The core message of this book is sound: getting people to listen to you requires you listening to them. Effective communication requires work to understand the person you are trying to communicate with. Beyond the core message, this book had a lot of practical tips with something of a laundry list feel to their presentation.

I like a lot of the tips, but I sometimes felt the author did not really address the concerns of an average person trying to learn how to listen and communicate better. If you're not like the author -- for whom these techniques seem easy -- it's not clear how you get good at using these techniques. The answer is probably that simple and boring one -- practice -- but the book did not really address or even acknowledge the gap between understanding the techniques and being able to use them.

The author often illustrates his techniques with stories that show what an awesome, wonderful, effective, magnificent communicator he is. It gets kind of annoying.

Overall, not a bad book and I learned a lot from it, but it wasn't quite good enough to be my go to book for recommending to others.

I enjoyed this book. The focus of the book is primarily professional or sales relationships but would apply to personal and social relationships as well. Goulston makes a case for the power of empathy to l help people improve or to get the outcome you are after. He also provides a number of strategies and example conversations so you can picture how to use his advice.

Just Listen by Mark Goulston is a helpful book for those looking to improve their communication skills, particularly within a business setting.

The tips found in this book are fairly concrete and useful. He gives advice for how to remain emotionally calm, which sounds basic, but is helpful for those with social anxiety whose initial reaction may be fear or going mentally blank.

The section on people wanting their emotions understood, and how to be interested in others were also useful, with very specific advice. I also like how Goulston addressed reducing dissonance, since people often don't realize how they might come across to others.

I personally found the final sections less useful since I don't work in a business setting, but all in all, this has been an informative and helpful book.

This book offers a lot of great advice, technique and takes you step by step through difficult or challenging situations. It tells you how to deal with difficult people, why those people are difficult and how to get through to them. It also tells you how to keep yourself under control under pressure.
I liked this book, though it seems a bit difficult for me to start using some of the steps, specially when it comes to dealing with other people. I would need to come back and study dialogs, right words and techniques. It is useful to have this knowledge. Maybe later I will study it in detail.

"Just Listen" is an outstanding, practical how-to guide for becoming a better face-to-face communicator. As a professional communicator, I often find it easier to write for an amorphous, anonymous large audience, or speak in front of a large room, rather than work one on one with people who are resistant or difficult. Dr. Goulston's book is for people like me, who are friendly, sociable and articulate, but need to refine their personal leadership skills. Sometimes I am prone to thinking that some people just have a gift for relating to others and getting them on board - the gift of persuasion and putting people at ease - a gift that I'm afraid I lack. To a certain extent that's true, as I have met many born persuaders; I call them "mentors" and can only hope to emulate them. However, all people could use some help in this area and there is hope for the likes of me! I appreciate very much the author's attempt to codify what exactly it takes to be a person who is a "natural" persuader and I've already started practicing his techniques.

Un po' lungo, ma ricco di suggestioni e indicazioni su come gestire i rapporti con le persone imparando ad ascoltare gli altri.

This book felt overwhelming with the amount of techniques, and I am not sure they can all be applicable.