Help Yourself #5...

May's self help book was Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Mark Goulston and Keith Ferrazzi

So...

Yeah, I don't think he got through to me. 

I am going to have to do a better job of picking these books. Just because the title and the short synopsis sounds interesting I need to look further and see if they are mainly focused on being better worker bees.

There was a little bit in there that was generic listening skills but the majority of it was either boss or staff focused.

Late stage capitalism help...how can you be a better cog in the machine?

Bleh...

Another issue I had with it was it was unrealistic. He would give these "real world" examples. If you need to reach this type of person you say this..and then he'd write out the whole exchange and don't you know it always worked? And people would alway automatically say or do exactly what he wanted them to do? All he needed to do was say something like, "Do you really feel that way?" and BOOM! they would realize that no, no they don't. 

I was telling Brent about it and I said it was lazy writing. Like positive straw man stuff. And I also think it must have been written before the Trump era and the pandemic. If you were talking to someone now and they said something that was totally batshit crazy and you said, "Do you really feel that way?" they would double down on the crazy, accuse you of being a bot or a pawn or a sheep and probably claim they were being persecuted for their beliefs.

A lot of theories sound great when you are reading about them but as soon as you introduced actual people and their reactions to the equation they go kablooey. I mean we've all had experience with that right? Where we practice a hard conversation before we have to have it. But then the person you are talking to goes rogue and does not stick to the script in your head.

Which, ironically, he did have a whole section about how we don't know anyone as well as we think we do and how humans are terrible at guessing what someone else is going to say. But then he'd give these do this examples and everyone always said exactly what he thought they'd say. 

Maybe when I was younger I would have gotten more out of it. When I was a cog in the machine. When I had a boss and a staff, well maybe when I had a boss. By the time I had a staff I already had my own style and I'm not sure his methods would have added much. 

But here is the other piece, I don't think this book was written with women my age in mind. 

A lot of what he wrote about as these sort of breakthrough understandings in listening were taught to us as women in how to be attractive to men. Listen more than you talk. Ask questions that show you are paying attention. Sit this way. Tilt your head that way. Don't listen to interject your own story. A lot of it was that sort of thing.

Which, I will tell you, does work, not just in being attractive to men, but in being a truly good listener. It does make the person you are listening to feel really heard. Do try and make sure you are actually interested in what they are saying and follow up with good questions. But don't expect that to mean you are getting through to them. It just means they will think you're a good listener, not necessarily a good influencer. 

So this one was a maybe I'd have gotten something out of it when I was younger. What I got out of it this time was a lot of  "Sure, Jan" that's exactly what happened...and then everyone slow clapped for you as you left the office....

Next month I'm going to try really hard to get one that isn't a "Be better at work!" book. I thought about picking up A Return to Love since that was one I read in my 20s and thought was really good back then. And since Marianne Williamson keeps running for president it keeps popping back up in to my consciousness. I'm just pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get past all the Christianity based stuff in there. If I get desperate maybe I'll give it a try.