Five educated, successful professional women are car-pooling to a seminar. It's a two hour drive. The din inside the vehicle is reminiscent of an orchestra tuning up. Several women are talking at once -- each with an idea to express concerning the issue under discussion. When any is determined to make a point, she cranks up her volume, trumping competing ideas with decibel power.
Is any of these women listening? Can any repeat back or summarize the ideas of the other women in the car? Probably not. And if not, what's the point? Competition? Catharsis? Communication it's not -- without listening there is no communication.
Listening is rarely taught in schools because educators (along with almost everyone else) assume listening is tantamount to breathing -- automatic. But effective listening is a skill. Like any other skill, competency in listening is achieved through learning and practice. The scarcity of good listeners is self-perpetuating; if you didn't have good listeners to learn from and (especially) models to emulate, you probably didn't master this "master" skill. Instead, you learned whatever passed for listening in your environment: distracted half-attention, constant interruptions, multi-layered, high-volume, talk-fest free-for-alls with little listening at all.
