HUCL1101 - Mastering Listening: An Essay on Julian Treasure's '5 Ways'

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Added on 2024/07/01

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This essay delves into Julian Treasure's '5 Ways to Listen Better', emphasizing the importance of active listening in personal and professional contexts. It highlights Treasure's argument that listening is a crucial skill often overlooked, with people retaining only a fraction of what they hear. The essay discusses the five methods Treasure proposes: silence, the mixer, savoring, listening positions, and RASA (Receive, Appreciate, Summarize, Ask). It reflects on personal experiences and underscores the transformative power of improved listening skills in communication, relationship building, and overall understanding. The essay concludes that conscious listening is essential for a happy and fulfilling life, advocating for the integration of listening skills education.

HUCL1101 – Final Project
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Contents
5 ways to listen better..................................................................................................................................4
References................................................................................................................................................... 8
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Introduction
The aim of the essay is to gain understanding and knowledge of the Julian Treasure “5 ways to
listen better” where the speaker has excellently demonstrated the importance of listening.
Listening is a very important skill set that allows making sense of and understanding what others
are saying. It is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. On this note, the essay will reflect
on the ways that help the individuals in improving the listening skills and communicate
effectively. The knowledge and value offered in the video will be efficiently presented in the
essay in order to develop a thorough understanding of the minds of the readers.
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5 ways to listen better
According to Treasure (2011), the importance of listening has been extended far beyond
academic and professional settings. It is important to have an understanding on how to have
sound communication even in the regular lifestyle among friends, family and in professional life
for nurturing good self-esteem, maximization of productivity, improvement of relationships, and
even to be a good speaker. People always mistake by taking listening as a simple and passive
task but it is more than just the ability to absorb information. Actually, it is a process which
should be active. Active listening skills help in earning trust and respect, understanding issues
and formulation of better ideas and solutions and diffusion of conflicts. More than that, it helps
in navigating difficulties through active conversations.
According to Treasure (2017), whether it is social or work environment, active listening plays an
important role in helping an individual in getting ahead that can be acquired with a little practice
and patience. For an instance, if someone is working as a manager, it is important to develop
relationships for promotion, being valued and respected which can be easily achieved through
active listening. Along with these, being an active listener also conveys a good character and
commitment that contributes to great leadership skills and career advancement (Kashtan, 2017).
The video by Julian Treasure lays emphasis on the significant importance of listening skills these
days as the majority of the people are not good listeners that comes in their way of active
communication. According to the speaker Julian Treasure, people only spend 60% of their
communication time on listening but only retain 25% of what they hear. The speaker has pointed
out the facts on how people are losing their listening ability. The world is a noisy place where
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nobody is ready to listen to anyone. Listening is not only about absorbing words rather than
processing them. Also, people are nowadays becoming very impatient where they hardly involve
in any conversation and always try to avoid things happening around them. Due to these factors,
losing listening is continuously becoming a serious problem in the society as listening is the
access to understanding. Julian Shares five ways to be a good listener that can help the
individuals in improving their listening skills with greater ease and flexibility. The speaker
advocates that spending 3 minutes in just silence helps in rejuvenate the listening skills of an
individual. Listening to multiple voices at the same time such as at social events, coffee bar,
outdoors etc. also helps an individual in improving the power of listening. Consistent hearing to
the day to day sounds like the ticking of the clock is also a savior of listening skills. Savior is a
beautiful exercise which is about enjoying sounds (Treasure, 2011). As per the speaker, the
mundane sounds can be really interesting if proper attention is paid such as the sound of the
coffee grinder. The next exercise for empowering listening is moving to the listening positions
by playing with the filters. There are many listening positions which can be used in an exciting
way. And the last one is an acronym which can be effectively used for sound communication.
The acronym is RASA a Sanskrit word for juice or kind of essence. RASA stands for Receive
that means pay attention to the person (Treasure, 2011).
I totally agree with the message offered in the video by Julian Treasure that listening is an
important part of life which should not be taken for granted. Through the multiple ways provided
by the speaker, one can easily improve his listening and communication skills with greater ease
and flexibility. I remember one incident when I was working as an assistant manager in a retail
company. Initially, I was a good speaker but not a good listener that was the major obstacle to
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my professional advancement and development. Due to a lack of listening skills, I often face
problems in communicating and understanding the views and opinions of my peers and mates.
Then after, I consistently worked on strengthening my listening skills through making eye
contacts with the speakers, trying to be attentive, thinking with an open mind, paying attention to
what speakers are saying etc. By the time after changing my listening style, I have experienced
changes in myself as well as in my relationships with others. I am in favor of the statement that
good listening skills are efficient in transforming the world (Treasure, 2017).
Communication is something that helps in spreading knowledge and information among people.
Just for an example, authors write to convey knowledge and information to the world,
philosophers share their experiences with the people, friends and mates share their experiences
with each other and it goes on. Without any doubt, sharing and transferring information cannot
operate successfully without proper and systematic communication. Hence the importance of
communication in the life cannot be underestimated. I found a connectivity with the topic even
not only me anyone can relate to it as people often face challenges in their lives due to lack of
sound communication skills like listening skills (Hope Speak, 2014).
The message conveyed through the video is very powerful that throws light on the true fact
“every human being should listen consciously in order to execute a happy and satisfied life”. It
helps in getting connected with the physical world and understanding and forming relationships
with each other. The speaker has questioned to teach the listening skills at the schools itself
which will improve the listening skills of an individual up to a great extent (Schilling, 2012).
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Conclusion
The essay has effectively uncovered the facts and knowledge offered in the Video by Julian
Treasure on “5 ways to listen better”. It is learned that in the modern world communication is
very important than ever before but still after knowing the fact people contribute very less and
less time to listening to each other. Active listening skills help in developing relationships and
bonds with each other, resolve conflicts and misunderstandings, improves accuracy and
understanding. In the world which is growing every single second, people should adorn sound
listening skills in order to be connected and advanced.
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References
 Treasure, J., (2011). 5 ways to listen better. TED. Available at
https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_shh_sound_health_in_8_steps.
 Hope Speak, (2014). Why is communication important to human life?. Hope Speak. Available at
https://www.hopespeak.com/blog/why-is-communication-important-to-human-life-2/.
 Schilling, D., (2012). 10 Steps to Effective Listening. Forbes. Available at
https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2012/11/09/10-steps-to-effective-listening/
#c0d648238918.
 Kashtan, R., (2017). We've Lost Our Ability to Listen. Listen to First Project. Available at
http://www.listenfirstproject.org/weve-lost-our-ability-to-listen/.
 Treasure, J., (2017). How to be Heard: Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening. Linked In.
Available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-heard-secrets-powerful-speaking-listening-
julian-treasure.
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