Listening Development in an Industrial Environment

For the past eleven years, a most unusual communications program has been taught at IBM's Electronics Systems Center. This program employs updated communications techniques that were utilized by the author when he organized the first (in industry) creative dramatics, children's theater, and adult drama groups at IBM. The development of the senses-listening, observing, and remembering-defines the course. This includes: 1) developing the senses to a keen degree, 2) observing with all the senses, 3) being consciously aware of using the senses. Listening retention and comprehension has increased from a documented 50 percentile level before training to a 90 percentile after training, an improvement of 80 percent. A two month retention survey shows a 25 percentile before training and a 60.5 percentile after training, an improvement of approximately 140 percent. The results of this pioneering effort in listening comprehension and retention far exceeded expectations.