How well do you listen?

If you’re like most modern-day workers, you’re probably so torn between emails, smart phones, task lists, and deadlines that your human-listening skills aren’t what they should be. Think about the last conversation you had with a coworker. How much of that conversation do you remember? 50%? 20%?

Now put yourself in the speaker’s shoes. If you’re sharing with your boss, and your boss only remembers 20% of what you shared, then why even bother sharing at all?

At Ziksana, we believe that successful leaders move beyond listening to hear and instead build the skill of listening to appreciate. We call this Appreciative Listening. The goal of Appreciative Listening is to make the speaker feel valued, and truly understood without judgment. By combining active listening with positive psychology, our Appreciative Listening framework makes it simple and even fun to listen to those who we agree AND may disagree with.

(more…)