Listening Skill for Communicating Effectively in Teams

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION
VOL. 24, NO. 1, JAN-JUN 2014
Listening Skill for Communicating
Effectively in Teams
EAK PRASAD DUWADI
Kathmandu University
ABSTRACT
Only with team spirit, we can achieve something higher. We
seem to know how to listen, as we believe that listening is an
automatic response to blare. We do it without thinking. This is
the reason why so many of us are poor listeners. In this paper,
I have explored the importance of listening, the kinds of
listening required in the workplace, and how to become a
playmaker. In addition, the paper deals with role of effective
teams, connection between listening skill and teamwork, how
to listen properly, listening at workplace, and approaches to
effective listening.
Although many of the tips for improving our listening
skills will be effective in our professional and personal life, my
analysis is mainly about workplace and employment needs,
and this will expedite teamwork by minimizing conflicts in any
organization.
ROLE OF EFFECTIVE TEAMS
I totally agree with Jobs (2014) when he opines that one of the
keys of Apple is “Apple is an incredibly collaborative company.”
While watching one of the pre-quarter finals between Italian and
English players of FIFA world cup 2014, what struck me the
most was the team spirit each of them was showing.
Consequently, Italy advanced with a brilliant goal that was
designed by at least four players including the captain. In less
than three minutes time, English players exhibited similar
triumph with the help of their teammates. Unlike in the past, the

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game was not a one-man show; instead, it was the team
responsible to both wining and losing.
A team is a collection of individuals guided by a common
purpose striving for the same. With a good team, the whole is
better than the sum of the parts (Mallory 1991). The corporate
world is not different. We are all working together; that is the
secret (Walton as cited by “Teamwork Skills” 2009). Today small
teams are becoming the basic unit of corporate organization.
Even the major corporations have been using teams to get the job
done because teamwork is the concept of people working
together cooperatively as a team in order to accomplish the same
goals (Kefivenzy 2014).
One of the key components of twenty first century skills is
being able to work in a team. Being individually brilliant and
having strong core competencies is always an asset, but unless
we can work in a team and harness each other's core
competencies, we will always perform below the standard level.
Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the
person with the relevant core competency for a situation take
leadership. According to Lafasto & Larson (1988) there are eight
characteristics of effectively functioning teams: A collaborative
climate; standards of excellence; external support and
recognition; principled leadership; a clear elevating goal; a result
– driven structure; competent members; and unified commitment.
Above all, the key to effective teamwork is listening.

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LISTENING SKILL BOOSTS TEAMWORK
Conflict is inevitable in every place and every team. Sometimes,
conflicts may give a breakthrough as they are not always
negative. When managed properly, they can improve decision
making, clarify values, increase group cohesiveness, stimulate
creativity, decrease tensions, and undermine dissatisfaction.
“Communication skills, in particular, are obsessed as surefire
techniques that can transform users and bring in the bucks (or
pounds or Euros) (Urciuoli 2008). On the contrary, unresolved
conflicts can destroy productivity and seriously reduce morale.
There are many ways to avoid conflicts in teams. One of the most
important elements is to develop listening skills.
We should listen carefully to ensure our understanding of the
problem. If the other colleagues do not seem to be listening to us,
we need to set an example and be the first to listen. However,
what we lack the most is listening even today. “Social awareness
skills – such as recognizing what others are thinking and feeling,
empathizing with people different from ourselves, and showing
compassion – form the basis for community building” (Beland
2007). Employers become increasingly aware that listening is a
pivotal skill of both the employee and the employer. “Listening
skills are part of the professional traits that employers seek when
looking for well-rounded candidates who can be hired and
promoted” (Gufey & Loewy 2010).
In today’s world, employees are communicating more than
ever before, largely because of the Internet, teamwork, global
competition, and emphasis on customer service. A vital
ingredient in every successful workplace is high-quality
communication, and three quarters of high-quality
communication involves listening. Listening skills are important
for career success, organization effectiveness, and worker
satisfaction. Numerous studies and experts report that good
listeners make good managers and that good listeners advance
more rapidly in their organizations.
According to Gufey & Loewy (2010), soft skills such as
listening, writing, and speaking are most likely to determine
hiring and career success. Listening is especially important in

