I agree in so far, that the "ability to listen with a purpose" is invaluable. I have a couple of (senior) co-workers, which are technically skilled, but simply won't listen or empathize very well. They react to given trigger words in a knee-jerk way, then reeling off some kind of (technically) story. Often enough the information they give you is buried deep in noise, is not there, or worse, turns out to be wrong. Poor communication between people strikes me as one the biggest bottleneck in our company.
For me it is frustrating to work with, and I really need to pay attention to not joining their mannerisms.