The Art of Strategic Listening


Book Description

Social media is the catch-all name for blogs, Web forums, YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook and the other internet-based sites where consumers converse and share content. All of this unsolicited and authentic discussion and opinion can be a great source of marketplace insight for companies.From paying close attention to consumer discussions on blogs and other social media, you can discover what new products or product features consumers would like to see, and stay alert to emerging trends in your industry that could create new opportunities for your company.Robert Berkman, an experienced information specialist with several books to his credit, gives detailed directions for specialized blog searches, setting up RSS feeds, and tracking buzz. He also provides detailed information about vendors who supply blog monitoring services and discusses the pros and cons of using vendors or doing it yourself.For marketers, public relations firms, strategic business analysts, and corporate planners, this book gives you everything you need to know to begin finding market intelligence in social media. You will learn to look for trends, distinguish a trend from a fad, and determine the credibility of the information you uncover.Moreover, Berkman provides you with tips on organizing all the information you find to help you sift through it, locate just the valuable and relevant content, and reduce information overload.




The Lost Art of Listening


Book Description

Why do we often feel cut off when speaking to the people closest to us family members, friends, or colleagues? What is it that keeps so many of us from really listening? Michael P. Nichols answers these questions and more in this thoughtful, witty, and helpful look at the reasons people don't hear one another. His book, a guide to the secrets of listening and being listened to, is filled with vivid examples that clearly demonstrate easy-to-learn techniques for becoming a better listener. He also illustrates how empathic listening enables us to break through misunderstandings and conflict and to transform our personal and professional relationships.




Strategic Listening for School Leaders


Book Description

"The author′s observation and analysis of the various aspects of listening certainly point out the ′art of administration′.′Knowing how to listen and accurately interpret what is heard is a true art. Readers should study this very closely." Richard Flynn, Assistant Professor College of Education, Murray State University "The author understands and listens to the needs of the educational leader and provides useful tools for coping with the diverse needs and challenges of the educational environment." Michael Purdy, Professor of Communication Governors State University "Tate and Dunklee provide insights into the needs of the speakers and strategies to improve listening effectiveness, illustrating how enhancing listening skills would benefit the entire school culture." Katherine Taber, Principal Jefferson Elementary School, Norman, OK Develop strategic listening skills to help advance your overall communication expertise! The ability to communicate effectively with multiple constituencies is recognized as an essential characteristic of effective leaders. Listening strategically is a way of showing parents, students, faculty, staff, and others that their ideas and beliefs are of value. Jeannine Tate and Dennis Dunklee′s practitioner-friendly book concentrates on the importance of listening as a critical interpersonal skill for school leaders in guiding their organizations. Strategic Listening for School Leaders offers valuable, practical insights and research on how listening, serious conversation, and thoughtful dialogue strengthen school leaders′ ability to understand others′ strengths, motivations, and weaknesses. By learning to listen, the authors demonstrate how a leader can bring out the best in everyone. Focusing on an effective style of listening, the authors present: The basic theories underlying strategic listening Succinct examples of strategic listening in practice The positive impact of strategic listening on school leadership and school climate Strategic Listening for School Leaders will help advance your overall communication expertise and open up a whole new world of possibilities for student success. A powerful way to build a professional learning community is to build a community of strategic listeners!




Strategic Listening


Book Description

Listening is so simple, yet so difficult. Many times, listening is taken for granted. One could therefore say that listening is the forgotten part of communication. Although organizations have more digital and analog communication channels than ever, too little time is spent listening to customers, employees, and other influential groups. It is a shame that listening is not given more attention, as it is linked to many positive values. Examples include better conversations, increased trust and confidence, more outstanding commitment and job satisfaction, lower absenteeism due to illness, higher productivity and quality of work, increased sales, better relationships with customers and employees, and many other positive effects. To the extent that listening takes place, organizations rarely take a holistic approach to it. Strategic listening means a given objective for listening, thoughts about who should listen, when it should happen, and so on. An organization’s listening must become a strategic issue to exploit the great potential of increased listening. This book provides answers to the following: Why is listening important? What are the barriers to listening? How can both individuals and organizations become better at listening? How can organizations develop strategic listening skills? How does one build a system to improve an organization’s strategic listening?




