Not expecting value in others

Many people don’t listen simply because they aren’t expecting others to say anything of value. Every human being has something to contribute. Sometimes you must do some digging, but everyone has some special knowledge. In a negotiation, the other party has a great deal of beneficial information. But if your normal mind-set is that the people you talk to have very little to contribute, turning that around and listening effectively may be difficult. When some people speak, what they have to say and how they go about saying it is, to put it bluntly, boring. Spending the energy to listen to such people may not seem worth the effort. But even these people often have valuable information and insight. Your job is to draw such speakers out. Question them until you hit some nugget of interesting information. In fact, good listeners tend to attract much more interesting company than others. It’s also true that, by listening carefully to the company you keep, you learn much more about the subjects that make them interesting. Listening can be like sifting through sand on the beach. This is truer at a cocktail party than at a scheduled negotiating session. To be the best possible listener at the negotiating session, you can practice at cocktail parties. The next time you have to go to a party, keep repeating, “Buried within this chatter is something of value.” If you want to find it, you can.