High-quality listening in the age of COVID-19

Consider the following scenario. You are preparing for a team discussion about an important project. The meeting was scheduled for 15:00 p.m., but due to technical problems, it starts at 15:15. Your next meeting begins at 16:00. You notice two team members have joined by smartphones rather than computers. This is because their kids use the family’s laptops for virtual school. Three other employees are working from their bedrooms, the only private place in their apartments. You also see a side conversation in the chat room that has nothing to do with the meeting topic. During the meeting, several people turn the cameras off. You forge ahead. After introducing the project’s goals, you realize you were muted and need to start over. This situation would have seemed completely unrealistic just a few months ago. However, since COVID-19, these kinds of challenges are now commonplace.

While listening was never easy in the best of times, it is even more challenging today. In part because we are all learning to do old things in new ways. Ann Richards famously contrasted challenges facing men and women, noting, “… Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” A similar comparison of the pre and post-pandemic workplace listening is apt. For many, virtual listening feels like dancing backwards in high heels, a bit off balance. We are all seeking to regain equilibrium in our communication.

This article is intended to facilitate better virtual listening in the post-pandemic era. First, we introduce and define listening. Second, we present empirical evidence on the dyadic and organizational benefits of listening and listening training. Third, we discuss the challenges of virtual listening by providing specific examples from managers. Finally, we offer detailed recommendations for what managers and employees can do to improve their virtual listening skills and practices to support virtual listening.

“Listen with the same passion with which you want to be heard” Harriet Lerner

People usually picture strong and influential leaders as those who deliver inspiring speeches, provide clear guidance, and dominate discussions. That is, they often portray leaders in the context of talking. On the other hand, leaders’ listening behaviors receive far less attention. Listening skill development is also absent from the education and training of most employees. A focus on listening is noticeably missing from undergraduate university education as well. A review of the learning goals of undergraduate-business programs in the U.S.A. found that only a tenth of them involved a listening goal. In contrast, two-thirds of them included an oral presentation-learning goal. Therefore, the listening training future employees and managers receive is severely deficient. The pragmatic case for effective listening is easy to make. Good listening enables more accurate transfer of information, less wasted time, and better use of organizational resources due to fewer misunderstandings. For example, the Holmes Report estimates miscommunicating costs organizations $37 billion annually due to omission errors by employees who have misunderstood or were misinformed about company policies, business processes, or job function. With training and a willingness to hone their listening skills, managers can greatly reduce this waste and reap good listening rewards.

Ten years of research by the first author and more than twenty years of listening training, coaching, and consulting in organizations by the second author has taught us that employees and managers often overestimate their listening abilities and underestimate listening’s importance. Being a good listener is challenging and goes beyond resisting the desire to talk. It involves subtle nonverbal and verbal behaviors, as well as an open, curious, and non-judgmental mindset. However, good listening requires time, effort, motivation, skill, and, most importantly, practice.

Listening: seems straightforward yet is complex and subtle

Since researchers began studying listening in the 1950s (some work even goes back to 1928), many definitions have been advanced. One review identified 50 definitions. However, despite the variety, there is a consensus that listening is a multidimensional and complex process. Listening researchers define a good listening experience as a process that includes three components: attention, comprehension, and acceptance (sometimes referred to as intention or positive regard). Attention relates to non-verbal behavioral cues that indicate the listener is paying full attention to the speaker. A primary non-verbal cue is eye contact. During a typical conversation, speakers return their gaze to the listener every few seconds to gauge the listener’s attention and interest. When consistent eye contact occurs, speakers feel that they and their message are meaningful to the listener. This connection enables greater speaker introspection. On the other hand, when speaking to a distracted listener, speakers often ruminate, wondering, “Why aren’t you listening to me?” “Did I say something foolish?” or “Am I boring?” Such thoughts distract them from delivering their message, reduce speech fluency, memory, creativity, and clarity. This suggests that when speakers receive insufficient attention, communication quality suffers.

