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Recently the peak executives of a major manufacturing found in the Chicago surface area were asked to survey the part that listening plays in their piece of work. Afterward, an executive seminar on listening was held. Hither are three typical comments made by participants:

  • "Frankly, I had never thought of listening as an of import subject by itself. Simply now that I am aware of information technology, I call up that maybe 80% of my piece of work depends on my listening to someone, or on someone else listening to me."
  • "I've been thinking back virtually things that have gone wrong over the past couple of years, and I suddenly realized that many of the troubles have resulted from someone non hearing something, or getting it in a distorted manner."
  • "It's interesting to me that we have considered so many facets of communication in the visitor, merely have inadvertently overlooked listening. I've nearly decided that it's the most important link in the visitor's communications, and it's manifestly also the weakest one."

These comments reflect part of an awakening that is taking identify in a number of management circles. Business is tied together by its systems of advice. This communication, businessmen are discovering, depends more on the spoken give-and-take than it does on the written word; and the effectiveness of the spoken word hinges not and then much on how people talk every bit on how they heed.

The Unused Potential

Information technology tin exist stated, with practically no qualification, that people in full general do not know how to listen. They have ears that hear very well, but seldom have they acquired the necessary aural skills which would allow those ears to be used effectively for what is called listening.

For several years we have been testing the ability of people to understand and remember what they hear. At the Academy of Minnesota we examined the listening power of several thousand students and of hundreds of business and professional people. In each instance the person tested listened to short talks by faculty members and was examined for his grasp of the content.

These extensive tests led us to this general determination: immediately afterward the average person has listened to someone talk, he remembers but most half of what he has heard—no matter how carefully he idea he was listening.

What happens as fourth dimension passes? Our ain testing shows—and it has been substantiated by reports of research at Florida Land University and Michigan State University1—that two months afterwards listening to a talk, the boilerplate listener volition remember merely about 25% of what was said. In fact, after nosotros have barely learned something, we tend to forget from one-one-half to one-third of it within viii hours; it is startling to realize that frequently nosotros forget more in this get-go short interval than we do in the next six months.

Gap in Training

Behind this widespread disability to listen lies, in our opinion, a major oversight in our organization of classroom didactics. We have focused attention on reading, considering it the primary medium by which we learn, and we have practically forgotten the art of listening. About half dozen years are devoted to formal reading instruction in our school systems. Lilliputian accent is placed on speaking, and almost no attention has been given to the skill of listening, strange as this may be in view of the fact that so much lecturing is done in college. Listening grooming—if it could exist called training—has often consisted simply of a serial of admonitions extending from the beginning form through college: "Pay attention!" "Now go this!" "Open up your ears!" "Listen!"

Certainly our teachers feel the need for good listening. Why then have so many years passed without educators developing formal methods of teaching students to listen? Nosotros have been faced with several false assumptions which have blocked the teaching of listening. For example:

(1) We have assumed that listening power depends largely on intelligence, that "vivid" people listen well, and "dull" ones poorly. There is no denying that low intelligence has something to practise with inability to listen, but nosotros have greatly exaggerated its importance. A poor listener is not necessarily an unintelligent person. To be good listeners we must apply certain skills that are acquired through either feel or training. If a person has not caused these listening skills, his ability to empathise and retain what he hears will be low. This tin happen to people with both high and low levels of intelligence.

(two) We have causeless that learning to read will automatically teach one to listen. While some of the skills attained through reading apply to listening, the assumption is far from completely valid. Listening is a dissimilar activity from reading and requires different skills. Research has shown that reading and listening skills do not improve at the same charge per unit when only reading is taught.

This means that in our schools, where little attention is paid to the aural element of communication, reading ability is continually upgraded while listening ability, left to falter forth on its own, actually degenerates. Every bit a fair reader and a bad listener, the typical student is graduated into a society where the chances are high that he will have to listen nearly three times as much as he reads.

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The barriers to listening training that have been built upwards by such false assumptions are coming down. Educators are realizing that listening is a skill that tin exist taught. In Nashville, for example, the public school system has started grooming in listening from uncomplicated grades through high school. Listening is also taught in the Phoenix school system, in Cincinnati, and throughout the land of North Dakota. Near 2 dozen major universities and colleges in the country now provide courses in listening.

