266 / 465
Networking (interviewing) is Communicating . .
.
“A farmer went into his attorney’s office wanting to file for a divorce
from his wife. The attorney asked, ‘
May I help you?
’ to which the
farmer replied, ‘
Yeah, I want to get one of those dayvorces.
’ The
attorney said, ‘
Well, do you have any grounds
?’ and the farmer said,
‘
Yeah, I got about 140 acres
.’ The attorney said, ‘
No, you don’t
understand. Do you have a case
?’ and the farmer replied, ‘
No, I
don’t have a Case, but I do have a John Deere
.’ And the attorney
said, ‘
No, you really don’t understand. I mean do you have a
grudge
?’ And the farmer replied to that, ‘
I got a grudge. That’s
where I park my John Deere
.’ The attorney, still trying, asked, ‘
No, sir, I
mean do you have a suit
?’ The farmer replied, ‘
Yes, sir, I got a suit. I
wear it to church on Sundays
.’ The exasperated and frustrated
attorney said, ‘
Well, sir, does your wife beat you up or anything
?’ The
farmer replied, ‘
No, sir. We both get up about 4:40
.’ Finally, the
attorney says, ‘
OK. Let me put it this way. WHY DO YOU WANT A
DIVORCE
?’ And the farmer says, ‘
Well, I can never have a
meaningful conversation with her
.”
—Steven Covey,
The 8th Habit
Communication is without question the most important skill in life.
There are
basically
four
modes of communication: reading, writing, speaking and
listening.
And most people spend of their waking hours doing those 4 things. The
one that represents 40% to 50% of our communication time is listening; the other
modes we have had the least training in.
Listening continuum:
1. Ignoring
2. Pretend listening (patronizing)
3. Selective listening
4. Attentive listening
5. Empathic listening
Section 11 – Effective
Communication a d Networking
264
Section 11– Effective Communication & Networking