The second component of listening, comprehension, refers to the degree to which speakers feel their listeners understand their message and, by extension, them. Speakers assess comprehension based on the listener’s observable communication, such as questions, nonverbal expressions, verbal reflections, and acknowledgments. For example, good listeners convey comprehension by asking relevant “good questions.” Good questions have a goal of a) clarifying the speakers’ message, for example, “When you say negative feedback, what does it mean for you?”, b) confirming questions, namely, “Are you saying you want to have more responsibilities as part as your role?”, and c) providing an opportunity for a new line of thinking that the speaker might want to consider, for example: “If you were leading this project, what actions would you take?” Good questions are also relevant. They convey respect for the speaker, increase likeability, and provide the speakers with a sense they are being understood as they intended. Professor Edgar Schein, of the MIT Sloan School of Management, pursues the topic of question-asking in his seminal work. Schien asks why CEOs talk too much and listen too little. Schein proposes a remedy for this phenomenon, namely, “the gentle art of asking instead of telling,” which describes the kinds of questions designed to sustain a supportive relationship while gaining useful insights from speakers. According to Schein, asking insight-provoking questions requires that question-askers make themselves vulnerable to the question-receivers. This, in turn, facilitates trust, which is absent in many organizations.

An additional technique that conveys comprehension is reflection. Reflection entails paraphrasing the speaker’s message. Reflections show that the listener is trying to see the world from the speaker’s viewpoint and encourages the speaker to continue talking. When accurate, reflection demonstrates comprehension, and the speaker feels understood. Even when inaccurate, reflection is often appreciated because it identifies discrepancies and allows the speaker to correct misperceptions and misunderstandings.

The third component of listening, acceptance, refers to maintaining a non-judgmental and open mindset. Namely, an orientation that does not depend on agreeing with the speaker. Remaining non-judgmental is challenging because individuals tend to evaluate what they hear and sometimes become defensive when they feel threatened. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has created extra work for the grocery industry. Recently a customer interrogated store workers about how they sanitized the shopping carts. One worker labeled the customer as unreasonable and rude. The other worker, a seasoned listener, suspended judgment, wondering if the speaker’s tone and intensity reflected the stress and fear we are facing.

Judgment is not just a matter of cognitive interpretation; it also behavioral and leaks through subtle non-verbal and verbal choices. For example, a manager listening to a direct report explaining a problem might ask, “Have you talked with the accounting department about this?” While the question is technically neutral, it is often received as implying both advice and judgment, suggesting the individual is incapable of identifying the next steps. Alternatively, the questions “What might you try next?” or “What has worked well in similar situations?” conveys respect and trust in the individual’s ability to find an answer. Questions that start with “Have you…” especially when asked by someone with authority, are often interpreted as advice by the person with less power. Similarly, questions leading with “Why” have a tendency to be interpreted as judgment and trigger defensive responses. Clearly, establishing “Why questions” are an important part of doing business. Rather than asking, “Why did you use that strategy?” consider alternative phrasing and a curious tone of voice, and the question becomes, “What led to the selection of that strategy?” Notice a change in the subject of the question making it less confrontational. You do not need to sacrifice understanding for a relationship.

Question-asking is key to effective leadership. When managers adopt a strategy of questioning as described above, it allows them to overcome the urge to offer unsolicited advice while potentially uncovering new information and possibilities that would inform the nature of the advice they might give. For example, if a subordinate comes to a manager with a problem, the manager might follow up with “And what else?” until the person indicates they have nothing else to say, This strategy aims to allow the subordinate to get everything out and the manager to listen to all the information before speaking.

Good listening behaviors are difficult to implement, especially during conflict and disagreement. Professor Chris Argyris from Harvard University described these difficulties in his work on overcoming defensive routines in organizations. Defensive routines are patterns of interpersonal interactions people create to protect themselves from embarrassment or threat. Threat and embarrassment occur when people perceive a colleague or a manager has negatively evaluated their sense of competence. According to Professor Argyris, when people are under a real or imagined threat, they make inferences about the other parties’ motives and intentions and hold the other parties responsible for the conflict with a high degree of certainty. Therefore, employees often do not listen when they perceive the other party is wrong. Paradoxically they are quick to complain when they feel their co-workers are not listening to them.

Listening research

Employees who experience high-quality listening enjoy various benefits, including higher levels of job satisfaction, psychological safety, trust, and organizational citizenship behavior, to only name a few. A supportive listening environment in the workplace also promotes helping behavior. When employees perceive their managers and colleagues listen well to them, they are more inclined to reciprocate by helping others in the organization. A review of the listening literature suggests that better dyadic communication results in a more effective organization. Namely, several studies have found that effective listening has a positive relationship with performance. Good dyadic listening and an effective listening environment in the organization have a positive relationship with objective performance indicators, such as the amount of money earned by salespeople and the organizations’ net income. Research has also found listening to be positively associated with subjective performance, such as organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and job commitment.

