Barriers
to Effective Listening
Even good listeners are
often guilty of critically evaluating what is being said before fully
understanding the message that the speaker is trying to communicate. The result
is that assumptions are made and conclusions reached about the speaker’s
meaning, that might be inaccurate.
The first cause was low
concentration, or not paying close attention to speakers is detrimental to effective
listening. It can result from various psychological or physical situations such
as visual or auditory distractions, physical discomfort, inadequate volume,
lack of interest in the subject material, stress, or personal bias.
Another even was the lack of
prioritization just as lack of attention to detail in a conversation can lead
to ineffective listening so can focusing too much attention on the least
important information. Listeners need to be able to pick up on social cues and
prioritize the information they hear to identify the most important points
within the context of the conversation.
The final even that was poor judgement
when listening to a speaker’s message it is common to sometimes overlook
aspects of the conversation or make judgements before all of the information is
presented. Listeners often engage on confirmation which is the tendency to isolate aspects of a conversation
to support one’s own preexisting beliefs and values.
These are some of the most
common barriers to effective listening include low concentration, lack of prioritization,
and poor judgement.
One of the biggest effects
of the low concentration is when a listener is not paying attention to a
speaker’s dialogue effective communication is significantly diminished. Both
listener and speakers should be aware of these kinds of impediments and work to
eliminate or mitigate them.
The effect of the lack of
prioritization is makes difficult to organize and retain the information they
need. For instance, students who take notes in class must know which
information to writing down within the context of an entire lecture. When
listeners give equal weigh to everything they hear, it makes difficult to
organize and retain the information they need.
To conclude, some of the
most common barriers to effective listening include low concentration, lack of
prioritization and poor judgement. Although the effective listening have the
impact. Such poor listening makes good communication almost impossible. No
matter how much care one person or group takes to communicate their concerns,
values, interests, or needs in a fair, clear, unthreatening way, if the
listener is not willing to receive that information in that way, the
communication will fail.
