Do you want to improve your relationships and productivity, all by simply changing your listening habits? Listening is the forgotten communication skill, but arguably, the most significant. It is a crucial part of our ability to engage and communicate with others. Listening actively, however, takes this skillset up a level. Almost everyone sincerely believes that they listen effectively; however, good listening skills are rare. Most of us have never been taught the habits that would make us effective listeners, so they need to be practiced and developed. As you develop your listening with purpose, understanding and empathy, you will build better trust and stronger relationships. You already understand the importance of quality communication. But good communication is built not on speaking but on listening. When we learn to actively listen-to listen well-this ability resonates through all our relationships and interactions. Research has found that by listening actively, you will obtain more information, increase others' trust in you, reduce conflict, and better understand the message being delivered. In 10 easy steps, you can go from being a poor listener to an excellent one. At each step, you'll learn how to navigate the pitfalls of strained communication, transforming your ability to exchange accurate, complete information and deepen emotional understanding and connectedness. You'll discover 10 easy-to-learn steps to becoming a better listener, with practical examples of do's and don'ts. These strategies will teach you how to: Focus your attention Listen with purpose and empathy Improve as a leader Develop healthier relationships Each chapter in this book will teach you about a vital component of active listening. While listening sounds simple, it's anything but. Listening well, listening deeply, is an interconnected, complex process. But the result is well worth the effort, equipping you to undo the damage to your relationships inflicted by shallow or dismissive listening. Are you ready to take the leap and completely change your listening? If you're prepared to be amazed by the improvement in your personal productivity and interpersonal relationships, start reading!

"That isn't what I meant!" Truly listening and being heard is far from simple, even between people who care about each other. This perennial bestseller--now revised and updated for the digital age--analyzes how any conversation can go off the rails and provides essential skills for building mutual understanding. Thoughtful, witty, and empathic, the book is filled with vivid stories of couples, coworkers, friends, and family working through tough emotions and navigating differences of all kinds. Learn ways you can: *Hear what people mean, not just what they say. *Share a difference of opinion without sounding dismissive. *Encourage uncommunicative people to open up. *Make sure both sides get heard in heated discussions. *Get through to someone who never seems to listen. *Ask for support without getting unwanted advice. *Reduce miscommunication in texts and online. From renowned therapist Michael P. Nichols and new coauthor Martha B. Straus, the third edition reflects the huge impact of technology and social media on relationships, and gives advice for talking to loved ones across social and political divides

Why do we so often fail to connect when speaking with business colleagues, family members, or friends? Wouldn't you like to make yourself heard and understood in all of your relationships? Using vivid examples, easy-to-learn techniques, and practical exercises for becoming a better listener-and making yourself heard and understood, Dale Carnegie will show you how it's done, even in difficult situations. Founded in 1912, Dale Carnegie Training has evolved from one man's belief in the power of self-improvement to a performance-based training company with offices worldwide. Dale Carnegie's original body of knowledge has been constantly updated, expanded and refined through nearly a century's worth of real-life business experiences. He is recognized internationally as the leader in bringing out the best in people and over 8 million people have completed a Dale Carnegie course.

Learn to connect, create rapport, develop trust, and build deep relationships. In this day and age, the art of deep listening is a superpower. If you can make someone feel heard and important, you are on the highway to their heart. And it’s not as difficult or complex as you think. How to go from stranger to cherished friend in record time. How to Listen with Intention is ultimately a book about relationships. A relationship must be give-and-take - are you taking more than you are giving? Are you making people feel comfortable opening up to you? Are you listening well, or unwittingly being a conversational/relationship narcissist? It’s time to ask these difficult questions and learn the skills to not only help people in times of need, but create new friendships with just about anyone -- after all, who doesn’t like to be heard? Increase your emotional intelligence and people analyzing skills. Patrick King is an internationally bestselling author and social skills coach. His writing draws a variety of sources, from scientific research, academic experience, coaching, and real-life experience. Understand people two levels beneath their actual words. --The most damaging mindsets for listening. --How we are all biologically programmed to be terrible listeners, and we have no idea about it. --The one person you should emulate for better listening. --How listening styles, frames, and levels can help you - and how you are not even close to what you think you are. --The concept of active, reflective listening, and why it’s so tough. --Reading people, emotional intelligence, and empathy. Become the most trusted ally and source of comfort and understanding.

