leader . Ifhe will simply make an opening statement call-ing attention to the importance of listening, heis very likely to increase the participants' auralresponse. And if the leader himself does a goodjob of listening, he stands the chance of beingimitated by the others in his group .

ConclusionSome businessmen may want to take steps

to develop a listening improvement program intheir companies. Here are 14 suggestions de-signed to carry on what we hope this articlehas already started to do - build awareness oflistening.

(1) Devote an executive seminar, or seminars,to a discussion of the roles and functions of listen-ing as a business tool .

(2) Use the filmed cases now becoming avail-able for management training programs.$ Sincethese cases present the problem as it would appearin reality, viewers are forced to practice goodlistening habits in order to be sure of what isgoing on - and this includes not only hearing thesound track but also watching the facial manner-isms, gestures, and motions of the actors .

'See George W. Gibson, "The Filmed Case in Manage-ment Training," HBR MayJune 1957, p . 123 ,

Listening to People 91(3) If possible, bring in qualified speakers and

ask them to discuss listening with special referenceto how it might apply to business. Such speakersare available at a number of universities wherelistening is being taught as a part of communica-tion training .

(4) Conduct a self-inventory by the employeesregarding their listening on the job . Provideeveryone with a simple form divided into spacesfor each hour of the day. Each space should befurther divided to allow the user to keep trackof the amount of time spent in reading, writing,speaking, and listening . Discuss the results ofthese forms after the communication times havebeen totaled. What percentage of the time dopeople spend listening? What might improvedlistening mean in terms of job effectiveness?

(5) Give a test in listening ability to peopleand show them the scores that they make . Thereis at least one standardized test for this purpose .4Discuss the meaning of the scores with the indi-viduals tested.

(6) Build up a library of spoken-word recordsof literature, speeches, and so forth (many can bepurchased through record stores), and make themavailable in a room that has a record player . Also,lend the records to employees who might wish totake them home to enjoy them at their leisure .For such a library, material pertinent to the em-ployees' jobs might be recorded so that those whoare interested can listen for educational purposes .

(7) Record a number of actual briefing sessionsthat may be held by plant superintendents orothers. When new people go to work for the com-pany, ask them to listen to these sessions as partof their initial training. Check their comprehen-sion of what they hear by means of brief objectivetests. Emphasize that this is being done becauselistening is important on the new jobs .

(8) Set up role-playing situations wherein ex-ecutives are asked to cope with complaints com-parable to those that they might hear from sub-ordinates . Ask observers to comment on how wellan executive seems to listen . Do his remarks re-flect a good job of listening? Does he keep himselffrom becoming emotionally involved in what thesubordinate says? Does the executive listen in away which would encourage the subordinate totalk freely?

(9) Ask salesmen to divide a notebook intosections, one for each customer. After making acall, a salesman should write down all useful in-formation received aurally from the customer . As

'Brown-Carlsen Listening Comprehension Test (Yon-kers-on-Hudson, World Book Company) .

I

92 Harvard Business Reviewthe information grows, he should refer' to it beforeeach return visit' to a customer .

(10) Where a sales organization has a . numberof friendly customers, invite some of the morearticulate ones to join salesmen in a group dis-cussion of sales techniques . How do the customersfeel about talking and listening on the part ofsalesmen? Try to get the customers .to makelistening critiques of salesmen they encounter.

(11) In a training session, plan and hold aconference on a selected problem and tape-recordit. Afterwards, play back the recording. Discussitt in terms of listening . Do the oral, contributionsof different participants reflect good listening? Ifthe conference should go off the track, . try to analyzethe causes in terms of listening .

(12) If there is time after a regularly scheduledconference, hold a listening critique . Ask eachmember to evaluate the listening attention that hereceived while talking and to report his analysis ofhis own listening performance .

(13) In important management meetings oncontroversial issues_ try Irving J . Lee's "Procedurefor `Coercing' Agreement." a Under the groundrules for this procedure, which Lee outlined in

detail in his article, the chairman calls for a periodduring which proponents of a hotly debated viewcan state their position : without interruption ; theopposition is limited to (a) the asking of questionsfor, clarification, (b) requests for information con-cerning the peculiar characteristics of the proposalbeing considered ; and (c) requests for informationas to whether it is possible to check the 'speaker'sassumptions or predictions .

(14) : Sponsor a series of lectures for employees,their families, and their friends. The lecturesmight be on any. number of interesting topics thathave educational value as well as entertainmentfeatures. Point out that these lectures are availableas part of a listening improvement program .

Not all of these suggestions are applicable toevery situation, of course. Each firm will haveto adapt them to its own particular needs . Themost important thing, however, may not be .whathappens .when a specific suggestion is followed,but rather simply what happens when peoplebecome aware of the problem of listening andof what improved aural skills can do, for theirjobs and their businesses .

HBR January-February 1954, P. 39 .

PEOPLE seem to be .far more powerfully' driven to talk at each other than to'listen to each other, and when they do listen the kind of feedback they give the

speaker and the kind of reaction the speaker makes, in turn, to this feedback -appears distressinglyy often; to be self-defensive and generally competitive, or insin-cere and thus misleading, rather than clarifying, honest, and co-operative .

To be highlighted in this connection is the' strangely underestimated fact thatlisteners can 'and frequently do feel gravely threatened by speakers . . .

What snakes this problem -so intriguing is that as a matter of objective fact noth-ing passes from speaker to listener except air waves and light waves ,and, as such,as manifestations of physical` force, they are impressively weak! Viewed mechan-ically, the sheer' physical effects they sometimes produce are not obviously credible .These really feeble waves commonly disturb the cardiovascular system, endocrineglands, autonomic nervous system,' skeletal musculature, even the digestive systemof the listener, with effects rangingall the way from increased, heart rate and blanch-ing of the skin to regurgitation and even loss of consciousness . . . . Meanwhilenothing except the gentlest of vibrations in the air and perfectly harmless reflec-tions of light passes` between speaker and listener -- even when the speaker shouts,trembles, and jumps`up and down violently . An effective awareness of this shouldgo far to make listeners less fearful and, speakers less confident of the threateningpowers of words, particularly, snarled or shouted words, as such .Wendell Johnson, Your Most Enchanted Listener

New York, Harper & Brothers, 1956, pp . 184-186 .

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