[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on How Does Active Listening Impact A Conflict In A Small Group?
If getting the small group to tell you what you need to know is your first priority, listening to what is said must have equal weight. Listening is more than hearing. It's a skill that must be and can be developed. The process requires concentration, analysis, and feedback. Active listening makes the small groups feel that the facilitator understands their needs and understands them as people. Active listening not only helps focus attention on what the small group is saying; it can often go a long way to help the small group solve conflicts.
Actively listening tells the small group that you are interested in understanding what they have to say—that you care about them. And amazingly enough, simply feeding back people's ideas often helps them sort out and come to conflict resolution and conclusions that you would like them to discover.Effective listening is difficult under the best of conditions.
However, the difficulty is compounded in the small group conflicting situation because a facilitator needs to listen to a variety of points of view being presented by individuals who differ in the way they present their ideas. (Broome, Benjamin J., Luann Fulbright 1995) The conflicting situation is made more complex when it is the manager who is facilitating. I have discovered over the years that managers as a class are not necessarily good listeners. But when the manager is effective as a facilitator, there is more power in listening and absorbing than there is in presenting one's own ideas to the small group. Being a good listener is a difficult task.......
