Synopses & Reviews
You’ve got a business colleague who’s hostile...a client who’s furious…a staffer who’s deeply cynical—how do you get people to do what you want in tough situations like these? In Just Listen, veteran psychiatrist and business coach Mark Goulston reveals the secret to how to get through to anyone, even when productive communication seems impossible.
“Here's the challenge,” Mark says. “People have their own needs, desires, and agendas. They have secrets they’re hiding from you. And they’re stressed, busy, and often feeling like they’re in over their heads. To cope, they throw up barricades that make it difficult to reach them even when your goals are in sync with their own.”
But the good news is that there are simple strategies that can make you compelling, and break down the walls that keep you from getting through to the people you need to buy into your ideas and goals. Just Listen presents remarkably effective tools and techniques you can use whenever a job, a sale, or a relationship hangs in the balance.
How effective are Mark’s techniques? One of his areas of expertise is training FBI and police hostage negotiators to handle life-or-death situations. “The same tips I teach these professionals for building empathy, deescalating conflict, and gaining buy-in will work in any situation,” Mark says. “Whether you’re a new employee fresh out of school, a salesperson, or a CEO, once you master these skills you can take them wherever you go in your career.” And Mark has proven these strategies in his own 30-year career as a business coach at companies such as GE, IBM, Goldman Sachs, Kodak, Federal Express, Hyatt, and Disney.
With this powerful yet engaging book, you’ll learn how to:
• Get the attention of a total stranger who you need to know—like that potential client you absolutely must land.
• Talk an angry person up from an instinctual (irrational) state to receptivity, and finally to rationality—a skill that can save a job, a marriage, or even a life.
• Use the “Magic Paradox”—a technique the author developed for hostage negotiators—to turn a negative person into an asset.
• Master the critical art of buy-in (the foreplay of negotiation, persuasion, and selling) by moving anyone through the “Persuasion Cycle.”
Barricades between people become barriers to success, progress, and happiness; so getting through is not just a fine art, but a crucial skill. Just Listen gives you the techniques and confidence to approach the unreachable people in your life, and turn frustrating situations into productive outcomes and rewarding relationships.
Mark Goulston, M.D., is a psychiatrist, consultant, business coach, and is the author of Get Out of Your Own Way and Get Out of Your Own Way at Work. He writes a leadership column for Fast Company and the “Solve Anything with Dr. Mark” career advice column for Tribune Media Services. Named one of America’s Top Psychiatrists by the Consumers’ Research Council of America (2009, 2005, 2004), he is frequently quoted or featured in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Newsweek and others, and on CNN, NPR, Fox News, and BBC-TV. He lives in Los Angeles.
Review
[starred review] “Drawing on his experience as a psychiatrist, business consultant, and FBI hostage-negotiation trainer, Goulston provides brilliant yet doable techniques for getting through to others... This book transcends the self-help category by promoting real communication.” --Library Journal
Review
“an impressive bag of tricks… a guide that is as entertaining as it is useful” --Publishers Weekly
Review
"The most useful (five-star) book on communicating... Everyone can be a better communicator with the right knowledge, and this book makes learning interesting and easy." --Lindsey Novak, nationally syndicated "At Work" columnist
Review
"'Just Listen' could be the definitive book on communication--today's generation's How to Win Friends and Influence People."
-Marty Nemko, Contributing Editor, U.S. News & World Report
Review
"It's a measure of how contentious work relationships can get that the author, a psychiatrist, draws on hostage-negotiation techniques to instruct readers on how to deal with 'defiant executives, angry employees or self-destructing management teams'.... Mission accomplished." --Time Magazine
Review
"useful and applicable techniques and strategies for everything from getting teams to work together, to handling narcissistic clients (or is that a redundancy?), and getting your message across to even the most impenetrable people" --Accounting Today
Review
"Just Listen is a banquet of approaches and ideas that's easy to devour the first time around, and a flavorful feast whenever you use portions as a reference book. It's certainly one of the best how-to books of the year." --Inland Empire Business Journal
Review
"A primer on dealing with hard-to-reach people in virtually every scenario -- definat executives, angry employees, families in turmoil, warring couples -- through use of well-honed psychological techniques. Illustrative snippets from counseling session reveal martial-arts like techniques: potent on their own, but even more powerful when you combine them. Chapter summaries feature action steps preparing readers to encounter similar scenarios, yielding a guide that is as entertaining as it is useful." --CareerBuilder.com
Synopsis
Foreword by Keith Ferrazzi, author of
Never Eat Alone and
Who's Got Your Back
The first make-or-break step in persuading anyone to do any thing is getting them to hear you out. Whether the person is a harried colleague, a stressed-out client, or an insecure spouse, things will go from bad to worse if you can't break through emotional barricades.
Drawing on his experience as a psychiatrist, business consultant, and coach, and backed by the latest scientific research, author Mark Goulston shares simple but powerful techniques readers can use to really get through to people--whether they're coworkers, friends, strangers, or enemies.
