Stop, Think, and Listen Before Speaking Essay example -- essays resear

Stop, Think, and Listen Before Speaking When people speak before thinking or even listening to what is being said, the breakdown of communication can happen rapidly. Poor listening habits can negatively affect business and personal relationships. Here is a situation where poor listening habits and poor thinking skills had a negative impact and hindered the communications between a leader of a Family Readiness Group (FRG) and the FRG members. In July of 2003, 1/87 Infantry Battalion deployed to combat in Afghanistan. The deployment was to be only six months long, and the soldiers would be rejoined with their family members shortly after the New Year started. The family members that were left behind formed a FRG to assist families during the deployment. Deborah, being the most senior wife in the section was, made the section FRG leader, which means her duties were to keep the FRG members informed and up-to-date on the situation of the deployed soldiers. However, Deborah worked a fulltime job and had a family of her own to care for; Deborah attended all the battalion FRG meetings. Deborah also called, informed, and kept all her members up-to-date of the incoming information that was being released at the battalion FRG meetings. Deborah would also pass on information to the members of her section’s FRG that was given to her by her husband; Deborah was doing her best to ease the minds of the family members that were le ft behind to run the house and carry on with daily life. At the time, it was late November and the Battalion was scheduled to return home in six weeks. Thanksgiving was only two days away, Christmas was just around the corner a feeling of hope and joy was in the air. Then, in the middle of the night, Deborah’s phone rang; Deborah’s husband was calling; she could tell from his voice that something was wrong. Through a cracked voice, Deborah’s husband informed her that he had just received word that the Battalion would be staying in Afghanistan for another four to six months. He asked Deborah if she could call just the section’s wives and as tactfully as she could, inform the wives. He also asked Deborah to tell the wives that the information being passed was not being formally released as of yet that he just wanted to give the wives a forewarning so that they were not blindsided when the extension was officially released. As soon as Deborah hung u... ...ully to what was being said to them. When Deborah called the section wives and informed them that even though the information was not official, she felt that this was her duty to give the wives in her section a forewarning that the Battalion’s deployment to Afghanistan would be extended another four to six months. The wives should have listened to what was being said and prepared themselves for when the information was officially released; instead they became emotional and made the situation spin out of control and hurt Deborah, the one person that was looking out for the section’s wives best interests. In conclusion, the entire situation could have been avoided two different ways. The first way the situation could have been avoided; was if the wives that called crying to the Commander’s wife would have listened closer to what Deborah was informing them of, even though what she was saying was not what they wanted to hear. The second way the situation could have been avoided; was if Deborah would have kept the information that she had received from her husband concerning the Battalion being extended in Afghanistan to herself, and waited for the official release from the Battalion.