A useful checklist on how not to listen

Some of you may or may not know that I although I am the managing director of Good Sense Conflict Resolution Training I am also a writer for the Alchemy For Managers Project. I write the training sections on violence and aggression as these are key areas of my expertise.
Within the project there is a particular section on listening which is something I have covered quite a bit on the blog. I have read this section closely and I fully endorse what it is saying as it is very similar to what we discuss in our polite model.

Whilst I was reading the listening section, I stumbled across a great checklist which I felt I had to share with you as I can relate to a lot of what is inside it and I am sure you will do too. I think it is the next best content on listening since my post on the listening stick. I have enclosed the checklist below but if you want more information you can see the whole section here.

I do not listen because I am…

1. Rehearsing my reply while the other person is still talking
2. Worrying in case the other person won’t accept my response
3. Getting impatient for them to finish so I can start talking
4. Trying to do something practical and listen at the same time
5. Not interested in what they are saying
6. Thinking about something else while they are speaking
7. Thinking that I know what they are going to say before they say it
8. Dismissing what they are saying as irrelevant to me before hearing what they say
9. Finishing off their sentences
10. Getting bored and switching off
11. Thinking they are going too slowly to keep me interested
12. Wanting to speed things up by interrupting or talking about something else
13. Talking over the other person
14. Assuming that they don’t know what they’re talking about before they speak
15. Fidgeting and appearing not to be listening.

I am sure most of us do at least some of these things on a regular basis, I say that becaues I do too. Just because I am a conflict resolution trainer doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes when listening. The flipside of that is I then understand why something has gone wrong and I can correct it. You don’t know what you don’t know!.