Printed Page 164

Preventing Incompetent Listening

Avoiding the most common listening pitfalls

No one is a perfect active listener all the time. At one time or another we all make errors during the listening process, fail to identify the right purpose for listening during an interpersonal encounter, or neglect to use the appropriate listening style. In previous sections of this chapter, we discussed ways to avoid such errors. But being an active listener also means systematically avoiding five notoriously incompetent types of listening.