At the University of Minnesota we take been presenting a class in listening to a large segment of the freshman course. Each group of students that has taken listening grooming has improved at least 25% in ability to understand the spoken word. Some of the groups take improved as much as twoscore%. Nosotros have also given a course in listening for adult education classes made up generally of business concern and professional people. These people have fabricated some of the highest gains in listening power of any that nosotros have seen. During ane catamenia, 60 men and women most doubled their listening test scores after working together on this skill one night a calendar week for 17 weeks.

Ways to Comeback

Any form or whatsoever effort that will pb to listening improvement should do 2 things:

one. Build awareness to factors that touch on listening power.

2. Build the kind of aural feel that tin can produce good listening habits.

At least a start on the first of these two educational elements can exist made by readers of this article; a certain degree of awareness is developed by but discussing factors that touch on listening ability. Later we shall discuss some steps that might exist taken in club to work at the second element.

Tracks & Sidetracks

In general, people feel that concentration while listening is a greater trouble than concentration during whatsoever other form of personal communication. Actually, listening concentration is more hard. When we listen, concentration must be achieved despite a factor that is peculiar to audible communication, i of which few people are aware.

Basically, the problem is caused by the fact that we think much faster than nosotros talk. The boilerplate rate of speech for most Americans is around 125 words per minute. This rate is ho-hum going for the human brain, which is made upwards of more than 13 billion cells and operates in such a complicated but efficient fashion that it makes the great, modern digital computers seem slow-witted. People who report the encephalon are not in complete agreement on how it functions when we recall, simply most psychologists believe that the basic medium of thought is language. Certainly words play a large role in our thinking processes, and the words race through our brains at speeds much higher than 125 words per infinitesimal. This means that, when we listen, we ask our brain to receive words at an extremely slow pace compared with its capabilities.

It might seem logical to slow downwardly our thinking when we listen so as to coincide with the 125-give-and-take-per-minute speech communication charge per unit, just slowing downwardly thought processes seems to be a very hard thing to do. When we listen, therefore, we continue thinking at loftier speed while the spoken words arrive at low speed. In the act of listening, the differential between thinking and speaking rates means that our encephalon works with hundreds of words in addition to those that we hear, assembling thoughts other than those spoken to us. To phrase it another way, we can mind and withal take some spare time for thinking.

The apply, or misuse, of this spare thinking fourth dimension holds the answer to how well a person can concentrate on the spoken word.

Case of the disenchanted listener. In our studies at the University of Minnesota, nosotros find most people practise not employ their spare thinking fourth dimension wisely as they listen. Permit united states of america illustrate how this happens by describing a familiar experience:

A, the dominate, is talking to B, the subordinate, about a new program that the firm is planning to launch. B is a poor listener. In this instance, he tries to listen well, but he has difficulty concentrating on what A has to say.

A starts talking and B launches into the listening process, grasping every discussion and phrase that comes into his ears. But right away B finds that, because of A's slow rate of spoken language, he has time to think of things other than the spoken line of thought. Subconsciously, B decides to sandwich a few thoughts of his own into the aural ones that are arriving so slowly. So B speedily dashes out onto a mental sidetrack and thinks something similar this: "Oh, yes, earlier I leave I desire to tell A most the big success of the coming together I called yesterday." Then B comes back to A's spoken line of thought and listens for a few more words.

At that place is plenty of fourth dimension for B to do simply what he has done, dash abroad from what he hears and so return quickly, and he continues taking sidetracks to his own individual thoughts. Indeed, he tin can inappreciably avert doing this because over the years the procedure has get a strong aural habit of his.

But, sooner or afterward, on ane of the mental sidetracks, B is virtually sure to stay abroad too long. When he returns, A is moving along ahead of him. At this point it becomes harder for B to understand A, simply because B has missed part of the oral message. The individual mental sidetracks become more than inviting than always, and B slides off onto several of them. Slowly he misses more and more than of what A has to say.

When A is through talking, it is safe to say that B will accept received and understood less than one-half of what was spoken to him.

Rules for Skillful Reception

A major task in helping people to listen better is teaching them to use their spare thinking fourth dimension efficiently as they listen. What does "efficiently" mean? To answer this question, we fabricated an all-encompassing study of people'south listening habits, especially trying to discover what happens when people heed well.

