The Art of Active Listening Free online reading

Improve communication, engagement, and culture with active listening.

When employees, colleagues, and customers are not being heard, organizational culture, employee happiness, and overall organizational success will suffer. How well do you listen?

Active listening is the doorway to increased belonging, loyalty, profitability, innovation, and so much more. It is the difference between thinking we understand what people want and knowing what they want. Want to build stronger relationships, avoid misunderstandings, and anticipate problems before they surface at work?

All you have to do is listen.

The Art of Active Listening introduces a five-step framework that shows you how to listen successfully and act upon what you are hearing. Listeners will discover how to:

1. Recognize the unsaid.
2. Seek to understand.
3. Decode.
4. Act.
5. Close the loop.

Backed by her personal review of more than 30,000 employee and customer surveys and facilitation of hundreds of focus groups, Younger discovered one universal truth: We all want to be heard. We want our voices to matter. We want the work we do to matter.

When we get this right—when we listen to our employees and customers and care about them not just for what they can do but for who they are—they can and will move mountains.

Using the tools provided in this book, you can implement active listening, regardless of whether you're in-person or virtual, that benefits all team members and customers, strengthens overall engagement, improves organizational culture and creates a space for everyone to have a voice.

When those at work feel heard, they will do whatever it takes to achieve outcomes that serve your relationship and your organization.