Question

What factors influence your listening perception and priorities? What are the implications of those factors for organizational communication?

Answer 1

There are a number of factors which can be experienced in the communication channel and have the potential of affecting our listening perception and priorities. The distraction in the communication channel can be resulted from background noise (physical noise) or interruptions. Despite having a very strict control over these factors in the organizational communication, some kinds of distractions can be created by the person who forgets switching off his cell phone of who comes late in the meeting.

In fact, physiological noise such as being hungry or sleepy can also be experienced by the audience members who can distract their listening. If the listeners are having some kind of bias or prejudice against the speaker which can influence the receiving of the message, it can also be seen as psychological noise. Listening perception is also affected greatly by the speaker’s approach. There can be incidence of unclear or ill-structured message, too technical words or message is being delivered to the audience or there can be a variation in the expectation of the audience about the content which they want to listen.

For motivating the audience, too much fear or guilt can be developed by the speaker and it can disaffect the listeners up to the point that they completely shut off the speaker. As it is quite clear that there are some factors which can be controlled by he speaker quite effectively and some can be controlled by the speaker and there are some factors which cannot be avoided by either part.