Question Description
Im studying for my Sociology class and need an explanation.
ORIGINAL
QUESTION:
Listening in the Workplace
How would improving your listening skills increase the
effectiveness of your communication in the workplace? In your personal life?
Explain with examples. Using the effective listening strategies in the text,
explain which strategy you need to work on and in which context (work,
personal).
STUDENT
1 RESPONSE:
Improving listening skills could increase the
effectiveness of my communication in the workplace by allowing me to be more
open minded about things. Instead of just hearing what others have to say, I
could improve my listening by actively engaging in further conversation with
co-workers. It could increase the effectiveness because communication is very
important in the work place. If you can’t listen and give feedback on
something, you are less likely to have your opinion heard about something. In
my personal life improving listening skills could benefit many things. Not only
could listening skills benefit my ability to be more open about things, it can
also benefit my personal relationship, as well as the communication with my
daughter. If I can better interpret others communication such as my
significant others words an thoughts, than more than likely we are able to
agree on certain things. Rather than just feeling like I have to have an input
on everything, if I listen to what he has to say too and take it into
consideration than our level of communication is stronger. After reading the
effective listening strategies, I think something I need to work on in my
personal life is to avoid preoccupation. Sometimes I get so caught up in things
that it is hard for me to focus on what I should really be concerned about.
Another reason we may not listen effectively is that we prejudge others or their
communication (O’Keefe, 2002). I also struggle with this as well. At times, I
can be so quick to jump the gun and judge a situation or someone just based on
what they are telling me. Instead, if I took in all the facts of the matter and
sorted things out first, I will more than likely have better luck at
understanding certain situations and people. Improving these things can help
greatly in my personal life.
STUDENT
2 RESPONSE
Unit 6 Discussion
How would improving your listening skills
increase the effectiveness of your communication in the workplace?
If I could improve my listening skills then I would be less likely to: Make
errors stemming from communication failure; disturb my boss for repeated
clarity of assignment, task, procedure, or protocol; and show my dedication to
my role/title in the company. If I lacked comprehension of what my
supervisor was telling me I should ask as soon as possible, but never should I
just smile, nod, and attempt it without fully knowing. Wood (2012)
states, Repetition, mnemonics, and regrouping are ways to enhance what we
remember. Poor listening causes mistakes and problems, which explains why
many companies now require employees to attend listening workshops. (pg.
158) The only way I could probable deter this from happening is to prove
mastery of listening for information.
How would improving your listening skills
increase the effectiveness of your communication in your personal life?
If I applied the skills from our text book on mindful listening I would: be
more supportive; show my honest care and concern for the other persons
problem; be helpful in my friends/family overcoming an obstacle; have
remembrance for future scenarios; and be able to listen and fully receive the
information they are putting out instead of just hearing them.
Explain with examples. Using the effective
listening strategies in the text, explain which strategy you need to work on
and in which context (work, personal). In my professional
life I should adapt a new process of using aids to recall on, mnemonic
devices. Wood (2012) instructs, If your supervisor asks you to code and
log in all incoming messages, you might remember the instruction by inventing
CLAIM, a word that uses the first letter of each key word in your supervisors
instructions. (pg. 158) My memory is not as great as it could be, and
fact is I work with a lot of uncontrolled obstacles. My office is in the
front of our county office building. I hear loud cell phone calls in front of
my window, the security booth is adjacent with loud beeping sounds from
screening those who enter the building, and I have a huge air vent directly
above my desk. Those factors prevent me from clearly hearing my clients
and remaining 100% focused on the information they are trying to give me.
If I use the information I hear to create a acronym then I could retain
the knowledge even throughout all of the distractions that’s taking place.
Personally when listening to support others I need to
tread lightly on expressing judgments. Wood (2012) warns, Thats
appropriate only if someone invites our evaluation or if we think another
person is in danger of making a serious mistake. If someone asks our
opinion, we should try to present it in a way that doesnt disconfirm the other
person. (pg. 159) Some people just want to vent and dont want any advice at
all and some people are broken. Those who are broken are currently too
distressed and emotionally torn to respect or appreciate even the wisest
counsel, they just want to be heard and consoled. People are raised and
wired differently and my ways of handling things may not work perfect for them
or give the same results.
ORIGINAL
QUESTION
Getting Down to Details
Assessment and goal setting are the “meat and
potatoes” of the professional interview. In addition, assessments help
both the professional and the client identify goals to work toward in the
client-professional relationship. Once you have read and watched the videos for
this unit, answer the following questions in the Discussion:
- What
information should an assessment include? Why? How might you go about
gathering the information you want? Give specific examples. - Are
there any topics that should be “off limits” in the professional
interview? Why or why not? - How
do you set goals for yourself? How would you help a client identify a goal
they might want to achieve? - Why
do you think setting goals is important in the helping relationship?