Nosotros found that expert listeners regularly engage in 4 mental activities, each geared to the oral discourse and taking identify concurrently with that oral discourse. All four of these mental activities are neatly coordinated when listening works at its best. They tend to directly a maximum amount of thought to the message being received, leaving a minimum amount of fourth dimension for mental excursions on sidetracks leading away from the talker's thought. Here are the four processes:

(1) The listener thinks ahead of the talker, trying to anticipate what the oral discourse is leading to and what conclusions will be drawn from the words spoken at the moment.

(2) The listener weighs the evidence used by the talker to back up the points that he makes. "Is this evidence valid?" the listener asks himself. "Is it the complete evidence?"

(three) Periodically the listener reviews and mentally summarizes the points of the talk completed thus far.

(iv) Throughout the talk, the listener "listens between the lines" in search of meaning that is not necessarily put into spoken words. He pays attending to nonverbal advice (facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice) to meet if it adds significant to the spoken words. He asks himself, "Is the talker purposely skirting some area of the subject? Why is he doing so?"

The speed at which we think compared to that at which people talk allows plenty of time to attain these four mental tasks when we mind; however, they do require practice before they can become function of the mental agility that makes for good listening. In our training courses we accept devised aural exercises designed to give people this practice and thereby build up good habits of audible concentration.

Listening for Ideas

Some other cistron that affects listening ability concerns the reconstruction of orally communicated thoughts once they have been received by the listener. To illustrate:

The newspapers reported not too long ago that a church was torn downwardly in Europe and shipped stone past stone to America, where it was reassembled in its original form. The moving of the church is analogous to what happens when a person speaks and is understood by a listener. The talker has a thought. To transmit his thought, he takes it autonomously by putting information technology into words. The words, sent through the air to the listener, must then be mentally reassembled into the original thought if they are to be thoroughly understood. But about people do not know what to mind for, and so cannot reconstruct the thought.

For some reason many people take peachy pride in beingness able to say that in a higher place all they try to "get the facts" when they mind. It seems logical plenty to do so. If a person gets all the facts, he should certainly understand what is said to him. Therefore, many people endeavour to memorize every single fact that is spoken. With such practice at "getting the facts," the listener, nosotros can safely presume, volition develop a serious bad listening habit.

Memorizing facts is, to begin with, a virtual impossibility for well-nigh people in the listening situation. As one fact is existence memorized, the whole, or role, of the adjacent fact is most certain to be missed. When he is doing his very best, the listener is probable to catch just a few facts, garble many others, and completely miss the remainder. Even in the instance of people who tin aurally assimilate all the facts that they hear, one at a time as they hear them, listening is however probable to be at a low level; they are concerned with the pieces of what they hear and tend to miss the broad areas of the spoken advice.

When people talk, they want listeners to empathise their ideas. The facts are useful chiefly for constructing the ideas. Grasping ideas, we take found, is the skill on which the good listener concentrates. He remembers facts only long plenty to understand the ideas that are built from them. But then, near miraculously, grasping an idea volition help the listener to remember the supporting facts more effectively than does the person who goes afterwards facts alone. This listening skill is i which definitely can be taught, one in which people tin build feel leading toward improved audible communication.

Emotional Filters

In different degrees and in many different ways, listening ability is affected by our emotions.ii Figuratively we achieve up and mentally plow off what nosotros do non want to hear. Or, on the other manus, when someone says what we especially want to hear, nosotros open our ears broad, accepting everything—truths, half-truths, or fiction. We might say, then, that our emotions act as aural filters. At times they in effect cause deafness, and at other times they make listening birthday too easy.

If we hear something that opposes our most deeply rooted prejudices, notions, convictions, mores, or complexes, our brains may become over-stimulated, and non in a direction that leads to adept listening. Nosotros mentally program a rebuttal to what we hear, codify a question designed to embarrass the talker, or mayhap simply turn to thoughts that support our own feelings on the subject at hand. For example:

The business firm'southward accountant goes to the general managing director and says: "I have just heard from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and…" The full general manager suddenly breathes harder as he thinks, "That blasted bureau! Tin't they leave me solitary? Every year the regime milks my profits to a point where…" Red in the face up, he whirls and stares out the window. The label "Bureau of Internal Revenue" cuts loose emotions that stop the general manager's listening.

