Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Just Listen

Just Listen
By Mark Goulston
AMACOM
American Management Association
New York, NY  
234 pp.
2010

Just Listen is subtitled Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone.  In this book, Mark Goulston reveals numerous strategies for getting through to anyone based on an understanding of their needs and agendas.  Interestingly, one of the author’s areas of expertise is training hostage negotiators to effectively handle life-or-death situations.  He has also served as a business coach for companies such as Hyatt and Disney.  Warren Bennis, author of Becoming a Leader, offers this praise:  “A groundbreaking work that all leaders, present and future, should read, and more important, practice.”


This book consists of 30 chapters that make up four major sections.  Section 1 is titled “The Secret to Reaching Anyone.”  The book begins with a story about a hostage situation.  The illustration shows the importance of understanding and empathy—and to get there you must listen—required to resolve a hostage situation.  The author acknowledges that most situations we deal with are not as difficult as those that hostage negotiators are faced with.  Nonetheless, on any given day we are likely to be in a position to persuade someone to do something.  To be effective requires getting “buy-in” from other people.  The author points out that all persuasion moves through the steps of the following cycle:  from resisting to listening, from listening to considering, from considering to willing to do, from willing to do to doing, and from doing to glad they did and continuing to do so.  Next the author provides background as to how our brains work.  Success in communication depends on talking a person up from the reptile to mammal to human brain.  To reach someone you need to talk to the person’s higher brain functions.  The author refers to Daniel Goleman, who has written extensively about emotional intelligence, and who coined the term amygdala hijack.  This is when someone reverts to reptilian thinking and actions.  People in angry or fearful gridlock cannot be reached.  However, the author goes on to suggest that most people are willing to be touched if you can break down their walls.  Again, to do so, one must first listen.

In Section 2 the author presents various rules for getting through to people.  The first rule is when things are stressful you need to make sure you don’t make matters worse.  We can move quickly through a process that shifts us from “It’s all over” to “This is a huge mess” to “Alright, I can fix this, but it’s not going to be fun” to “I’m not going to let this ruin things and here is what I need to do right now to make it better” to “I’m ready to fully take this on and to fix it.”  In this way you move from panic mode to solution mode.  In doing so you, in essence, shift from “being fixated on the way you are convinced the world should be, but never will be, to being ready to deal with the world the way it is.”  Next the author provides a discussion on how to make someone “feel felt” by putting yourself in his or her shoes.  We can pull people towards us if we understand how they are feeling.  To achieve this we need to be involved in “deep listening” in which we practice being more interested than interesting.  The author provides examples from various writers of definitive works on leadership such as Warren Bennis, Jim Collins, and John Gardner.  Next are strategies for becoming a better listener.

Section 3 is titled “12 Quick and Easy Ways to Achieve Buy-in and Get Through.”  In this section the reader finds many strategies for effective communication.  The author provides numerous real-life scenarios and examples to illustrate the various strategies.  Among the strategies that are recommended are the “Power Thank You” and “The Power Apology.”

The book concludes with Section 4 which addresses “Putting It All Together: Fast Fixes for Seven Challenging Situations.”  This section includes recommendations for how to deal with a narcissist at the table.  The author quotes Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, as noting:  “The customer is sometimes wrong.”  If you try to satisfy irrational demands of a narcissistic client, you will have less time to spend in taking care of good clients who are reasonable and treat you fairly.

Overall, this is a good book with several pages of impressive endorsements at the beginning of the book.  In addition to the many vivid real-life illustrations that are provided, the author ends each chapter with a “Usable Insight” which is a nice summary and “take-away” from the chapter.  Furthermore, the author concludes with an “Action Step” that helps you make application of the material covered.  Although there is sometimes overlap in the material and perhaps the author could have been more concise, this is very important information for any leader in any business including, and perhaps especially, Hospitality and Tourism Management.

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