Just Listen reveals how to:
- Make a powerful and positive first impression
- Listen effectively
- Make even a total stranger--a potential client, perhaps--feel "felt"
- Talk an angry or aggressive person away from an instinctual, unproductive reaction and toward a more rational mindset
- Achieve buy-in, the linchpin of all persuasion, negotiation, sales, and more
Getting through is a fine art but a critical one. With the help of this groundbreaking book readers will be able to turn the "impossible" and "unreachable" people in their lives into allies, devoted customers, loyal colleagues, and lifetime friends.
Synopsis
Foreword by Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone and Who’s Got Your Back
The first make-or-break step in persuading anyone to do any thing is getting them to hear you out. Whether the person is a harried colleague, a stressed-out client, or an insecure spouse, things will go from bad to worse if you can’t break through emotional barricades.
Drawing on his experience as a psychiatrist, business con sultant, and coach, and backed by the latest scientific research, author Mark Goulston shares simple but powerful techniques readers can use to really get through to people—whether they’re coworkers, friends, strangers, or enemies. Just Listen reveals how to:
• Make a powerful and positive first impression
• Listen effectively
• Make even a total stranger—a potential client, perhaps—feel “felt”
• Talk an angry or aggressive person away from an instinctual, unproductive reaction and toward a more rational mindset
• Achieve buy-in, the linchpin of all persuasion, negotiation, sales, and more
Getting through is a fine art but a critical one. With the help of this groundbreaking book readers will be able to turn the “impossible” and “unreachable” people in their lives into allies, devoted customers, loyal colleagues, and lifetime friends.
Synopsis
“Right now, there’s someone in your life you need to reach,” writes Mark Goulston, “but you can’t, and it’s driving you crazy. Maybe it’s somebody at work: a subordinate, a team member, a client, your boss. Or maybe it’s somebody at home: a partner, a parent, a defiant teen, an angry ex.”
If only you could get that person into a calm and receptive state of mind, you’d likely be able to work out your differences, whether they surface at the boardroom table or the dinner table. In Just Listen you’ll discover field-tested, powerful techniques for getting people to do what you want them to do. With Just Listen, the power to succeed is yours.
Praise for Just Listen
“I’ve already ordered copies for everyone in Mattel’s senior leadership team and for each of my grown kids.”— Bob Eckert, CEO and Chairman, Mattel
“This book will help you turn the impossible and unreachable people in your life into allies, devoted customers, loyal colleagues, and lifetime friends.” — Keith Ferrazzi, best-selling author of Who’s Got Your Back and Never Eat Alone
“Easy to read, easy to follow, and the results are astounding.” — Marshall Goldsmith, best-selling author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and Succession: Are You Ready?
“A groundbreaking work that all leaders, present and future, should read, and more important, practice.” — Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Management, USC, and author of On Becoming a Leader
“Goulston’s book delivers on his promise. Read it and you will discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone, and I mean anyone!” — Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul
“Goulston’s insights into human behavior are real gems.” — Steven B. Sample, President, University of Southern California; author of the best-selling book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership
About the Author
MARK GOULSTON (Los Angeles, CA) is a psychiatrist, business consultant, executive coach, and FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer. A bestselling author whose books include Get Out of Your Own Way and Get Out of Your Own Way at Work, he writes a column on leadership for Fast Company and “Solve Anything with Dr. Mark” for Tribune Media Services, and is frequently called upon to share his expertise by the media including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, Reuters, NPR, CNN, Fox News, and the Oprah and TODAY shows.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
Foreword by Keith Ferrazzi xv
Acknowledgments xvii
SECTION I The Secret to Reaching Anyone
1 Who’s Holding YOU Hostage?
2 A Little Science: How the Brain Goes from “No” to “Yes”
SECTION II The Nine Core Rules for Getting Through to Anyone 25
3 Move Yourself from “Oh F#@& to OK”
4 Rewire Yourself to Listen
5 Make the Other Person Feel “Felt”
6 Be More Interested Than Interesting
7 Make People Feel Valuable
8 Help People to Exhale Emotionally and Mentally
9 Check Your Dissonance at the Door
10 When All Seems Lost—Bare Your Neck
11 Steer Clear of Toxic People
SECTION III 12 Quick and Easy Ways to Achieve Buy-In and Get Through
12 The Impossibility Question
13 The Magic Paradox
14 The Empathy Jolt
15 The Reverse Play, Empathy Jolt #2
16 “Do You Really Believe That?”
17 The Power of “Hmmm . . .”
18 The Stipulation Gambit
19 From Transaction to Transformation
20 Side by Side
21 Fill in the Blanks
22 Take It All the Way to “No”
23 The Power Thank You and Power Apology
SECTION IV Putting It All Together: Fast Fixes for Seven Challenging Situations
24 The Team from Hell
25 Climbing the Ladder
26 The Narcissist at the Table
27 Stranger in Town
28 The Human Explosion
29 Getting Through to Yourself
30 Six Degrees of Separation
Afterword
Index
About the Author
Keynotes/Workshops