- Deciding in advance that the subject is uninteresting
- Poor listeners learn what the talk is about and decide immediately that the subject is of no interest to them. Instead of listening they think of something else, write meaningless things on their notepad
- Focusing on the poor delivery of the speaker
- Poor listeners focus on the appearance or delivery of the speaker. Inappropriately dressed speakers, as well as the ones that punctuates their speech with “uh” or “er” distracts ineffective listener
- Becoming overexcited and anxious to make your own point
- Poor listeners want to run ahead of the conversation. Especially if it is a subject that they have some knowledge, their minds race ahead to plan their own sentences.
- Focusing only on facts
–Poor listeners listens only for the facts, but later when they try to remember them, they often missed the less concrete but more important concepts and ideas behind the facts.
- A tendency to outline everything
- Poor listeners tend to outline lectures or speeches. However if these talks are not well organized by the speaker, when later reviewed, these notes provide little insight to what was said
- Pretending to pay attention Poor listeners are often tired, lazy or bored. They pretend to listen in an attentive posture and then mentally drift away.
- Allowing distractions to interfere
- Distractions can be a noise that interferes with one’s ability to hear, or a visual done that attracts one’s attention away from the listener. Poor listeners take a very passive role and allows distractions to interfere with the listening process
- Avoiding difficult material
- Poor listeners do not try to listen to material that seems difficult for them
- Responding emotionally to certain words or phrases
- There are certain terms, phrases and words that affect people in an emotional way which makes some individuals block out the rest of the conversation
- Daydreaming because of difference between speech speed and thought speed
- People speak about 150 words per minute. Listeners are capable of processing 500-700 words per minute. Poor listener often becomes involved in a daydream and forgets to tune back in