Active Listening

Lars explains why active listening is valuable for a variety of knowledge workers, including salespeople, marketers, and product managers, in order to be customer-centric. He covers: • Killer-Sales’ real secret is Extreme listening. • The Whole Company Will Listen If Sales Reps Listens Extremely Well • How Do You Do Extreme Listening? • Pursue The Verbal And Non-verbal Cues Aggressively • Build listening sales reps into a competitive learning culture. • What Fantastic Product Managers Do

Active listening requires focusing solely on what the other person is saying without distractions. It involves comprehending, retaining and responding appropriately. Here are the key take-aways from this article: • Comprehension involves understanding what the speaker is actually saying beyond just the words, overcoming potential barriers like language differences. • Retaining what the speaker says and the details they consider important is essential for an appropriate response. Suppressing our ego helps with this. • Responding in a way that shows we understand and have paid attention to what was said and how it was said is part of active listening. • Cognitive biases like confirmation bias can impede active listening by distorting our comprehension and responses. • Conversational narcissism, where people only want to talk about themselves, prevents active listening. Support responses help sustain the speaker. • Active listening can help resolve arguments by facilitating calm communication and understanding. • We can improve our active listening skills through practice, self-awareness of biases, avoiding immediate responses, and increasing our motivation to listen. • Making notes during important conversations can help with comprehension and retention. • Using techniques like Socratic questioning can help draw out others' viewpoints during disagreements.

Teresa concretely explains how to listen actively: • Practice Empathy • Note the affect / emotion • Pay attention to non-verbal cues • Repeat back what you heard.