Listener's Communication Techniques - Paper Example

Why is the quality of the relationship between client and worker so important? (France and Weikel, 2019). Often, we do not find this question necessary because most talkers and listeners do not ask themselves this question. France and Weikel (2019) explain that the reason is to gain the cooperation of clients. When we start a conversation or someone comes to seek advice, we do not reflect on how important the mode in which we pass information or give time to listen to others impacts on those we try to connect with. France and Weikel (2019) further indicate that effective collaboration is not something that happens automatically; there is always the potential for clients to be unconsciously defensive or even purposefully uncooperative.

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Many people seek our audience to create room for us to listen and provide amicable solutions to their problems. Petersen from previous chapters has highlighted the characteristics of a good listener and talker cues towards effective communication. As Petersen reflects, communication and relationship are majorly impacted by how we play roles as talkers or listeners. Jesus from St. Luke's gospel is a good role model of today's Christians. We learn to communicate effectively to connect with others, but not make the people who seek our attention feel less. France and Weikel (2019) suggest that several avenues play a significant role in how different communication contexts make talkers perceive us. Some of these avenues that I will discuss empathy, warmth, genuineness, and alliance are salient characteristics our listening and talking skills should be equipped with.

Starting with the first avenue, empathy is understanding another person and communicating your understanding of the individual. France and Weikel (2019) put across that clients generally experience more remarkable improvement when there is a high level of empathic understanding from the worker, as demonstrated by reviews of empirical studies as cited from (e.g., Elliott, Bohart, Watson, & Murphy, 2018). There are special communication situations that require talkers and listeners to exhibit different tactics of availing effective listening and verbal skills, as Petersen (2015) outlines. In a particular situation, I have found myself that I have failed to express my emotions simply because I had not known how to present myself as an effective communicator. Similarly, working at a customer care desk was a challenge. I lost my job because of a non-performance rating because most customers I attended never returned, and this has puzzled my mind for long. France and Weikel (2019) acknowledge that a client who feels satisfied feels a connection in thoughts with the worker. The customer feels the worker understood the concerns. However, it is tricky to know whether you are empathic, but you can tell this when a customer or an individual you're talking to pays attention and keeps the conversation going.

I remember attending a 'boys back home power talk,' and the speaker of that day had a hard time connecting with our soldiers after coming back from duty. At that time, I thought that the soldiers deliberately chose not to listen, but after learning Petersen's guidelines on effective communication, I realized why the soldiers got bored and walked away from the talk. France and Weikel (2019) inform us that when you are warm, you communicate caring. Primarily through your demeanor, the client can tell that you genuinely are interested in their wellbeing. We ought to show warmth in our conversation to keep listeners want to harvest more from our talk. When preparing for preaching, I get a challenge on how to convey the word to the saints. I usually put myself in the audience, sit, and watch myself preaching. This gives me the atmosphere and the state at which the listeners are in. Most Christian does not have a common perspective when they come to church. Some come for God to work a miracle on their problems, making expectations from the preaching different for most Christian. The genuineness of the message we convey touches different hearts in different ways.

France and Weikel (2019) say that the third interpersonal skill, genuineness, means what you say. Empirical research demonstrates that genuineness is significantly and positively related to client progress. The degree of shared genuineness and accurate shared perceptions of each other by the client and the worker has been a real relationship. Listening genuinely keeps the talker sharing more with us and helps us as listeners to understand the pain or the underlying issue so that we can be able to help them. Schultze and Badzinski (2015) have emphasized the importance of being honest and truthful on the message we pass. Paying attention and complimenting the talker is a good listening habit. If someone is sharing a problem and realizes that your attention is oriented elsewhere, that person immediately stops sharing and keeps the issue.

Additional ways of enhancing consensus and collaboration include problem-solving and stabling goals by forming alliances between talkers and listeners. This does not mean to take another person's problems to be yours. When allying listening skills, both the talker and the listener reach a consensus on the discussion. Forming alliances comes with many merits as both parties resolve their emotions and feeling. Imagine a teenager kicked out of school for misbehaving. When talking to this teenager, the conversation is termed a bullfighter kind of conversation, as Petersen (2015) indicates. To reach the thoughts of this, you adult needs us as listen to get a level where the teenager feels safe to share the concerns, and in return, you get a chance to show the teenager where the problem is, and in doing this way, you help the teenager to understand the importance of discipline in school.

Finally, folding up coats, when we listen to folks and help them clarify and move their motivations for doing something away from proving themselves and move towards wanting to do it and wanting it done, the less they get into that parent-child bond that gets them to resist us (Petersen, 2015). We can help our talkers change their perspectives of things by being emphatical, warm in our conversation, genuine, and form alliances with them. As Petersen (2015), these avenues I have discussed will give them the ability to use their motivations to drive behavior changes that they want and open the door to new approaches to life with more satisfaction and enjoyment.

References

France, K. & Weikel, K. (2019). Helping skills for human service workers. 4th ed. https://scholar.google.com/book/32789234.helping_skills_for_human_service_workers

Petersen, J. (2015). Why don't we listen better? Communicating and connecting in relationships. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2312686.Why_Don_t_We_Listen_Better_

Schultze, Q. J. & Badzinski, D. M. (2015). An essential guide to interpersonal communication. http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/an-essential-guide-to-interpersonal-communication/376770