For example, research conducted by Professor Avi Kluger at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his colleagues found that employees’ ratings of their colleagues’ listening behavior was positively associated with the colleagues’ rating of intimacy and helping behavior of these employees. In other words, if Jane perceives John to be a good listener, Jane will also feel more closeness toward John and have a higher intention to help him when asked to do so. In contrast, speaking abilities were not associated with intimacy. Interestingly, the positive effects of listening were mostly dependent on the specific listener-speaker dyad. That is, the experience of good listening should not be ascribed to individual characteristics of a particular listener or speaker (e.g., Jane is a good listener or John is a great speaker), but rather the unique and specific combination of that speaker-listener dyad. These findings suggest listening training should focus on developing malleable, adaptive listeners so they can flex their listening behaviors to meet the speaker’s unique style. The findings also hint that listening, like leadership, is contextual. Namely, an employee’s personal characteristics may determine whether they would prefer being listened to by their managers, or prefer listening, coupled with advice from the manager.

Listening training in organizations

Employees who perceive their managers to be good listeners also perceive them to be leaders and tend to be more satisfied with their jobs, as well as report lower burnout levels. Relatedly, managers rate listening as the most important communication skill. Therefore, it is not surprising many Fortune-500 companies indicate they train their employees in listening.

Research on listening training supports its positive effect on employees. For example, Dr. Guy Itzchakov, at the University of Haifa, and Professor Kluger found listening training was especially beneficial for reducing employees’ social anxiety, defined as an aversive emotion people experience when they are negatively evaluated or judged by others. Moreover, listening training increased employees’ attitude complexity towards work-related issues. Attitude complexity refers to a balanced perspective encompassing the presence of both positive and negative evaluations towards a topic (i.e., “my manager is open to opposing ideas,” and “my manager does not effectively handle conflict at work”). In another study, listening training reduced employees’ anxiety levels during difficult conversations with customers, increased their perceived understanding of their customers, and their sense of competence. Furthermore, a recent study examined the effectiveness of an online listening course delivered to M.B.A. students. The results of this study indicated an improvement in the students listening ability. Listening skills also had a positive relationship with interpersonal influence. Namely, the better listening skills the M.B.A students had, the more influential they were in their relationships with their classmates.

On the other hand, field research on managerial listening training is scarce. To our present knowledge, only two studies examined listening training for managers. One study examined whether online listening training for managers in an engineering company affected their employees’ perceived managerial support. The findings indicated no effect on perceived managerial support among managers who took the listening training (i.e., experiment group). In contrast, perceived managerial support for employees of managers who did not take the training declined (i.e., control group). These results suggest that managers’ listening training did not improve the extent to which employees feel supported. An additional question that has received little attention is whether listening training has lasting effects.

COVID-19 and the remote workforce: moving to virtual communication

Since March 2020, many managers are encountering the most significant communication disruption of the past century. The pandemic has fundamentally altered how employees live, work, communicate, and collaborate. It has moved many organizations’ work to virtual platforms. A Gallup survey from October 2020 indicates a drastic increase in remote work since March 2020 when the pandemic hit the U.S. Specifically, 55% of employees indicated they now work remotely full or part-time. Interestingly, nearly two-thirds of employees working from home would like to continue to do so.

All kinds of work now take place virtually, job interviews, orientations, meetings, performance reviews, and thus require overcoming technological challenges that were not present during in-person interactions. For example, confusion resulting from unsynchronized audio and video, losing internet connection, then rejoining while not knowing what they missed, or the uncertainty of talking to people whose cameras are off and wondering if they are listening or even present. These communication issues, not relevant to the pre-pandemic era, have suddenly become prevalent disturbances.

What do managers say about virtual listening?