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workplaces because we spend a lot of time doing it. Although
estimates vary, it is thought that most workers spend 30 to 45
percent of their communication time listening. On the other hand,
executives spend 60 to 70 percent of their communication time
listening.
LISTENING PROPERLY
Research suggests that they’re not very good at it although
workplace executives and employees devote the bulk of their
communication time to listening. In fact, most of us are poor
listeners. Some estimates indicate that only half of the oral
messages heard in a day are completely understood. Experts say
that we listen at only 25 percent efficiency. In other words, we
ignore, forget, distort, or misunderstand 75 percent of everything
we hear (Gufey & Loewy 2010). Wiant (1999) discloses that the
problem is that while the perspective of the workforce changed –
in the interests of survival – businesses and their leaders have
been slow to understand what happened and why
the workplace must change if managers are to re-establish the
harmony that employer-employee relations once enjoyed.
Poor listening habits may result from several factors. Lack of
training is one significant factor. Hardly any institutions give as
much weight to listening as they do to the development of
reading, speaking, and writing skills. In addition, our listening

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skills may be less than perfect because of the large number of
competing sounds and stimuli in our lives that interfere with
concentration. Finally, we are inefficient listeners because we are
able to process speech much faster than others can speak. While
most speakers talk at about 125 to 175 words per minute,
listeners can listen at 450 words per minute (Gufey & Loewy
2010). The resulting delay time fosters daydreaming, which
clearly reduces listening efficiency.
LISTENING AT WORKPLACES
At workplaces you can expect to be involved in many types of
listening. These include listening to superiors, listening to fellow
colleagues and team members, and listening to customers. If we
are an entry-level employee, we will probably be most concerned
with listening to superiors. But we also must develop skills for
listening to our colleagues and team members. As we advance in
our career and enter the ranks of management, we will need skills
for listening to subordinates. “As technology is developed and
utilized, virtual leaders will have many ways to “listen to see”
(Kerfoot 2010). Finally, the entire organization must listen to
customers to compete in today’s service-oriented economy.
Listening to supervisors: On the job, one of our most important
tasks will be listening to instructions, assignments, and
explanations about how to do our work. We will be listening to
learn and to understand. To focus totally on the speaker, be sure
we are not distracted by noisy surroundings or other tasks.

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Taking phone calls, and trying to complete another job while
listening with one ear are not apt acts. Let’s show our interest by
leaning forward and striving for good eye contact.
Taking notes that also conveys to the speaker your
seriousness about hearing accurately and completely is always
handy as we cannot only rely on our memory, and details are
easy to forget. It is rude to interrupt and hence when the speaker
finishes, you can paraphrase the instructions. Asking pertinent
questions in a nonthreatening manner is diplomacy considered.
We should avoid criticizing or arguing when we are listening to a
superior because our goals should be to hear accurately and to
convey an image of competence.
Listening to colleagues and subordinates: Much of our
listening will take place during interactions with teammates. In
these exchanges two kinds of listening are important. Critical
listening enables us to judge and evaluate what we are hearing.
We will be listening to decide whether the speaker’s message is
fact, fiction, or opinion (Gufey & Loewy 2010). We will also be
listening to decide whether an argument is based on logic or
emotion. Critical listening requires an effort on our part. We
must remain objective, particularly when we disagree with what
we are hearing.
The diversity of cross-functional team players creates a new
culture. Therefore, it is important to understand that in creating a
cross functional team, you are fashioning a potentially powerful
organizational vehicle (Parker 2003).
It is wiser to encourage the speakers to have a chance to
complete the message before presuming it, but discriminative
listening can be essential if you must understand and remember.
It means you must identify main ideas, understand a logical
argument, and recognize the purpose of the message. It is widely
understood that listening to customers results in increased
goodwill and profitability. The simple truth is that team members
feel better about institutions and managers that value their
opinions. Listening is an appreciation of caring persons
associated to our professional life. Colleagues want to be cared
about. By doing so, it will enormously boost human needs.

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EFFECTIVE LISTENING APPROACHES
We should improve mainly workplace listening. Because staffs
are the eyes and ears of the organization, smart companies begin
by hiring staff workers who genuinely care about customers.
Organizations where listening plays a major role also train their
employees to listen actively and to ask gentle, probing questions
to ensure clear understanding.
Active listeners: People read by looking at other people's
nonverbal cues and listening for the vocal indicators that,
together, reveal the message “between the lines” (Carnevale
1988). Though listening on the job is more difficult than listening
in college classes, workplace listening is more challenging
because information is often exchanged casually. It may be
muddled, unclear, and messy with superfluous facts. Our fellow
workers are usually friends. Since they are very close to you,
they may not be very courteous. Peers tend to interrupt, and take
each other for granted.
Listening in groups or listening to newcomers may further
complicate the listening process. In groups, more than one-
person talks at once, and topics change rapidly. Group members
are monitoring both verbal and nonverbal messages to learn what
relates to their group roles. Despite the complexities and
challenges of workplace listening, good listeners on the job must
remember that our goal is to listen carefully and to understand
what is being said so that we can do our work well. We can
improve our workplace listening effectiveness by following some
strategies discussed below:

