Powerful Listening: How to Harness Your Most Essential Skill

By: Kwame Christian, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Kwame Christian

Often in difficult conversations, be it a negotiation at work or an important talk with a family member, we’re eager to find the right words to change someone’s thoughts, emotions, or behaviors. But the most successful conversations and negotiations don’t come from how well you speak. They come from how well you listen.

Listening is the most essential skill of any conversation, and it’s fast becoming a lost art. But Kwame Christian, recognized as one of the world’s top negotiation experts, believes that anyone with an interest in learning can master the power of effective listening. In his Audible Original, Powerful Listening: How to Harness Your Most Essential Skill, you’ll delve into the transformative power of truly listening to other people—a power that can help you bridge divides and build meaningful, productive relationships in all areas of your life.

For example, you’ll sharpen your ability to read body language and other nonverbal cues. You’ll explore the biases that prevent us from listening, and ways to overcome them. And you’ll even practice the power of asking the right questions to get the information you’re after.

There’s no limit to how good you can get at listening. Consider this Audible Original the perfect start to a never-ending journey of self-improvement.

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Immediately Effective

while listening to this book I was putting its recommendations into practice and seeing the positive impact on my communication.

I'm Writing This Review To Shout Out My Team!

This review isn't for me; it's for my team: Steph Pallai (Chief Operating Officer) for closing the deal, Ashley Wilson (Chief Copywriter) for writing the scripts, and Minson Vo (Content Specialist and Course Designer) for supporting and lending negotiation expertise.

Everything we do at the American Negotiation Institute is done as a team. We weren't able to give them credit in the course cover page, but I want to make sure they get some love here.

My ideas, Ashley's writing, Minson's negotiation knowledge, and our entire team's effort came together to make this happen.

We hope you enjoy this Audible Original. Please leave us some love in the reviews if you enjoy it.

The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. Our goal is to make the world a better place, one difficult conversation at a time.

Sound Advice

Fantastic information on better listening skills. Not just how to pretend like you're listening, or how to appease someone and make them think you care. The author gives some really sound advice on how to REALLY listen to the person speaking to you. Even if they're wrong or confrontational. I think this will help me at work.

NA

The information is basic about how to listen others, and it gives you some insights that what is it important and how hard it can be at first

Listening Is Harder than You Think

This book isn't so much about listening, as it is about discussing and learning and making your point in a way that is likely to be heard rather than instantly rejected. I think the most interesting aspect was the author's admission (which is probably true for everyone) that he is a better listener at work than he is at home. Listening is hard. It takes a lot of work and practice. And we could all benefit from thinking about how to do it more effectively.