HarperCollins Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Excelente libro para aprender o reforzar técnicas de negociación y empatía. Lo recomiendo muchísimo.

I went thru this book as audio and was amazed to learn about some tips that seem like common sense but no one ever told me. This book is a must read if one wants to improve listening skills.

I think if you had to pick one area of life where the vast majority of people fail to measure to some minimum acceptable standard it would be listening. We are all more interested in what we have to say than in listening to what others have to say. George Bernard Shaw once said, "The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place." We think we are communicating, we think we are getting through and unfortunately it is not happening. If you are looking for one area that will greatly improve your life, then learn and implement the lessons contained in Just Listen. The book is well written and highly entertaining and therefore very easy to read. But the lessons are profound. The book is divided into four sections: The Secret to Reaching Anyone; The Nine Core Rules for Getting Through to Anyone; 12 Quick and Easy Ways to Achieve Buy-in and Get Through and Putting it all together: Fast Fixes for Seven Challenging Situations. Dr. Goulston starts by giving the secrets to reaching anyone. The secrets are in understanding how the brain works. He gives a good explanation in terms anyone can understand. Then he moves to the nine core rules for getting through to anyone. I love the title of Chapter 3 - Move Yourself from "Oh F#@& to Ok". At the end of each chapter he gives a usable insight and an action step. The usable insight at the end of Chapter 3 is a remarkable lesson for everyone. "When you go from "Oh F#@& to Ok" you go from being fixated on the way you are convinced the world should or shouldn't be, but never will be, to being ready to deal with the world the way it is." Of course the most important person to getting through to is ourselves. We can easily see what others need to do. We have a lot of trouble seeing what we need to do. There are gems of wisdom scattered throughout the book. "As soon as you and a prospective customer or client first meet, the playing field is level. As soon as you try to sell or convince the other person, the power shifts to the client." This applies to all areas of life. When we try to convince others of what we want, we give power to them. There are plenty of detailed exercises throughout the book. One of the best is the six-step pause - it "wakes you up" and gets you out of the emotional brain into the rational brain. The steps are: Practice physical awareness, emotional awareness, impulse awareness, consequence awareness, solution awareness and benefit awareness. The actual steps contain more information, but this is an extremely powerful exercise and we all would be better off if we would use this more often in our daily lives. This is a highly readable and extremely useful book. There are way too many valuable lessons to capture in a short review. This is not a book to read and put on the shelf. To get the full value from this book, you need to internalize and then implement the lessons. I suspect the best way to use this book is to read it, then pick one exercise and implement it. Once you have successfully implemented that exercise, move on to the next. Do this and you will change your life.

Even if at the beginning the book seems a sort of selfish self-advertisement, when the author enters in the kernel of the topics gives you excellent suggestions and overviews. I have successfully used the knowledge acquired to improve the collaboration in my team and with clients. This book is now my personal reference when it is about managing issues in the relations with the others.

really recommended for anyone... talking to people, in any sphere of life. Useful strategies, good examples, and some ideas that would also help everyone of us become less self-centered.