We conducted several interviews with managers to learn about their experience leading and listening in virtual environments. Sammy Hejazi, an Associate Director in the e-commerce industry, told us that:

“Previously, low-level meetings were more relaxed. We would get together, chat, and work things through. For large or senior-level meetings, it was common to have agenda and slide decks, but that kind of preparation was not the norm. Now, to keep focused and support quality listening, all meetings need careful framing through agendas and slide decks. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of interpersonal relationships. You do not get the same energy from others as you do when you are in person. Virtual meetings introduce a completely new level of uncertainty. I do not know how people feel throughout the meeting because everyone is reduced to a small box, and the screen is dominated by a slide. Their non-verbal expressions are too small to catch. One of the positive sides, sometimes the quieter people are willing to put things in chat. With a distributed workforce, we no longer just bump into each other. Prior to COVID-19, when our paths would cross, I used to check in with people and listen to them to see how they were doing and how their project was progressing. These small but critical conversations with simple questions like “How’s it going?” And, “Are you running into “any roadblocks?” supported people and workflow. Losing these serendipitous meetings means I no longer have one on ones with some of the junior members of my team. And they need these short moments because they sometimes don’t recognize when to reach out to me.”

Maura McGrath, Compliance and Privacy Officer for a managed care organization, said: "Virtual listening is awkward. Even when cameras are on, and you can see people, it is usually impossible to make eye contact and read body language. I recently conducted a new hire orientation, reading notes on my screen while looking at the camera, giving the illusion of eye contact but unable to see those attending. This made it impossible to adjust my delivery to the audience’s reactions. An additional challenge of the virtual environment is the back to back nature of meetings, which no longer require walking from place to place. This lack of natural movement depletes my energy.”

Drey Taylor, a Director of Field Service in a Fortune 500 company, states that:

“With the pandemic, all our communication takes a step down. We are now trying to get the highest value and impact through an inferior communication channel. The hierarchy starts with in-person interaction and descends to video meetings, phones, and finally, email and text. While video conferencing is similar to in-person interaction in some ways, the ability to recognize nonverbal cues is diminished. Additionally, sometimes people are uncomfortable due to kids, pets, or bad hair, so they opt-out of video and prefer phones, which drives the same work to an even less ideal channel. With each step-down, the same work becomes harder. Now we are trying to find ways to be as effective as humanly possible in lower level channels. It feels like someone has taken away my sword and replaced it with a butter knife, or at times a fork.”

Mary Bradly, a local Director for a national environmental non-profit organization, said:

“At first everyone seemed happy for the connection, kept cameras on, and tolerated or even joked about each other’s humanity, such as kids and pets in the background or talking while muted. As the pandemic continued, there was a noticeable shift as people started “turning off their videos,” rolling eyes as people forgot to unmute and seemed to multitask while in meetings as “Zoom dread” set in. In virtual meetings, some people are more comfortable being vocal and aggressive as compared with in-person meetings. On Zoom, they are more willing to toss a bomb or stir the pot, then sit back and observe while muted. At times when things got too hot, people simply logged-off the meeting.”

As can be learned from the examples above, virtual listening requires increased attention, effort, and sometimes new skills. With a growing number of employees communicating with colleagues from home, virtual meetings challenge our capacity to form relationships and collaborate productively within and across teams. Most employees still manage to get their work done; however, the long-term relationships that once developed from such shared experiences are at risk.

Managers and companies need to invest in improving their listening skills and those of their employees. The pandemic has created new obstacles to workplace communication, which we elaborate on in the next section.

As Marshall McLuhan from the University of Toronto famously observed, “the medium is the message.” For this reason, conducting virtual one-on-one conversations and small and large group meetings presents new challenges. In the next section, we provide actionable recommendations based on the second author’s organizational experience.

Challenges and recommendations for virtual listening

• 1 Limited visual nonverbal cues

Virtual platforms limit access to visual nonverbal behavior. Specifically, the fixed camera angles prevent or severely constrict awareness and interpretation of cues such as posture, body tension, and even small gestures such as nervous fidgeting. These behaviors convey information about emotions, interests, and needs, which are generally unstated yet critical to our sense of human connection and feeling understood. Consequently, virtual platforms usually limit the extent to which the listener can assess the speaker’s emotional state. Furthermore, depending on the software platform, the number of faces one can view simultaneously is restricted. Most platforms show between six to nine people at a time where 25 or more people are present, and faces are often too small to catch subtle, fleeting expressions.

