The word listen, as is shown in Longman Dictionary, means paying attention to what someone is saying or to a sound that you can hear. Listening is definitely an important skill in communication. “When people talk, listen completely.” Those words of Ernest Hemingway might be a pretty good guiding principle for many managers. After all, people like being listened to.

Some firms use a technique known as a “listening circle”. In such a circle, only one person can talk about the issues they face at a time and there is no interruption. A study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that employees who had taken part in a listening circle subsequently suffered less social anxiety and had fewer worries about work-related matters than those who did not.

Listening has been critical to the career of Richard Mullender, who was a hostage (人质) negotiator, dealing with everything from suicide interventions to international kidnaps (绑架). He defines listening as “the identification, selection and interpretation of the key words”. It is crucial to all effective communication.

Plenty of people think that good listening is about nodding your head or keeping eye contact. But that is not really listening, Mr Mullender argues. A good listener is always looking for facts, emotions and indications of the other person’s values. Another important point to bear in mind is that, when you talk, you are not listening. The listener’s focus should be on analysis.

Of course, a listener needs to speak occasionally. One approach is to make an assessment of what the other person is telling you and then check it with them. For example, you can check with the other person by saying “It seems to me that what you want is…”. That gives the other party a sense that they are being understood. The fundamental aim is to build up a relationship so the other person likes you and trusts you, Mr Mullender says.

There’s a song by the great Jamaican singer Bob Marley called So Much Trouble In The World. Marley understood that part of the reason why there are so many problems in the world is the lack of tolerance between people. The UN understands this too that’s why it made Nov 16 “International Day for Tolerance”.

But first of all, what is tolerance? French philosopher Voltaire (1694 — 1778) can give us some help. According to him, tolerance “is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty (脆弱) and error; let us pardon each other’s folly — that is the first law of nature.”

Nobody’s perfect. When we’re tempted to criticize another person, we should perhaps remember our own imperfections first.

Very often, people don’t realize that they’re intolerant. This is because intolerance has a lot to do with ignorance. For example, the UN’s campaign is in part about the treatment of females by males. But often, the behavior of men toward women is intolerant because men don’t put themselves in the shoes of women.

It’s worth thinking a little about the words “tolerance” and “intolerance”. Are they the best words to describe the evils of which we’re speaking here? To agree to be “tolerant” of someone isn’t necessarily a very respectful thing. When someone is tolerated, it implies that there’s something wrong with them.

But it seems wrong that people should agree to “tolerate” people with black skin, for example. And should women think they have received the respect they are due when men agree to “tolerate” them?

Still, what Voltaire said stands: We humans are not perfect and this weakness is something that we all share. That’s the reason we should be tolerant.

It’s a little like generosity. We can give things to another person, and we can also give our forgiveness. Bob Marley understood this. In the song mentioned above, he advised: “Write your love on a rock so it stays for eternity (永恒); write your hate in the sand so the waves will wash it away.”

Active listening is a structured form of listening and responding that focuses the attention on the speaker.The listener should listen to the speaker fully,and then repeat in the listener's own words what he or she thinks the speaker has said.【小题1】However,he or she must simply state what he or she thinks the speaker said.This enables the speaker to find out whether the listener really understood.If the listener did not,the speaker would explain some more.

【小题2】Thus,instead of just repeating what happened,the active listener might add that the speaker felt angry or confused when a particular event happened.Then the speaker can go beyond confirming that the listener understood what happened.It can also indicate that the listener understood the speaker's psychological response to it.