Covey on Counterfeit Listening

Covey (The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 208ff) gives gives us "Listen First" as one of the behaviors that build or maintain trust, "Listen First" (p. 209)

He also gives the counterfeit, or fake version, of listening, "pretend listening":

It's spending 'listening' time thinking about your reply and just waiting for your turn to speak. Or, it's listening without understanding. In either case, you're not influenced by what others have to say, and usually those you 'listen' to don't fee understood, even though you've given them the time.

I've certainly been guilty of that, and it's hard to listen when what someone is saying to you is hard for you to take. If you only pretend to listen to someone who's talking to you, you might actually harm your relationship with that other person. You might be better to say: "You know I can't really focus on this now. Can we find a time to talk about this when I can really listen to you?" Then if the person says they have to talk about it right now, you can deal with it. Maybe you can listen for a few minutes, think about what the person is saying, and then talk with them in more depth later.

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