Recommendation:

To overcome the loss of visual cues, place additional focus on vocal cues that convey similar information. Vocal cues involve a speaker’s sound patterns and include speech rate, volume, emphasis, pause, and intonation. Vocal cues differ from verbal cues, which are semantic and pertain to word choice and phrasing. For example, after discussing a new project, notice if your employees sound enthusiastic (fast, vocal variety, with few pauses) or hesitant (slow, more monotone, with long pauses). These are cues skillful listeners attend to when reflecting and checking the accuracy of unspoken interests. If you are unsure, ask the employees how they feel. For example, “You sound excited to pursue this new project, is that right?” alternatively, “Do you have some reservations about pursuing this project?”

This kind of attention can be applied to both individuals as well as groups. Skillful managers, facilitators, and trainers monitor a group’s nonverbal cues, responses, and energy adapting conversational pace, structure, and intensity to achieve organizational goals.

• 2Mirror, mirror on the screen: Listening while watching ourselves

A unique and off-putting consequence of virtual interaction is seeing ourselves while talking and listening. This is similar to interacting in front of a mirror. In addition, to be completely unnatural, this situation promotes self-consciousness and distracts us from paying full attention to the speakers. This is particularly problematic because listening is fundamentally “other-oriented.”

Recommendation:

Before the meeting, explore the camera setting options. Some platforms, like Zoom, have settings allowing you to “hide yourself” while allowing others to see you. However, not all platforms have this function. Alternatively, place a post-it note over your image.” to quickly and easily keep your focus on the meeting and not your bad hair day. Bonus, if you are unable to pin your image to the screen, the sticky note is easy to move when people join or leave the meeting or speaking order shifts your image’s location.

• 3Limited and distorted vocal nonverbal cues

Audio communication disturbances often characterize online meetings. Low volume, echoes, harsh feedback, out of sync vocals and visuals, and losing internet connection are common challenges meeting participants face. Rather than disrupt the meeting, listeners often struggle through, filling gaps by straining to hear and guessing the missing words based on the general context. This issue becomes more prevalent when the listener is concerned about appearing rude or inattentive by asking for clarifications, such as when a subordinate talk with a manager or the first meeting between a customer and a client.

Recommendation:

Choose comprehension over-politeness. The missing words can be crucial for understanding the speaker and the speaker’s goals and needs. Asking someone to repeat their last sentence in an in- person meeting can give the impression you were not paying attention. However, during a virtual meeting, asking for repetition or clarification demonstrates a commitment to effective listening. If you have difficulty hearing, chances are your colleagues do too. Consider appointing an “audio engineer” for each meeting. A person who will speak up on behalf of the group when sound quality interferes with comprehension. Try the following to get a better audio connection. Increase bandwidth allocated to audio by asking people to close all unnecessary apps and turn off cameras. Alternatively, you can ask people to sign off and back on change platforms.

The ROI on fixing audio problems is enormous. When audio challenges persist, communication quality suffers, and effort to participate in the conversation increases. Rather than focusing on interpretation and critical analysis, we are straining to simply hear a sound. Furthermore, this effort often shows up in our nonverbal cues. For example, people often raise their voices when struggling to understand a thick accent. Volume is both a sign of irritation and effort. When you cannot adequately see the accompanying facial expressions, it can be difficult to make an appropriate interpretation.

Be aware of this recommendation in the next online meeting. Otherwise, you will likely fall back to your habitual ways of listening, which, for most people, entails a preference for appearing polite over ensuring understanding of the speaker.

• 4Poor transitions and no downtime: manage your focus maximize your impact

COVID-19 has given new meaning to the term home office and has changed how employees and managers structure their time. The time it once took to drive or walk from one meeting to the next enabled people to relax and consciously or unconsciously synthesize ideas from the previous meeting and prepare for our next one. In the post-pandemic workplace, many people book back-to-back meetings with minimal opportunity to reflect or recharge. This is an additional reason sustaining online listening is complicated and consumes a vast amount of energy.

Recommendation:

Create short time buffers and transition practices between meetings and work assignments. Consider scheduling 50 min rather than a full hour. Use the first five minutes following the meeting to move, stretch, get coffee, hydrate. Doing this will help your focus. Do not squeeze in one more call or email. While you move, reflect on the meeting you just had and allow your brain to rest. In the five minutes before your next meeting, list the points you intend to make or questions you hope to get answered. Doing this makes you a better speaker and allows you to focus on listening more easily. Our bodies are not built for sitting in front of a screen for hours on end.

