Book Review: Listening: The Forgotten Skill

Last week I wrote a post about The Art of Handling Others. One of the best comments came from Tony Clark, who blogs and ‘toons over at Success From The Nest. Tony’s as skilled with words as he is with ‘toons, so I asked ( begged ) him to create a graphic for me for an upcoming ebook and I asked ( begged ) him to write a review of the book he mentions in his comment.

One short week later, I have both. The graphic will remain hidden until I turn loose of the ebook, but the book review is yours today for the low price of a couple of minutes invested in reading.

Turn on your listener and prepare to be learned …. here’s Tony !

Do you know how to listen? Listening is very different than hearing, and it’s one of the most important skills a business person can have.

A few years ago, in an effort to improve my own listening skills, I found the book ” Listening: The Forgotten Skill ” by Madelyn Burley-Allen. It has continually been a valuable resource, one that I frequently recommend to my clients.

From a sales and business perspective, being able to really listen to the needs of your customers can greatly improve your relationships. In this age of choice, it’s more important than ever to establish yourself as someone who can clearly understand your customers’ needs. “Listening” uses a variety of tools and exercises to help you better understand this art of listening.

Using the same basic format of other Wiley Self-Teaching Guides, “Listening” utilizes the framework of a self study guide. More than just a reference, it uses Burley-Allen’s real-world methods to show you how to (from the back cover):

- Eliminate distractions and improve your concentration on what is being said
- Locate key words, phrases, and ideas while listening
- Cut through your own listening biases
- Interpret body language clues
- Ask constructive, nonthreatening questions that elicit real information
- Get others to listen to you
- Master a whole range of listening skills that you can use on the job and in your personal life.

To me, the book does a great job because it gets right to the point - and to practical exercises that help develop your listening skills. Rather than spending time analyzing why we need to listen, or the fact that most of us don’t, the majority of the book focuses on teaching us how.

At right around 200 pages, it is packed with useful tools and is light on theory. I think we already know why we need help being better listeners. What we need is the pragmatics to improve – and “Listening” does an excellent job of delivering.

Thanks again Tony. How’s that for asking and receiving ? There’s a rare trait in today’s world, it’s called doing what you say.

The book, by the way, is available at Amazon for around $8.75 used and $12.89 new.

Now, everybody click thru and read Tony’s blog, subscribe to his feed and generally help me thank him.

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