If you're going to ask good questions you should probably listen to the answers. As Caroline Webb says in How to Have a Good Day:
"Merely by saying “Tell me more about that,” you’ll be in the top percentile of listeners that anyone will meet today"
Which is true. And easy to say. But it's worth recognising that listening is hard.
"The reason it’s hard to focus on a conversation with your spouse isn’t that you’re surreptitiously checking your phone beneath the dinner table. On the contrary, ‘surreptitiously checking your phone beneath the dinner table’ is what you do because it’s hard to focus on the conversation – because listening takes effort and patience and a spirit of surrender, and because what you hear might upset you, so checking your phone is naturally more pleasant." (Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman)
We have to give up what we really want to do, talk:
"I’ve noticed that Margot listens differently than I do. She pays attention, but leaves her own stories out of it." (Weather - Jenny Offill)
Or as Russell T Davies said:
"Dialogue is just two monologues clashing. That's my Big Theory. It's true in life – never mind drama. Everyone is always, always thinking about themselves. It's kind of impossible to do otherwise."
Which is why it's a job:
"Many of us have a limited threshold for how much venting we can listen to, even from the people we love, as well as how often we can tolerate this venting while not feeling listened to ourselves. Relationships thrive on reciprocity. That’s one of the reasons why therapists charge us for their time and friends don’t." (Chatter - Ethan Kross)
And a skill:
"This is a principle that hostage negotiators understand. They often have to de-escalate situations that are on the verge of chaos. In order to do that, Professor William Donohue told me, they try and provide a structure through which the hostage-taker can express himself. ‘The negotiator enters this highly contentious, identity driven, emotionally fraught moshpit of confusion, and they have to impose order on it. They feed back what they’re hearing in a structured manner: “The first thing you’re concerned about is this, the second thing is this …”’ Experts in tough conversations are trained to do this, but as Donohue pointed out to me, it’s something skilled communicators do instinctively: ‘A good friend listens to your emotional diatribe and helps you find a shape for it. They turn your mess into something you can get a handle on – so that you can do something about it.’ (Conflicted - Ian Leslie)
Which makes proper listening a gift:
In the words of adrienne maree brown, “What we pay attention to grows, so I’m thinking about how we grow what we are all imagining and creating into something large enough and solid enough that it becomes a tipping point.” (All We Can Save)
And
"...she ran the conversation like a world-class tennis player, serving generously, returning every ball." (Crudo - Olivia Laing)
And
"What we need most of all, more than prizes, is a sense that we have been attended to, listened to and worried about. We want our existence to be acknowledged and noted. In my life I have felt happiest not when being flattered but when being fully held in someone else’s head, if only for a few moments. The best compliment you can pay someone is not to pepper them with applause emojis but to be interested in what they say and do. We just need to be noticed – or loved, which is the same thing." (If You Should Fail - Joe Moran)