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 We should control external and internal commotions. By
blocking out surrounding physical distractions, and going to
an area where we can hear without conflicting disturbances.
We should focus totally on the speaker by forgetting other
agendas momentarily. Besides if we are psychologically
charged, whether angry or extremely happy, it is a good idea
to shun any serious listening.
 We should be actively involved presently by showing that we
are listening closely by leaning forward and maintaining eye
contact with the speaker. We, of course, should not twitch or
try to do another task simultaneously. We should also listen
more broadly--how the words are said; what implied
meaning, reasoning, and feelings we hear behind the spoken
words; and whether the speaker’s body language tally with
the main message.
 We should separate facts from opinions. Facts are truths
known to exist (e.g. The Sun rises in the east). Opinions or
claims are statements of personal judgments or hypothesis
(e.g. The Sun always pleases us). We should evaluate
contentions to decide their validity. Being good listeners, we
should consider whether speakers are credible so we do not
have to automatically accept assertions as facts.
 We should identify important facts as professionals often
intermingle critical information with casual conversation. As
a matter of fact, unrelated topics emerge in no time (Gufey &
Loewy 2010). We should select the most important and
relevant ones.
 We should stop interrupting someone with a quick reply or
an opinion. It is not good to show nonverbal disagreement
such as negative head shaking, rolling eyes, ironic grunts, or
audible sighs. As good listeners, we should let speakers have
their say as stoppages are not only impolite, but they also
prevent us from hearing the speaker’s complete thought
sidetracking discussions and causing hard feelings.
 We should ask questions that do not attack the speaker after
waiting for the proper moment. Being good listeners, we
should seek clarification with statements. Because questions
can put us in the driver’s seat, we should think about them in

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advance. We should use open-ended questions to draw out
feelings, motivations, ideas, and suggestions. It is not wise to
ask a question unless we are ready to be quiet and listen to
the answer.
 We should paraphrase to increase better understanding by
being ready to understand a speaker. We should be objective
and nonjudgmental because our goal is to understand what
the speaker has said. As a matter of fact, other colleagues
will also benefit from a clear abstract of what was said.
 We should exploit lag time. While we are waiting for a
speaker’s next idea, we should use the time to review what
the speaker is saying. Detaching the central idea, key points,
and details, we should supply information to other colleagues
of the organization. We can also try to guess what a
speaker’s next point will be to keep our mind busy.
 We should take notes to ensure withholding as our memory
sometimes fail to serve us Gufey & Loewy 2010). When we
have a conversation on the passage with a colleague and we
should make a mental note of the important items, and write
them down as soon as possible by jotting them down to be
sure we understand them correctly.
 We should be aware of gender differences since men tend to
listen for facts, whereas women tend to perceive listening as
an opportunity to connect with the other person on a personal
level. “The girl–boy gaps in expressing their ideas parallel
those evident for literacy in state, national and international
studies among adolescents. Implications are drawn for social
constructivist pedagogy, for curricular, instructional, and
evaluation practices, and for redressing gender differences”
(Hunter, Gambelland & Randhawa 2005).
 We should be very thoughtful as men tend to use interrupting
behavior to control conversations, while women generally
interrupt to communicate assent, to elaborate on an idea of
another group member, or to participate in the topic of
conversation (Gufey & Loewy 2010). Women listeners tend
to be attentive, provide steady eye contact, remain stationary,
and nod their heads. Whereas male listeners are less
attentive, provide sporadic eye contact, and move around.

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Being aware of these tendencies certainly will make us a
more sensitive and knowledgeable listener.
CONCLUSION
The preceding discussion reflects the importance of listening
skills at workplaces. Today’s workplaces involve teamwork to a
great extent and effective listening is crucial to the success of any
team. Hence, we should augment our competitive edge by
developing better listening skills. We are more likely to be hired
and promoted based on our listening skills. We should be
courteous, appreciative, and kind. Moreover, being selective in
sharing personal information with colleagues, avoiding
destructive criticism, respecting coworkers’ space, rising above
others’ rudeness, being considerate when sharing space, etc., are
the main repertoires to gain a competitive etiquette edge. In fact,
listening skills are vital for almost all forms of workplace
communication.
Institutions having collaborative culture can only succeed in
coming days all over the world. When people believe in each
other, when they believe that each team member will bring
superior skills to a task or responsibility, that disagreements or
opposing views will be worked out reasonably, that each
member’s view will be treated seriously and with respect, that all
team members will give their best effort at all times, and that
everyone will have the team’s overall best interest at heart, then
excellence can become a sustainable reality.
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EAK PRASAD DUWADI
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH,
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH,
KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY.