Great link on effective listening: http://sklatch.net/thoughtlets/listen.html .

Michael Webb writes about communication barriers AND the way to remove these obstacles.

Basically 8 barriers:

• knowing the answer
• trying to be helpfull
• treating discussion as competition
• trying to influence or impress
• reacting to red flag words
• believing in language
• mixing up the forest and the trees
• over-splitting or over-lumping

PierG