Listening Assignment

I started off by actually taking the quiz on page 165 to figure out what my, "listening style" really is. After taking the quiz, I realized that I am a very good hybrid of three of the listening styles. I seemed to have gotten a four score on the; people-oriented, action-oriented, and content oriented listeners. I find these three orientations of listening to be very effective because I feel it brings the opportunity of learning something to its fullest potential. When you are people orientated, you help make the other person feel as comfortable as possible to have a dialogue. I feel that the action-orientated aspect of listening has its pros and cons. For the pros I feel as it's a great way to get the conversation moving along. The con however, I feel that it can offend people and cause noise pollution for the dialogue.

I also qualified to be a content-oriented listener. I love listening to facts and having intellectual conversations. I feel that opinions should be supported by facts, which is what content actually is. I love probing questions at people so I can figure out a new perspective on things. The con of content oriented listening would be that some people might get bored or annoyed by the questioning. Some people have different passions than others, but it is the job of the communicator to recognize the situation and base their communication moves from there. The one oriented skill I did not qualify for was the time oriented listener.  I never really tell my fellow communicator how much time I have to talk. I feel that it is rude to do so. I find myself being very calm and patient when talking to someone. If I find the need to get out of a conversation, I usually find a moment to transition out and leave the conversation in a polite way. The con of NOT being a time oriented person is that I might get in a long conversation and forget some other obligation I had to complete. The conversation could also get very circular and repetitive.

All in all I am not surprised on how I placed on this quiz. This is just another quiz to raise my awareness on who I am and how I communicate with others.