After years in university classrooms and meeting rooms, I have reached an unsettling conclusion: talking has become harder, not easier. Technology, language and curriculum are not the real obstacles. The deeper problem is quieter and more pervasive: we do not listen to understand; we listen to reply.

I see it first in the classroom. A student begins a question, often hesitantly. Before they finish, another student jumps in with an answer, eager to display knowledge. Sometimes even the teacher (myself included) cuts the question short, assuming we already know what is being asked. We respond to half a sentence with a full lecture. Later we discover that the question was actually something else. The student walks away with the same confusion, now wrapped in the feeling of not being heard.

The same pattern emerges when I ask for feedback. "Any questions?" is usually followed by silence. But in one-to-one conversations, concerns pour out: the last........

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