Effective-Listening Techniques

Hi,

This week’s email is about three techniques that you can use to become a better listener:

• Perspective-taking. Mentally put yourself in the place of the person who’s speaking, to try to see the situation from their perspective.

• Bird’s-eye view. Visualize the conversation as it looks from an external perspective. (This is a form of self-distancing that can also help reduce egocentric bias, alongside the previous technique, which revolves around empathizing.)

• Tuner-transmitter. Pretend you will need to pass what you’re hearing along to someone else later.

Whichever of these techniques you use, just make sure it helps you get more out of listening, instead of distracting you.

As always, I’m happy to hear your thoughts.

Have a great week,

Itamar