STUDENT
1 RESPONSE:
Hello classmates and Professor Russell,
What information should an assessment
include? Why? How might you go about gathering the information you want? Give
specific examples.
Assessment involves gathering and analyzing
information about the client, the story to date, and the contextual or larger
system influences affecting the client and the story. Clinician should
use the skills of exploration and elaboration to help access and make sense of
the clients story. Six classic questions are used by interviewers to
organize the assessment agenda: Who? What? Where? Why? When? How?
(Murphy, B. 2010). The best tool to use to gather information is by
asking questions. Asking open ended and closed ended questions is one of
the most reliable and effective techniques for gathering information, deepening
discussion, or broadening focus. Clinician ask questions about: the
clients thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationships, strengths, resources,
cultural identities, beliefs about help seeking and about what causes problems
and how they may be resolved, other people in clients life, family, work.
(Murphy, B. 2010).
Are there any topics that should be
“off limits” in the professional interview? Why or why not?
There should not be any topics that are off limits
in the professional interview. The best way to learn about your client
would be to ask all questions surrounding his life to be able to help him with
his problems. The only thing about certain questions or to start a
certain topic should be done at the right time. Arnold Lazarus
(1981) was the first to describe the layers, or circles of personal
territory. The interview conversation itself has outer, middle, and inner
layers or circles. The outer circle houses the opening-sometimes
surface-exploratory conversation between people who are just getting to know
each other. The middle circle houses a more revealing exploration of
deeper-level content, conflicts, and feelings as the relationship develops and
both the client and the interviewer feel themselves on more secure
ground. The inner circle houses feelings and content about frightening,
taboo, or shame bound areas. Questions should be well timed.
(Murphy, B. 2010).
How do you set goals for yourself? How
would you help a client identify a goal they might want to achieve?
I have two set of goal short term and long term.
I set my short term goals and as I reached them I keep adding to them until I
reach my long term goal. I focus more on my short term goal so I will not
get discourage when I hit barriers trying to reach my long term goal.
When I reach one of my short term goals it motivates me to continue to adding
new goals. Goals express the desired outcomes of the working relationship
agreed upon by the clinician and the client. Many human service
professionals working in schools or other settings are required to use
formalized methods to assess change and progress toward goals. As often
as possible, goals should include desired outcomes that are observable and
measurable and that can be assessing the effectiveness of interventions.
Goals should be specific and concrete to provide clear directions for ensuing
work together. (Murphy, B. 2010).
Why do you think setting goals is
important in the helping relationship?
To improve self-esteem and self efficacy, Client will
tolerate praise and positive feedback, client will make more positive
statements about himself, clients will demonstrate increased eye contact with
others, client will identify positive talents and strengths about self, client
will increase frequency of speaking with confidence in social situations,
client will increase statements of self acceptance. . (Murphy, B. 2010)
STUDENT
2 RESPONSE
The steps to getting the information needed in an
assessment is a complex task. There is the main information, then the sub
information. Not to say one is more important than another, however with a main
question there is almost always little questions. Much like a tree with a broad
tree and the limbs which branch out to leaves. The information that should be
included in an assessment are the who, what, when, where, why and how. (Dillon,
2010) When doing an assessment there should also be conceptualization or
formulation of assessment findings, assessment summaries, the clinical record,
and goal settings. (Dillon, 2010) In order to get the information we
want, or may need, we need to ask questions. They can be opened ended questions
or dead end questions. Here is an example of both:
Client: I hate when I cant seem to get things right.
Clinician: You hate when you cant get things right,
such as?……
This gives the client an opportunity to open up more
and speak what they are thinking. I could also ask a solid dead end question
such as, What things do you hate that you dont get right? I would rather ask
an open ended question though so it gives the client the option of taking it
further.
When going into a professional interview, there
shouldnt be any topics that are off-limits. Asking all sorts of questions that
revolve around the clients life, help to inform the clinician of what the
client is there for. Its a matter of right timing to ask such questions. Such
as during an already touchy subject, is not a time to fish into painful
areas. (Dillon, 2010)
In order to set goals for myself, I usually set up a
budget. I know its usually set for money, but I plan it step by step, brick by
brick because in order to have a solid reachable goal, you have to have a solid
foundation. I would recommend this a client as a tool to help set goals. It
would be showing them how to build up towards what they want. I think setting
goals helps with relationships in the sense that it gives your client something
to reach towards.
