Your Hearing May Be Perfect. But Your Listening Sucks.

4 Barriers to Communication and How to Beat Them

Language is the cement of our relationships. We all know how it feels to have our language listened to. Really listened to. We feel the complete and invested attention of the person with whom we are trying to communicate. We feel respected. We feel engaged. It doesn’t matter if they understand or agree with us. Our words have value, by extension, so do we. It makes us want to return the favor.

But we also know what it’s like to speak, and not be heard. Our words are wasted on someone who has no use for them. We wonder why we made the effort in the first place, and vow to be more cautious in investing too much in the future. To waste your time with a lousy listener can feel pretty bad. You don’t count. It can hurt your feelings, or infuriate you. There are two basic reasons for this kind of disrespect: the listener truly couldn’t give a damn, or, they are “listening challenged” and would benefit from an intervention. At one time or another, for any number of reasons, we all fall short and could benefit from a “tune-up.”

Barrier 1. Radical Changes in Our Culture

In the past twenty years, we have seen a technological explosion that has radically changed our lives. It has…