Most of us truly believe we have awesome listening skills. Even the most humble in our midst would modestly claim that we are above average listeners. I have yet to meet anyone who is honest enough to fess up that he or she is but a lousy listener.

When asked what being a good listener entails, we bring up superficial stuff like making eye contact, not interrupting the speaker, or even repeating and paraphrasing what the speaker is saying.

Granted these are important points. They are pre-requisites to good listening even. But saying that making eye contact makes you a good listener is like saying you can hold a mike hence you are a good singer. #hardlythecase.

In a Harvard Business Review article titled What Great Listeners Actually Do, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman studied thousands of participants in a program for developing managers. They identified the most effective ...