Listening is Important to Become Famous Part 3

When misunderstanding occurs in the workplace, the speaker is normally blamed for not conveying the message better. But is this always the case? Why shouldn't the listener also be blamed for not understanding?

Speaking is considered a skill but isn't listening also a skill? Listening can be learned, improved, and perfected. To see how listening can be improved, we should probably go over the seven mistakes others make while listening.


Rehearsing
Rehearsing is when you look as if you're paying attention but in reality you're only thinking about what to say next. You may even go as far to think about the whole dialogue between you to.


Evaluating
If you've already prejudged the speaker as incompetent or boring, even if you're right, you've already started to create the very traits you normally would criticize.


Playing the 'Little Man' Game
The little man always needs to top the story of the one telling a story. For example, the speaker caught a fish however the little man needs to tell how he caught a even bigger fish. Most of the time, the little man can not even wait until the speaker is finished to tell his story.


Truth Telling
You solve problems quickly and efficiently, or so you've thought. All the truth teller needs to hear is a few sentences before knowing the answer, but is the truth tellers answer actually correct?


Fault finder
The fault finder normally will find the faults of the speaker believing that there is no punishment. Because of this, you'll try everything possible to appear as if you're never wrong.


Placating
This is the opposite of the fault finder because you'll never let the speaker know he's wrong. The placater will always give the speaker a positive reaction to what he says.


Derailing
The derailer will only talk about what he wants to talk about by changing the subject whenever he's given the chance. This is often done by people with a position of power changing the subject of the lower people.

Now that we know the main mistakes made when listening to others, we should be able to stop them. In part 4, I will discuss tools how to stop you form being a bad listener.