Chapter 16

Listen Like You Like to Be Listened To

I don’t mean to interrupt. I just remember random things and get excited.

POPULAR T-SHIRT

Years ago my sons and I were planning a holiday weekend. Should we have friends over for a backyard barbeque? Go to Lake Fairfax for the fireworks?

Tom seemed a bit distracted so I asked, “Tom, are you listening?”

“Sure, Mom,” he said, “You have my undevoted attention.”

Out of the mouths of teens. In our distracted world (“Look, there’s a kitty”), the norm is to give our undevoted attention. This is not petty. Undevoted attention loses customers and employees. In fact, a US Department of Labor Statistics study found that 46 percent of people who quit their job said it was because they didn’t feel listened ...

Get Got Your Attention? now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.