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.