“The best leaders share a common secret: They successfully lead because they effectively listen. Good listening, however, seems to be a rare management skill.”
Rick Bommelje, Buzzle.com, 8/27/09
Does the following list sound like a lot of your work life?
- customers who expect you to know their business
- direct reports who rely upon you for clarity
- peers you need to collaborate with
- supervisors who judge you on how well you execute plans
- vendors who depend upon you for accuracy.
If so, then you better be a good LISTENER. More than half of your time at work is spent listening. Everything you do depends on how well you gather information from an interaction, and the cost of poor listening translates directly to the bottom line. But just because you “do” something frequently doesn’t mean you’re good at it. While you probably spend more time “doing” listening than any other communication skill. you might not be effective at it.
At Expanding Thought, Inc. ®, we’ve channeled years of research and more than two decades of coaching people on listening into practical tools and techniques for becoming a master listener.
Our Tenets:
- Most people have no idea what it takes to listen, or the unique way they listen.
- We form habits by doing a thing over and over, and come to rely on it because it served us well in the past.
- Habits can be unlearned, and then new ones learned.
We offer a suite of offerings on listening which includes:
ListeningImpact workshop focuses on listening as the signature skill required to create meaning in interactions
ListeningImpact webinars: #1 builds awareness about individual listening habits and #2 builds listening skills regardless of habit
Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio® assesses and describes listening habits used in the workplace
Hear! Hear? Practitioner Certification certifies coaches to use the assessment tool in their practice
These offerings meet the following business needs:
- Listening habits directly influence what a sales person gathers and uses from a client interaction
- Listening fluency increases a sales person’s ability to consult rather than transact
- Listening fluency increases the likelihood that both the message sender and receiver will share in creating meaning and truly collaborating
- Skillful listening enables a leader to hear what is and what is not said when they need others to execute
- In global environments, the ability to listen is directly proportional to respect, trust, and knowledge shared
- Channeling attention is a must for all workers
ListeningImpact™ Workshop (four-hour in-class workshop) presented with Hart Resources, Inc.
Workshop objectives:
- Uncover the triggers that cause inattention
- Provide tactics to channel attention
- Assess the influence of listening habits on workplace performance
- Demonstrate how body language, tone-of-voice and questions impact listening
- Develop strategies to listen appropriately during any context
Workshop outcomes:
- Awareness of individual listening habits, strengths and challenges, and their impact on work
- Ability to channel attention when it wanders
- Know and apply effective listening tactics
- Develop schema to listen with intention
- Be fluent in any and all listening situations
ListeningImpact™ Webinar (two webinars, 90 minutes each)
Webinar objectives:
- Examine the science and art of listening
- Interpret results of Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio®
- Observe 4 listening habits, their strengths and challenges
- Understand individual preferred habit(s) and build the skill to listen with habits required by the situation
- Learn from people who represent the spectrum of listening habits
Webinar outcomes:
- Awareness of individual listening habits and their impact on work
- Ability to develop “right fit” options for application of habits in listening situations
- Knowledge and use of tactics to increase attention
- Be more skilled as a listener in all communication
Hear! Hear? Practitioner Certification (120-minute video conference and 30-60 minute phone follow-up)
Certification objectives:
- Use Hear! Hear? assessment tool with clients
- Apply a validated instrument to assess listening preferences
- Determine the right fit of habits to the work requirements and culture
- Identify strategies to increase listening effectiveness with clients
- Add depth to other instruments such as MBTI, EQi, 360, Kolb Learning, Thomas-Kilman, etc.
Certification outcomes:
- Understand theory and research on listening habits that involve the brain, personality, beliefs, and behaviors
- Prepared to use the assessment with clients
- Familiar with materials in the certification manual
- Supported by master coach(s) and other certified coaches in a community of practice
Note: Marian Thier writes about listening on her blog at www.xtho.com/blog.
Testimonials
“The workshop brought forth some suspicion I had about myself; realized I can improve. I will make a conscious effort to be a better listener and work on it daily now that I know how and what the cost is of not doing it well.”
Sales Executive
“This certification time has made me feel ready to use Hear Hear! with clients. Thank you!”
Ann Rice Mullen,
Executive Coach
“The workshop has forced me to expand my thoughts about listening…I think the listening instrument and the webinar content presented will “grow” as I reflect on my interactions with others… and here I thought I knew something about listening…this gives me another layer of complexity to think about and apply!!!
“I have taken away a new lens to view myself and others in my interpersonal interactions….”
Jane Saltonstall
Learning and Development Professional
“We used the Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio, along with a 360 assessment, with a group of Sales Managers. The listening profile provided additional valuable insight into their communication skills that the 360 tool didn’t provide.”
Brenda Williams
People Development Manager
Aggreko, LLC
“Wow, I can’t believe you managed to get this info with 10 questions. When I read your summary, I felt like you were sitting inside my mind.”
Ellen DiResta, Project Manager
“This is very accurate! Quite surprising! And impressive. Different from anything I have ever seen.”
Lawrence Polsky, Managing Partner, PeopleNRG, Inc.
