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In our story, Po, Tamika, May, and Tony believe that Kevin has a problem being "on time." Note Tamika’s exclamation, "He’s 10 minutes late!" But what does it mean to be late? "Being on time" and "late" are interpretations of behavioral events (e.g., we agreed to meet at 2 p.m., it is 2:30 and Kevin has not shown up). In this case, the group members are sharing with each other their own experiences of time. Can you think of examples that show how time is experienced differently in different cultures, perhaps one in which 30 minutes past a set time for a meeting would not be considered "late"?
Kevin finally arrives an hour after the scheduled time for the meeting. Tamika confronts him and asks him why he does not care enough to get to their meetings on time. Kevin tells her that he swore he heard Po tell him the meeting was scheduled for 3 p.m., not 2 p.m. If communication is seen as linear, then who is to blame for Kevin’s "lateness"? On the other hand, from a transactional perspective, how do they all share in this circumstance? What might they say to each other if they looked at their circumstance transactionally—that is, if they took the point of view that they all created the situation?
In 1996 someone estimated that every morning in the United States 15 million meetings take place. Consider that in a six-person group, every time 5 minutes of information is repeated because of poor listening, a total of 30 minutes is wasted. Taken together that is a lot of wasted time! Are you a good listener? Why? When you are not as effective a listener as you would like to be, what has happened? Interested in improving your listening? Read on.
Look back at the story about Po and the others at the beginning of the chapter. Given the information you have, which listening preferences are manifested in the dialogue? How do the preferences help the discussion? How might they hinder the discussion?