In the meantime, the accountant may go on to say that here is a risk to save $iii,000 this year if the general manager will accept a few simple steps. The fuming full general manager may hear this—if the accountant presses hard enough—merely the chances are he will fail to comprehend it.

When emotions make listening too easy, it usually results from hearing something which supports the deeply rooted inner feelings that we agree. When we hear such support, our mental barriers are dropped and everything is welcomed. We ask few questions most what we hear; our disquisitional faculties are put out of commission past our emotions. Thinking drops to a minimum because nosotros are hearing thoughts that we have harbored for years in support of our inner feelings. It is skillful to hear someone else think those thoughts, so nosotros lazily enjoy the whole feel.

What can we practice about these emotional filters? The solution is non like shooting fish in a barrel in practice, although it can exist summed upwards in this elementary admonition: hear the man out. Post-obit are two pointers that oft assist in preparation people to do this:

(1) Withhold evaluation—This is one of the most important principles of learning, particularly learning through the ear. Information technology requires self-control, sometimes more than many of the states can muster, but with persistent practice it can be turned into a valuable habit. While listening, the main object is to comprehend each indicate made by the talker. Judgments and decisions should be reserved until subsequently the talker has finished. At that time, and only and then, review his principal ideas and assess them.

(2) Hunt for negative evidence—When we heed, it is human to go on a militant search for evidence which proves us right in what we believe. Seldom practice we make a search for bear witness to testify ourselves wrong. The latter type of effort is not piece of cake, for behind its awarding must lie a generous spirit and real breadth of outlook. However, an important part of listening comprehension is found in the search for negative evidence in what we hear. If we brand up our minds to seek out the ideas that might prove us wrong, as well every bit those that might prove united states of america right, we are less in danger of missing what people have to say.

Benefits in Business

The comeback of listening, or simply an effort to make people aware of how important their listening ability is, can be of great value in today's business. When people in business organisation fail to hear and understand each other, the results can be costly. Such things as numbers, dates, places, and names are peculiarly easy to misfile, simply the most straightforward agreements are ofttimes subjects of listening errors, too. When these mistakes are compounded, the resulting cost and inefficiency in concern advice become serious. Edifice awareness of the importance of listening among employees can eliminate a large percentage of this type of audible error.

What are some of the specific problems which meliorate listening can help solve?

Less Paper Work

For one thing, it leads to economic system of communication. Incidents created by poor listening frequently requite businessmen a real fear of oral communication. Every bit a result, they insist that more and more than advice should be put into writing. A great deal of communication needs to be on the tape, simply the pressure level to write is often carried too far. The smallest particular becomes "memoed." Paper piece of work piles college and higher and causes part of the tangle we call cherry tape. Many times less writing and more speaking would be advisable—if we could programme on good listening.

Writing and reading are much slower communication elements than speaking and listening. They require more personnel, more equipment, and more space than do speaking and listening. Frequently a stenographer and a messenger are needed, to say zilch of dictating machines, typewriters, and other writing materials. Few people e'er feel it is condom to throw abroad a written communication; so filing equipment is needed, along with someone to do the filing.

In oral communication there are more human senses at work than in the visual; and if there is good listening, more can ofttimes be communicated in i bulletin. And, perhaps most important of all, there is the word characteristic of oral communication. If the listener does not understand a bulletin, he has the opportunity to straighten matters out then and there.

Upwardly Communication

The skill of listening becomes extremely important when nosotros talk virtually "upward communication." There are many avenues through which management can send messages downward through a business arrangement, only at that place are few avenues for move of information in the upwardly direction. Maybe the near obvious of the upwardly avenues is the homo chain of people talking to people: the man working at the bench talks to his foreman, the foreman to his superintendent, the superintendent to his boss; and, relayed from person to person, the information eventually reaches the tiptop.

This advice concatenation has potential, only it seldom works well because it is total of bad listeners. There can exist failure for at to the lowest degree three reasons:

  • Without good listeners, people practise not talk freely and the menses of communication is seldom set in motion.
  • If the flow should beginning, only 1 bad listener is needed to stop its movement toward the top.
  • Even if the flow should keep to the top, the messages are probable to be badly distorted along the mode.

It would exist absurd to assume that these upward communication lines could exist fabricated to operate without hitches, only there is no reason to think that they cannot be improved by improve listening. But the kickoff steps must be taken by top management people. More and ameliorate listening on their function tin prime number the pumps that start the upward flow of information.

