382 — You don’t have to talk to add value

As experts, managers or leaders, we often seek to help others by talking, talking, talking. But what if we didn’t talk and just listened?

This week in The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Gemma are joined by Georgie Rudd, an executive coach, to discuss the trials and delights of listening.

We explore:

·       reasons that we don’t listen well

·       the consequences of not listening (and of listening!)

·       how we can improve listening skills.

Georgie recommended Nancy Klein as an expert on listening and techniques to improve. Time to think is a good place to start: amazon.co.uk/Time-Think-Listening-Ignite-Human/dp/0706377451

You can find out more about Liz Wiseman’s concepts of multipliers and diminishers in her book Multipliers: amazon.co.uk/Multipliers-Best-Leaders-Everyone-Smarter/dp/006239066X

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Gemma spoke about the widest fairy ring in the world. John Wright reports that it’s around 800m across in A spotter’s guide to countryside mysteries, but a quick internet search revealed this to be a questionable fact. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

And, this week, we’re giving a special shout out to our Learning Performance Benchmark. Not sure how your L&D function is performing? Find out now, for free: mindtools.com/business/products/lpb/

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on LinkedIn:

·       Gemma Towersey

·       Ross Dickie 

·       Georgie Rudd

Georgie can also be contacted via her website: https://www.ruddcoaching.co.uk/