Ten Listening Keys

Effective listening undergirds effectiveness in all areas of human interaction. That’s because effective listening improves significantly not only cooperation but also the ideas that good cooperation engenders. Whether personally or professionally, in families or in schools, good listening is essential. 


Leaders, teachers, parents and all people in positions of authority set the example for how this works out. Unless we listen well, candor is constrained and we miss out on the good ideas that others have to offer. In all areas of life, we are educators as well as examples of our priorities. And listening should be a priority.  When listening is not a priority, it erodes so many possibilities; it undermines so many potentialities; and it destroys so many probabilities.


It’s from the simple notion that we can learn to listen better that this eBook emerged. Do you want to learn the core dynamics of and potentials for effective listening? As a parent?  Among your peers? As an educator?  In your heart?  To your very own soul? Then this book is for you. It was written with the understanding that anyone and everyone can learn how to listen more attentively, actively, reflectively, deeply, slowly, connectively, openly, respectfully, appreciatively, and intuitively. Those dynamics shift not only our way in the world but also how people respond to that way. Those dynamics define who we are and how much we accomplish. So why not make them better? 


Making things better, however, requires more than just reading a book. It requires conversation and practice. In the time since this eBook was written, I have collaborated with my wife Megan to write a book on coaching in the context of schools. Not sports coaching but leadership and life coaching. The book explains the importance of listening to coaching and performance. If you want to develop more fully the concepts in this eBook, if you want to become a better listener, then I encourage you to read Evocative Coaching and to consider getting yourself trained through the Center for School Transformation. Doing so has the potential to transform our world one conversation at a time. 


Let’s look deeply, then, into each of the ten principals of effective listening. Let’s understand their ways. Let’s make them come alive.