The Listening Leader


Book Description

LISTENING . . . THE KEY TO BECOMING A TRANSFORMATIVE SCHOOL LEADER The Listening Leader is a practical guide that will inspire school, district, and teacher leaders to make substantive change and increase equitable student outcomes. Rooted in the values of equity, relationships, and listening, this luminous book helps reimagine what is possible in education today. Drawing from more than twenty years of experience in public schools, Shane Safir incorporates hands-on strategies and powerful stories to show us how to leverage one of the most vital tools of leadership: listening. As a Listening Leader you'll feel more confident in these core competencies: Cultivating relationships with stakeholders Addressing equity challenges in your organization Gathering student, staff, and parent perspectives as rich data on improvement Fostering a thriving culture of collaboration and innovation The Listening Leader offers a much-needed leadership model to transform every facet of school life, and most importantly, to shape our schools into equitable places of learning. As Michael Fullan writes in the Foreword, "Read it, act on it, and reap the benefits for all." "This book is a 'must have' for any leader trying to move the needle on equity. Drawing from her lived experience as a principal and leadership coach, Safir offers stories that give insight and practical strategies that get results. It's one you'll keep coming back to." —Zaretta Hammond, author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain " The Listening Leader immediately changed the way I interact with students, teachers, families and community members." —Tamara Friedman, assistant principal, Berkeley High School "Shane Safir has written a brilliant book. As engaging as it is informative and as revelatory as it is relevant. It is a must-read for school leaders and those who aspire to lead." —Chris Emdin, associate professor of science education, Teachers College, Columbia University; author of For White Folks Who Teach In the Hood and the Rest of Ya'll too




The Art of Strategic Leadership


Book Description

Develop the qualities of strategic leadership and become an active contributor to the short- and long-term success of your organization Today's organizations face two daunting challenges: 1. How to create new sources of competitive advantage to sustain long-term growth, and 2. How to engage leaders at every level of the organization so that they are more proactive and forward-looking in their area of responsibility. The Art of Strategic Leadership uses a unique approach to examine what it means to be a strategic leader. Instead of focusing on the skills, behaviors, and tools found in typical books on strategic leadership, the authors shed light on the attributes and qualities necessary to lead strategic change and help transform a business. Strategic leadership is what modern leadership is all about. Organizations expect leaders to anticipate and be proactive more than ever before. In this book, the authors draw on their vast experience working directly with leaders at all levels and use an intriguing narrative to explain this inside-out approach to understanding strategic leadership. The narrative follows the journey of how one manager discovered these critically important qualities. You will experience first-hand how these values and attributes manifest in the lives of realistic leaders; how they orchestrate long-term strategic change needed for the organization to compete and survive and actively shape the future while delivering short-term results. The Art of Strategic Leadership provides the content that will help you informally assess and reflect on your own strategic leadership qualities—those that are strengths and those that indicate areas you need to develop. It will guide you as you incorporate these values and qualities into your own leadership style and become a more effective catalyst for change. This book will help you in the following ways: Develop a more proactive, forward-thinking approach to leadership Approach strategy from both short- and long-term perspectives Adopt the core values and principles of a strategic leader Model the qualities exhibited by powerful leaders Strategic leaders serve as powerful examples to others in the organization. Their qualities and traits spread rapidly to those around them, empowering people at every level to take a more active role in meeting the demands of the future. The Art of Strategic Leadership will help you deepen and broaden your understanding of the core qualities of strategic leadership, leaving you better equipped to lead yourself and your team to a better place and create greater value for customers, owners, and employees.




