As a career mentor, I’m constantly reading to make sure that I can bring my subscribers new and insightful information. My friends at Walk the Talk have come out with a new book, Indispensable! It has a lot of great information in how to make yourself indispensable in your job and career.
I’m a fan of the folks at Walk the Talk. They have published four of my books.
- Leading With Values
- Solving Performance Problems
- Your Success GPS
- Building a Dream Team
Send me an email telling me which of these you’d like and I’ll send it on to you for free. Put the words, “Free eBook request in the subject line.”
Back to Indispensable! Pages 68 and 69 offer come great common sense advice on how to become a great listener – and listening is a great way to build strong relationships, a key ingredient for your life and career success.
Here’s what David Cottrell and Robert Nix, the authors of Indispensable! have to say about listening.
- Stop what you’re doing and focus on the other person.
- Smile. Demonstrate that you want to be there and you are happy to listen.
- Maintain eye contact.
- Think about what the other person is saying, not on something that might be on your mind.
- Don’t interrupt or complete the other person’s sentences.
- Acknowledge that you are listening with appropriate facial expressions.
- Ask questions to follow up: “Tell me more about…” or “Why…?”
- At the end of the conversation, offer a positive comment.
- Remember key thoughts that came up so you can follow up on them later.
“But everybody knows that,” you say. Maybe so, that’s why these are common sense ideas. But as the US Steel pencils my dad would bring home from work used to say, “Knowing’s not enough.” You have to put good ideas to work.
So do yourself a favor and incorporate these listening behaviors into your repertoire.
Speak Your Mind