Petersen's Core Concepts To Improve Listening Skills

Personally this writer can relate to Petersen’s core concepts of listening and talking. Listening in the communication process is the capability to correctly obtain and understand messages. It’s key to all operative communication because without listening effectively to the message it can be easily misunderstood. This writer’s current job as a Human Service Worker required training in listening skills. This writer deals with individuals who are physically, mentally, and developmentally challenged and are easily misunderstood because of their disability. In order to do this job effectively good listening skills can lead to smaller amount of mistakes, more productivity and client satisfaction. Good listening skills can also allow this writer the
opportunity to do more work that is resourceful and inventive. This writer has also discovered that good listening skills can benefit your personal life. Verbal and non-verbal are also effective in listening because being a good listener requires you to not only hear what’s being said, but what not being said as well. Observing body language and expressions are also part of effective listening. This writer can recall a conversation at church with a friend. The writer asked the friend how they were doing; you could see the sadness on the friends face when they said they were okay. The non-verbal message indicated something different, which clearly stated that the friend don’t mean what they said.
Because they were a friend, this writer invited the friend to eat after church. This writer could clearly see that the friend was depressed about some and if this writer could listen to them in a way to let them know that they were not alone in the situation this could be the stepping stone needed the help them out of the hole of depression. So this writer listened to the story that was shared with empathy and acknowledged that they had a right to be unset. This writer assured the friend that they were not alone and they could overcome this depression. Several months later at the end of church service this writer’s friend came up and thank the writer for being their when they needed a lending ear. This writer realized that listening can go a long ways in the healing process. Bryant McGill stated that “one of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say”. So this writer faith was strengthen from the core concepts of Petersen’s thoughts on why people don’t listen. The writer can only reflect what God has required us to do as Christian, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become
angry” (James 1:19, NIV).