The Zen of Listening


Book Description

TV, radio, traffic, telephones, pagers - our minds are bombarded daily by constant noise and clutter. No wonder so many people find it increasingly difficult to listen and comprehend. Simple pieces of information such as names go "in one ear and out the other." Poor listening may have tragic consequences such as the Challenger disaster and the Potomac River crash of 1982, or it can result in smaller tragedies such as lost promotions, stalled marriages, and troubled children. Rebecca Shafir assures us that we can transform every aspect of our lives, simply by relearning how to listen. The Zen of Listening is grounded in the Zen concept of mindfulness, a simple yet profound way of learning how to filter our distractions and be totally in the present. Rather than a list of tricks, this book is an all-encompassing approach allowing you to transform your life. Readers will be amazed at how simply learning to focus intently on a speaker improves the relationship, increases attention span, and helps develop negotiating skills. Learn the great barricades of misunderstanding, find out how to listen to ourselves, discover how to listen under stress, and boost our memory. This is a fun and practical guide filled with simple strategies to use immediately to enjoy our personal and professional lives to the fullest.




You're Not Listening


Book Description

When was the last time you listened to someone, or someone really listened to you? "If you’re like most people, you don’t listen as often or as well as you’d like. There’s no one better qualified than a talented journalist to introduce you to the right mindset and skillset—and this book does it with science and humor." -Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take **Hand picked by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink for Next Big Ideas Club** "An essential book for our times." -Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone At work, we’re taught to lead the conversation. On social media, we shape our personal narratives. At parties, we talk over one another. So do our politicians. We’re not listening. And no one is listening to us. Despite living in a world where technology allows constant digital communication and opportunities to connect, it seems no one is really listening or even knows how. And it’s making us lonelier, more isolated, and less tolerant than ever before. A listener by trade, New York Times contributor Kate Murphy wanted to know how we got here. In this always illuminating and often humorous deep dive, Murphy explains why we’re not listening, what it’s doing to us, and how we can reverse the trend. She makes accessible the psychology, neuroscience, and sociology of listening while also introducing us to some of the best listeners out there (including a CIA agent, focus group moderator, bartender, radio producer, and top furniture salesman). Equal parts cultural observation, scientific exploration, and rousing call to action that's full of practical advice, You're Not Listening is to listening what Susan Cain's Quiet was to introversion. It’s time to stop talking and start listening.




Listen Like You Mean It


Book Description

“Full of revealing, instantly applicable ideas for leveraging your strengths and overcoming your weaknesses.” —Adam Grant, author of Think Again and Originals, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife For many of us, listening is simply something we do on autopilot. We hear just enough of what others say to get our work done, maintain friendships, and be polite with our neighbors. But we miss crucial opportunities to go deeper—to give and receive honest feedback, to make connections that will endure for the long haul, and to discover who people truly are at their core. Fortunately, listening can be improved—and Ximena Vengoechea can show you how. In Listen Like You Mean It, she offers an essential listening guide for our times, revealing tried-and-true strategies honed in her own research sessions and drawn from interviews with marriage counselors, podcast hosts, life coaches, journalists, filmmakers, and other listening experts. Through Vengoechea’s set of scripts, key questions, exercises, and illustrations, you’ll learn to: • Quickly build rapport with strangers • Ask the right questions to deepen a conversation • Pause at the right time to encourage vulnerability • Navigate a conversation that’s gone off the rails Now more than ever, we need to feel heard, connected, and understood in a world that keeps turning up the volume. Warm, funny, and immensely practical, this book shows you how.




Strategies and Communications for Innovations


Book Description

The innovation economy sets new standards for global business and requires efficient innovation management to plan, execute and evaluate innovation activities, establish innovative capability and coordinate resources and capacities for innovation on an intra- and inter-organizational level. Moreover, communication of innovation is one essential impact factor of innovation success due to successful launches of innovations into markets, establishment of stakeholder relationships, and strengthened corporate reputation in the long-run. Consequently, the portfolio of communication activities for innovations has to be mastered by a company or collaborative network equal to the innovation portfolio. Thus, management of innovation and innovation communication on a strategic level play an important role in business nowadays. This new book concentrates on new approaches and methods for strategies and communications for innovations. As one part of the book, integrated perspectives on strategy and communication for innovation intend to bridge the gap between innovation management and communication management. This new book shall contribute to management science and answer current question in business. It provides cutting-edge information and offers a knowledge source for researchers, students, and business representatives who design, implement and manage innovation and innovation communication / marketing of innovation.