Listen and Lead

National Day of Listening on Nov. 28

StoryCorps has declared Nov. 28 as a National Day of Listening and plans to make it an annual event. Nov. 28 is the day after Thanksgiving, a day that is well suited to many StoryCorps recordings, which often have family members interviewing each other and coming to some new kind of realization or gratitude.

The organization is an oral history project that has done a lot of work with National Public Radio. The non-profit StoryCorps has helped more than 40,000 people record their stories.

For National Day of Listening, Story Corps asks people to download its free guide, choose a partner, draw up some questions, do the interview and share the results.

You can learn more about StoryCorps and hear some examples of what people are doing on its Web site, <a href="http://www.storycorps.net/"</a>.

Free Download on Listening

"Listening: the 'Lost' Communication Skill is Chapter Two in a new book and available free as a download or as Web pages.

The chapter comes from an e-Textbook, "Public Speaking: The ACA Open Knolwdge Online Guide." ACA stands for the American Communication Association.

It is written by Trudy Mercadal-Sabbagh, Ph.D. in the Department of Comparative Studies, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University and Michael Purdy, Ph.D., professor of communications in the Communications Program at Governors State University.

In the listening chapter,the authors deal with the shortcomings we find in our listening and then some strategies for becoming better lsiteners, specifically in a classroom or large-group situation.

A couple of nuggets that I hope will encourage you to read the chapter:

"Information overload can also occur if the messages we are listening to are technical in areas where we lack expertise, if there is too much information packed into a message, or if the information comes at us too fast—this could also cause listening apprehension and interfere with our ability to remember the message ..."

... and ...

"Defining listening goals is the place to begin as a competent listener. Defining a listening goal means being an active listener and taking responsibility for the outcome of a communication situation."

Some People Get it

Not everyone needs a lesson in listening. Some people really get it.

Stephen Covey, with his effective habits, is one who does.

We'll run a list of links to listening resources in the right column.

If you have some links that should be added, please click on the Comment option.

I'm listening.