• 5Make lemonade out of the lemon: Use new methods to stimulate engagement

Many managers find it much harder to facilitate group discussion when attendees are in front of computers compared to when rather than in the same room. Difficulties that were not an issue in a physical meeting suddenly become barriers when meetings are virtual. For instance, attendees might turn off their cameras for a while, making it difficult to know if they are still participating. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to tell if attendees are watching the meeting, responding to email, or surfing the internet.

Recommendation:

Along with the new challenges, virtual listening brings about new opportunities. Employees who feel more comfortable writing than speaking will often contribute through the chat room when prompted to do so. Additionally, consider dividing the meeting into small group interaction, which can be done through “breakout rooms” in Zoom or Microsoft Teams channels. Breaking down group size reduces barriers to conversational contributions and can facilitate input from people who previously felt uncomfortable expressing their opinions in larger discussions. Small group discussions make it easier for most people to listen to one another. We recommend holding small discussions in the format of listening circles.

• 6Sense of isolation and loss of human connection

As the managers we interviewed mention, virtual communication does not provide the same human connection as in-person communication. This results in feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Recommendation:

Make connecting and touching base with each team member a priority. Schedule some kind of one-on-one, be it a 15-minute phone call, video chat, or even an email exchange focusing on “How are things going?” Consider scheduling a walk and talk. Doing this gives your eyes a rest, gets your muscles moving, your blood circulating, and oxygenates the brain. Another technique is to start meetings with a quick question or prompt to take the temperature of the group. This not only gives you a sense of how people are doing, but it also provides a buffer to work out technical issues for those having challenges logging in without losing the core of the meeting. Build check-ins of various kinds into your weekly routine.

• 7Dealing with emotion: New triggers for familiar feelings

As the managers we interviewed described, virtual communication and the difficulties associated with it can take an emotional toll. Exhaustion, anger, frustration, irritation, embarrassment, even loneliness are now invisible parts of our workplace landscape. Audio challenges create frustration and irritation, similar to how people feel when interrupted or cut off during in-person conversations. Cameras are turned off as a defensive routine to stave off embarrassment associated with housekeeping and appearance. Despite the challenges virtual communication presents, the need for connection, to feel heard and understood, persists and may be exacerbated by the social isolation associated with the pandemic. In these times, good listening becomes even more crucial than before.

Recommendation:

Pay close attention to the non-verbal cues you get during meetings and check-ins. Make full use of good questions, reflection, and acknowledgment skills, schedule key meetings when others are not using bandwidth. Take breaks when you can. Use the best technology and connection available to you. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, managers and facilitators need to empathize at the moment “I know the echo, feedback, distortion etc. is irritating and makes it very hard to hear and stay focused.” Then give choices - do we want to reschedule, try to sign off and sign back in again, switch platforms, do a conference call, persevere?” Asking everyone to take a few slow deep breaths is also a good way to diffuse the tension.

Conclusion

As with all disruptions, in addition to challenges, COVID-19 brings new opportunities and awareness. One of the learnings to come from this pandemic is the central role listening plays in productivity. This paper highlighted the importance of listening to employees, managers, and the organization in general. We presented listening as an interpersonal construct, examined the benefits good listeners and organizations gain, summarized empirical research on listening in general, as well as on listening training, and provided practical tips for practicing listening. Finally, we identified some of the listening challenges organizations now face due to the pandemic and provide tools to facilitate effective online listening. Developing listening skills in virtual conversations is, in our view, one of the primary obstacles organizations face and need to as COVID-19 reshapes the world. The payoff is an increased awareness of the power of listening and an improved skill set now and into the future.

