Listen Up or Lose Out

8

Skill-Based Listening

Skill—the ability to do something well.

—OXFORD AMERICAN DICTIONARY

MOST PEOPLE DO ordinary listening—the kind that’s used every day by people who picked up the way they “listen” from the mainly untrained and unskilled “listeners” who’ve populated their lives from infancy on. Ordinary “listeners” aren’t aware of the trouble spots that bedevil the talking–listening process discussed in Chapter 5. And they’re generally unaware of the commonly made listening missteps that were the focus of the last two chapters. Although ordinary ...