How To Talk So People Listen (And Listen So People Talk)

The people who get listened to at work are not the loudest, the smartest, or the most senior. They are the ones who learned two skills nobody teaches: how to talk so people listen, and how to listen so people talk.

This one-day workshop combines the art of acting with the science of psychology. You will learn the same techniques the world's greatest stage and screen actors use to captivate an audience, the psychology of why they work, and how to use them in your next meeting, your next one-on-one, and your next hard conversation at home. Then you will practice them, with a partner, until they are yours. This lab even has its own app that scores your listening, so you leave knowing exactly what you do when it matters and exactly what to do next.

How to talk so people listen. You will learn:

• How to get to the point in the first thirty seconds so people follow you and remember what you said
• The secret for holding a room: where to put your attention so people cannot look away
• How to say the hard thing without triggering defensiveness
• How to use your voice and your body so what you say lands the way you meant it
• How to stop rehearsing in your head and respond to what is actually happening in front of you

How to listen so people talk. You will learn:

• The six listening moves that make a person feel heard in the first two minutes and keep them talking when it gets uncomfortable
• Why closed questions shut people down, and what to ask instead
• The reflection habit that makes people open up, and how many times to use it before you ask anything
• What to do at the exact moment the other person gets upset, quiet, or defensive
• How to stop fixing, soothing, and solving, and listen in a way that gets you the truth

Led by an instructor with an MFA in acting from Rutgers, a master's in clinical mental health counseling in progress at Northwestern, a decade behind closed doors with Fortune 70 executives, and five semesters teaching communication at UNH's Paul College of Business. The lab has been delivered at BAE Systems, Red Hat, Soho House, Blockchain Capital, Life Sciences Outsourcing, and Lonza.

This workshop was formerly titled "The Communication Dynamics Lab: A psychologically safe, in-person training lab to practice and master human communication at work."