Human Relations

People in all phases of business need to feel free to talk to their superiors and to know they will be met with sympathetic understanding. But too many superiors—although they denote that their doors are always open—fail to mind; and their subordinates, in the confront of this failure, do non feel costless to say what they want to say. As a result, subordinates withdraw from their superiors more and more. They fail to talk almost important problems that should exist aired for both parties' benefit. When such problems remain unaired, they often turn into unrealistic monsters that come back to plague the superior who failed to heed.

The remedy for this sort of audible failure—and it should be practical when subordinates feel the demand to talk—is what nosotros have chosen "nondirective listening." The listener hears, really tries to understand, and later shows understanding by taking action if it is required. Above all, during an oral discourse, the listener refrains from firing his ain thoughts back at the person talking or from indicating his displeasure or disapproval past his mannerisms or gestures; he speaks upwardly just to ask for description of a betoken.

Since the listener stands the take chances of hearing that his nigh dearly held notions and ideas may be wrong, this is not an easy thing to practise. To mind nondirectively without fighting back requires more courage than about of united states tin can muster. Only when nondirective listening can exist practical, the results are ordinarily worth the effort. The persons talking accept a take a chance to unburden themselves. As of import, the odds are better that the listener can counsel or human action effectively when the fourth dimension comes to make a move.

Listening is only one phase of homo relations, only one aspect of the ambassador's job; by itself information technology will solve no major bug. Nonetheless the by experience of many executives and organizations leaves no doubt, in our stance, that better listening can atomic number 82 to a reduction of the human being frictions which aggress many businesses today.

Listening to Sell

Loftier-pressure salesmanship is apace giving style to low-pressure methods in the marketing of industrial and consumer goods. Today'due south successful salesman is likely to center his attention on the client-trouble approach of selling.

To put this approach to piece of work, the skill of listening becomes an essential tool for the salesman, while his song agility becomes less important. How a salesman talks turns out to be relatively unimportant considering what he says, when it is guided by his listening, gives power to the spoken word. In other words, the salesman's listening becomes an on-the-spot form of customer inquiry that can immediately be put to work in formulating any sales talk.

Regardless of the values that listening may hold for people who live by selling, a great many sales organizations seem to agree to the conviction that glibness has magic. Their efforts at improvement are aimed mainly at the talking side of salesmanship. It is our confidence, withal, that with the typical salesman the ability to talk will almost have care of itself, just the ability to listen is something in existent demand of improvement.

In Briefing

The almost important affairs in business are conducted around conference tables. A neat bargain has been said and written nearly how to talk at a conference, how to compromise, how to get problem-centered, and how to cope with sure types of individuals. All these things can be very of import, but likewise frequently the experts forget to say, "Commencement and foremost yous must learn to listen at a conference."

The reason for this is simple when we call up of the basic purpose for property almost any briefing. People go together to contribute their dissimilar viewpoints, cognition, and experience to members of the grouping, which and then seeks the all-time of all the conferees' thinking to solve a common trouble. If there is far more than talking than listening at a conference, however, the oral contributions made to the group are inappreciably worth the breath required to produce them.

More than and improve listening at whatsoever conference is sure to facilitate the substitution of ideas so of import to the success of a meeting. Information technology also offers many other advantages; for example, when participants do a good job of listening, their conference is more likely to remain centered on the problem at hand and less likely to go off on irrelevant tangents.

The first steps toward improved conference listening tin can be taken by the grouping leader. If he will just make an opening statement calling attention to the importance of listening, he is very likely to increase the participants' aural response. And if the leader himself does a good job of listening, he stands the take a chance of beingness imitated past the others in his group.

Decision

Some businessmen may desire to take steps to develop a listening improvement plan in their companies. Here are 14 suggestions designed to comport on what we hope this commodity has already started to do—build awareness of listening.

(one) Devote an executive seminar, or seminars, to a discussion of the roles and functions of listening as a business organization tool.

(2) Utilize the filmed cases now becoming available for management grooming programs.3 Since these cases nowadays the trouble as information technology would appear in reality, viewers are forced to practise good listening habits in society to be certain of what is going on—and this includes not but hearing the sound track but besides watching the facial mannerisms, gestures, and motions of the actors.

