Be an Active Listener

Few notable lines from link The Art of Active Listening
Open-Ended Questions helps to understand, listen, probe to understand the problem.

“Bringing in this new CAD system was the worst mistake we’ve ever made!”
Open-ended question response: “What makes you say that?”

“I think we’ll have problems changing to 12-hour shifts”.

Open-ended response:
“Tell me what your concerns are”.
"What do you think we should do".
"What are specific issues you would like to list down in this project"
"What are available options at this point"

"What do you think about available options at this point"

Other useful tips

• Maintaining eye contact
• Leaning slightly forward
• Allowing pauses
• Nodding
• Sending brief verbal messages (umm-humm, oh I see…).

Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing is a brief rephrasing of information provided by the speaker. It provides the restatement of the essence of the information in your own words.

Further Reading
Active Listening - TRAINING ACTIVITY
Active Listening and Reflective Responses
How To Listen

Communication

View more presentations from Ghaidaa Naguib.

Inquisitive Quotes

Came across the link, Bunch of interesting quotes from the link

"If you want to prosper for a year, grow rice. If you want to prosper for a decade, plant trees. If you want to prosper for a century, grow people."

"The one who says "it cannot be done" should not interrupt the one doing it."

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

"Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, 'Make me feel important.' Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life." - Mary Kay Ash 1918-2001, Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

"Whether you believe you can or you can't, you are right!"

Yep, very powerful note from book "Zen and the Art of Happiness". Good reads from the book.


Power of mind influences our thoughts and to make any two of us see the same thing differently. A famous zen story about two monks looking at a Flag. One monk observed that flag is moving. The other disagreed and said it was the wind that was moving. Sixth patriarch on hearng the argument said "Not the wind, not the flag, mind is moving".

 

One more excellent story to read Is That So?

• Public criticism is a means for those who do not know themselves well. But for well self-understanding people, it means nothing
• People saying something does not make it true...Knowing yourself is the most important thing 

Happy reading!!!

 

Notable Quotes

• "Change your thoughts and you change your world" – Norman Vincent Peale
• "Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step" – Martin Luther King, Jr.
• "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up" – Thomas Alva Edison
• “Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching" – Mark Twain
• "Dream as if you'll live forever…live as if you'll die today" – James Dean
• "If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results" – Jack Dixon
• "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right" – Henry Ford
• "It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop" – Confucius
• "Optimist: Person who travels on nothing from nowhere to happiness" - Mark Twain
• "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "It's not what happens to you that determines how far you will go in life ;it is how you handle what happens to you" -Zig Ziglar
• "Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you thing about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are" -Norman Vincent Peale
• "The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind" -Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
• "To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven" -Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad" -Denis Waitley
• “Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it" -Lou Holtz
• "Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill" Charles Swindoll
• "You cannot tailor make the situations in life, but you can tailor make the attitudes to fit those situations before they arise" -Zig Ziglar
• "It's not the situation. . . . It's your reaction to the situation"? -Robert Conklin
• "You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair" -Paul H. Duhn
• "Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us" -Earl Nightingale
• "Feeling happy and feeling good is a choice that we make.."