Active Listening: seek first to understand

Covey's published taxonomy of what people do instead of listening, all filtered through the listener's own autobiography: (1) Evaluating — agreeing or disagreeing before he's finished; (2) Probing — asking from your own frame, not his; (3) Advising — solving his problem with your solution; (4) Interpreting — explaining his motives back to him; (5) Ignoring — pretending to listen while not actually listening. All five feel like listening from the listener's side and feel like not being heard from the speaker's side.