Are you a good listener? How well do you really know the people around you? A capacity for empathic understanding is hard-wired in our brains, but its full expression involves particular listening skills that are seldom learned through ordinary experience. Through clear explanation, specific examples, and practical exercises, Dr. Miller offers a step-by-step process for developing your skillfulness in empathic listening. With a solid basis in sixty years of scientific research, these communication skills are not limited to professionals, and can be learned and applied in your everyday life. Instead of assuming that you know the meaning of what you think you heard, empathic listening lets you develop a more accurate understanding and prevent miscommunication. Empathic understanding can help to deepen personal relationships, alleviate conflict, communicate across differences, and promote positive change. The author also discusses skills for expressing yourself clearly, and for strengthening close relationships and friendships. Through empathic understanding you have access to life experience far beyond your own, and over time, listening well and deeply becomes a way of being, fostering a compassionate and patient acceptance of human frailties--those of others as well as your own.

Active Listening is a short 1957 work by Drs. Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson, two influential American psychologists. The work brings the counselling technique of active listening to the layperson, demonstrating how it can be applied to interactions between an employee and employer. Carl R. Rogers (1902-1987) was one of the pioneers of the "client-centered" approach to psychotherapy. He is considered one of the founding fathers of modern psychotherapy research and is widely regarded among others in the field as the most influential psychotherapist of all time - viewed even more highly than Sigmund Freud. Dr. Rogers served as a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, where he set up the university's counselling and research clinic, the Industrial Relations Center. He wrote many books on psychotherapy, and in later years, travelled the world to bring his theories to areas of great political and social strife like Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Brazil. Richard E. Farson (1926-2017) had already completed his bachelor's and master's degrees when he met Dr. Rogers in 1949. Dr. Rogers invited Farson to continue his studies with him at the University of Chicago. Farson became Dr. Rogers' research assistant while he completed his Ph.D. in psychology and began counselling at the Industrial Relations Center. Dr. Farson held leadership positions in a number of research institutions. He co-founded the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, where he served as president and CEO. He was later appointed as the founding dean of the California Institute of the Arts School of Design and served as president of the Esalen Institute. Drs. Rogers and Farson collaborated on many projects, including 1957's Active Listening. They also led a 16-hour group therapy session that was recorded and released as a film called Journey Into Self. The film won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Documentary. Active Listening describes a method of communication used in counselling and conflict resolution. Rather than serving as a passive participant in a conversation, active listeners take a functional role in helping the speaker to work out their issues. As the speaker shares, the listener repeats back what they've heard in their own words. This both confirms that they've heard the speaker and verifies that they understand. Unlike the way many of us instinctively communicate - trying to get another to see things from our own perspective - active listening requires that we see things from the speaker's perspective. The listener must address not only the meaning of the words, but also the feeling behind them, in order to make the speaker truly feel heard. These feelings can be conveyed through words, tone, volume, body language, and even breathing. This method is not without risks. It can be tempting to lose your sense of self in the practice of sensing the feelings of another person. As Drs. Rogers and Farson put it, "It takes a great deal of inner security and courage to be able to risk one's self in understanding another." In contrast to many psychological texts, Active Listening is written for the non-clinician or psychologist. In plain, everyday language, the book explains both the concepts of active listening and how they can be applied to the workplace. Employers who engage in active listening, the book argues, can help employees to become more cooperative, less argumentative, and clearer in their own communication. While the book is written in the context of the employee/employer relationship, the technique can be applied to all relationships in our lives. The concept is still highly influential, and Drs. Rogers and Farson's ideas about client-centered psychology are used in clinical practice today.

Originally published in 1986. This collection of essays is unified by one leading idea: that the active and creative abilities of listeners and readers deserve as much attention as the skills of speakers and writers. It is shown that hearers, far from being passive recipients in the communicative process, are in fact active in selecting, interpreting and creating from the disparate signals they receive. Equally, readers are involved in creating individual patterns of significance from a text. In presenting this argument, some essays deal with the importance of gender considerations, some with special modes of writing such as the private diary and literary translations, and others with the more familiar fields of poetry and drama. In the sphere of popular music, distinctions such as ‘folk’ and ‘pop’ indicate special problems in assessing the ‘authenticity’ of a listener’s response. By concentrating on active listening, the collection develops and illustrates the conviction that there are fundamental premises underlying the various disciplines under review, the analysis of which makes for a fuller understanding of communication in all its forms.