Selected bibliography

Resources about the role of listening at the workplace: Flynn, J., Valikoski, T.-R., & Grau, J. (2008). Listening in the business context: Reviewing the state of research. International Journal of Listening, 22, 141−151. Itani, O. S., Goad, E. A., & Jaramillo, F. (2019). Building customer relationships while achieving sales performance results: Is listening the holy grail of sales? Journal of Business Research, 102, 120−130. Itzchakov, G., & Kluger, A. N. (2018). The power of listening in helping people change. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-power-of-listening-in-helping-people-change. And, Twaronite, K. (2019). The surprising power of simply asking coworkers how they’re doing. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/02/the-surprising-power-of-simply-asking-coworkers-how-theyre-doing. Research about listening as a positive communication. Bavelas, J. B., Coates, L., & Johnson, T. (2000). Listeners as co-narrators. Journal of personality and social psychology, 79, 941−952. Itzchakov, G., DeMarree, K. G., Kluger, A. N., & Turjeman-Levi, Y. (2018). The listener sets the tone: High-quality listening increases attitude clarity and behavior-intention consequences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44, 762−778. Itzchakov, G., Kluger, A. N., & Castro, D. R. (2017). I am aware of my inconsistencies but can tolerate them: The effect of high quality listening on speakers’ attitude ambivalence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 105-120. Itzchakov, G., Weinstein, N., Legate, N., & Amar, M. (2020). Can high quality listening predict lower speakers' prejudiced attitudes?. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 91, 104022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104022. And, Kluger, A. N., Malloy, T. E., Pery, S., Itzchakov, G., Castro, D. R., Lipetz, L., … & Borut, L. (2020). Dyadic listening in teams: social relations model. Applied Psychology: An International Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12263. For information about the alignment of listening skills between the workplace and business schools: Brink, K. E., & Costigan, R. D. (2015). Oral communication skills: Are the priorities of the workplace and AACSB-accredited business programs aligned? Academy of Management Learning & Education, 14, 205−221. To learn about listening training in organizations: Itzchakov, G. (2020). Can listening training empower service employees? The mediating roles of anxiety and perspective-taking. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2020.1776701. Itzchakov, G., & Kluger, A. N. (2017). Can holding a stick improve listening at work? The effect of Listening Circles on employees’ emotions and cognitions. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 26, 663−676. Itzchakov, G., & Kluger, A. N. (2017). The listening circle: a simple tool to enhance listening and reduce extremism among employees. Organizational Dynamics, 46, 220−226. Kawakami, N., et al. (2005). Effects of web-based supervisor training on supervisor support and psychological distress among workers: a randomized controlled trial. Preventive medicine, 41, 471–478. And, Costigan, R. D., & Brink, K. E. (2020). Developing Listening and Oral Expression Skills: Pillars of Influential Oral Communication. Journal of Management Education, 44, 129−164. For information about the importance of listening to managers: Zenger, J., & Folkman, J. (2016). What great listeners actually do. Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2016/07/what-great-listeners-actually-do. Wolvin, A. D., & Coakley, C. G. (1991). A survey of the status of listening training in some Fortune 500 corporations. Communication Education, 40, 152–164. Research about the effectiveness of listening in sales: Aggarwal, P., Castleberry, S. B., Ridnour, R., & Shepherd, C. D. (2005). for evidence about the effect of listening on psychological safety: Castro, D. R., Kluger, A. N., & Itzchakov, G. (2016). Does avoidance‐attachment style attenuate the benefits of being listened to? European Journal of Social Psychology, 46, 762–775. Itzchakov, G., Castro, D. R., & Kluger, A. N. (2016). If you want people to listen to you, tell a story. International Journal of Listening, 30, 120–133.

Biographies

Guy Itzchakov, Ph.D. Department of Human Services, University of Haifa. Dr. Itzchakov’s focal line of research focuses on the effects of high-quality listening (e.g., attentive, empathic, and non-judgmental) on facilitating a change in speakers’ emotions cognitions and behavior. In addition, he conducts field experiments in organizations that examine the effects of listening training on the relationship between employees and their downstream effects on organizational outcomes. His research has appeared in journals such as Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Applied Psychology: An International Review, and the Harvard Business Review (email: gitzchako@univ.haifa.ac.il (Corresponding author)).

Jennifer M. Grau, MA, CLP, ECHO™ certified practitionerPresident, Grau Interpersonal Communication. For more than twenty years, Jennifer’s work as a consultant, trainer, coach, facilitator, and presenter, has changed the way people work, by changing the way they listen, speak, and resolve conflict. Her creative, experiential programs develop leaders, strengthen teams, build capacity, support organizations, drive innovation, and social change. Jennifer is President of Grau Interpersonal Communication, whose clients include Fortune 500 corporations, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and government entities. Her work has been noted in the Wall Street Journal and U.S. News & World Reports. She is an International Listening Association Business Sector Awardee and Listening Hall of Fame inductee.