(3) If possible, bring in qualified speakers and enquire them to discuss listening with special reference to how it might employ to business organization. Such speakers are bachelor at a number of universities where listening is existence taught as a part of advice training.

(4) Conduct a self-inventory by the employees regarding their listening on the job. Provide everyone with a uncomplicated form divided into spaces for each hr of the mean solar day. Each space should exist further divided to let the user to go along track of the amount of time spent in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Discuss the results of these forms subsequently the communication times have been totaled. What pct of the fourth dimension practise people spend listening? What might improved listening mean in terms of job effectiveness?

(v) Give a test in listening ability to people and prove them the scores that they make. There is at to the lowest degree one standardized exam for this purpose.four Discuss the significant of the scores with the individuals tested.

(six) Build up a library of spoken-word records of literature, speeches, and so forth (many can exist purchased through record stores), and make them available in a room that has a record player. Besides, lend the records to employees who might wish to take them domicile to relish them at their leisure. For such a library, cloth pertinent to the employees' jobs might exist recorded so that those who are interested can listen for educational purposes.

(7) Record a number of bodily briefing sessions that may be held by plant superintendents or others. When new people get to work for the company, ask them to listen to these sessions as role of their initial preparation. Bank check their comprehension of what they hear by ways of cursory objective tests. Emphasize that this is being done because listening is of import on the new jobs.

(viii) Prepare office-playing situations wherein executives are asked to cope with complaints comparable to those that they might hear from subordinates. Ask observers to comment on how well an executive seems to listen. Exercise his remarks reflect a practiced job of listening? Does he continue himself from condign emotionally involved in what the subordinate says? Does the executive heed in a way which would encourage the subordinate to talk freely?

(9) Inquire salesmen to divide a notebook into sections, one for each customer. After making a call, a salesman should write downwards all useful information received aurally from the client. Equally the information grows, he should refer to it before each return visit to a client.

(10) Where a sales organisation has a number of friendly customers, invite some of the more articulate ones to join salesmen in a group discussion of sales techniques. How do the customers experience about talking and listening on the function of salesmen? Try to get the customers to make listening critiques of salesmen they encounter.

(eleven) In a grooming session, plan and hold a conference on a selected trouble and tape-record it. Afterwards, play back the recording. Discuss information technology in terms of listening. Do the oral contributions of dissimilar participants reflect skilful listening? If the conference should get off the track, endeavour to analyze the causes in terms of listening.

(12) If at that place is fourth dimension later a regularly scheduled conference, concur a listening critique. Ask each fellow member to evaluate the listening attending that he received while talking and to report his analysis of his own listening performance.

(13) In important management meetings on controversial issues endeavour Irving J. Lee's "Procedure for 'Coercing' Agreement."5 Under the ground rules for this procedure, which Lee outlined in item in his article, the chairman calls for a period during which proponents of a hotly debated view tin state their position without interruption; the opposition is limited to (a) the asking of questions for description, (b) requests for data concerning the peculiar characteristics of the proposal being considered; and (c) requests for information every bit to whether information technology is possible to cheque the speaker's assumptions or predictions.

(14) Sponsor a series of lectures for employees, their families, and their friends. The lectures might be on whatsoever number of interesting topics that have educational value as well as amusement features. Point out that these lectures are available as part of a listening improvement plan.

Not all of these suggestions are applicable to every state of affairs, of course. Each firm volition have to arrange them to its own particular needs. The near important thing, however, may not be what happens when a specific suggestion is followed, only rather but what happens when people become aware of the problem of listening and of what improved audible skills tin practise for their jobs and their businesses.

1. See E. J. J. Kramar and Thomas B. Lewis, "Comparing of Visual and Nonvisual Listening," Journal of Communication, November 1951, p. sixteen; and Arthur W. Heilman, "An Investigation in Measuring and Improving Listening Ability of College Freshmen," Speech Monographs, Nov 1951, p. 308.

2. See Wendell Johnson, "The Fateful Procedure of Mr. A Talking to Mr. B," HBR Jan–February 1953, p. 49.

3. See George W. Gibson, "The Filmed Case in Direction Grooming," HBR May–June 1957, p. 123.

four. Chocolate-brown-Carlsen Listening Comprehension Test (Yonkers-on-Hudson, Globe Volume Company).

5. HBR January–February 1954, p. 39.

A version of this article appeared in the September 1957 issue of Harvard Business organisation Review.