Introduction
When an individual is challenged by someone’s critics, he or she may easily fall a victim of one’s emotions, feelings, and prejudice. All these sentiments often become listening barriers that have to be effectively identified and addressed in order to ensure effective collaboration in the collective body of workers. The following paper aims to review the situation when at a meeting, one member of the team makes a proposal for a new collaboration schedule developed on the basis of concerns expressed by the team and the quality of which the person believes to reflect the many hours spent on it and the other members of the team criticise it. In such a situation, I would experience such listening barriers as emotional and situational factors and the tendency to solve problems quickly. Below, these obstacles will be observed in detail in order to develop a strategy of handling them.
Listening Barriers
Emotional Factor
Emotional factor is a strong listening barrier for the majority of professionals participating in team discussions. It is generally acknowledged that people tend to oppose criticism in their address on a mental level (Osif 44).
To manage one’s feelings in the event of criticism, I would utilize the following strategy:
- Understanding that the problem does exist if it is identified by other members of the team;
- Identifying the cause of the existing problem;
- Determination of the essence of the critic;
- Asking questions to see the colleague’s point of view in detail.
Situational Factor
Situational factor assumes an individual’s response to the critics based on one’s vision of the situation. In this vein, a person who has invested a lot of time and efforts into a project, is confident in the fact that the created project features all the necessary characteristics to gain colleagues’ approval (Hills 100).
To eliminate this listening barrier, the following steps could be implemented:
- Developing an awareness that the project design needs optimization;
- Identifying the areas which need improvement;
- Make sure the critic is understood properly by asking questions to all the team members who have expressed concerns about the effectiveness of the project.
The Tendency to Solve Problems Quickly
Today, life has become very fast. This affects people’s characters making them desire quick problem resolution (Stone 126). This psychological peculiarity of contemporary people becomes an obstacle in effective communication (“Pick up Listening Skills” 16).
To address this listening problem, I propose the measures outlined below:
- Taking a deep breath and bringing to an end the thoughts about the next thing to say to respond to the criticizing person;
- Paying attention to the speaker and thinking about the essence of his or her words;
- Asking yourself whether the message of the colleague is really understood;
- Paraphrasing what has been said by the criticizing person and asking whether all the details of the critique are truly perceived.
Conclusion
As a final point, listening barriers is a serious obstacle for effective collaboration between the members of a working team. In the event of facing critics from my colleagues, I have to deal with such listening barriers as emotional factor, situational factor, and the tendency to solve problems quickly. To cope with all these obstacles, I have developed the following approach:
- creating awareness of the existing problem;
- identifying the source of the problem;
- finding the essence of critics;
- asking questions to identify whether the offered critics is properly understood.
Works Cited
Hills, Laura, D.A. “Overcoming the Ten Most Common Barriers to Effective Team Communication.” The Journal of Medical Practice Management: MPM 29.2 (2013): 99-103. Print.
Osif, Bonnie A. “Communication.” Library Leadership & Management (2010): 38-44. Print.
“Pick up Listening Skills.” South Wales Evening Post: 16. Print.
Stone, Elizabeth. “Listening: A Concept Analysis.” Educational forum 45.2 (2010): 125-137. Print.