[LisaOlsen]

The OA Career Coach has issued a new challenge and this one's a whopper! Do you have what it takes to really listen? Lisa has a few simple instructions to help you practice this critically important skill. Give it a try if you're up for the challenge. And let us know how it goes.

View The Full Article

[Chrissy Scivicque]

In college, I knew a rather eccentric guy who did a "social experiment" and didn't speak for seven days. He didn't carry around a pad of paper to communicate or anything. He simply did his best to get his point across using body language and he focused mainly on really listening to people. He said he learned a lot of things (in fact, I think he wrote a long paper about all of the lessons) but essentially, he said that it is amazing what people say when you're really listening. He also said that not being able to speak forced him to really listen better - because he wasn't distracted thinking about what he was going to say in response. It was an interesting experiment and one that I vowed to do one day myself. Of course, I couldn't imagine actually not speaking for a prolonged period of time.Ask anyone I work with and they'll agree - that would be super difficult for me

But Lisa, you've inspired me. I'll definitely focus on my listening skills. I'm sure I'll be able to keep a "listening journal" without any problems. But I don't know about Dr. Laura....that might be a stretch!!