The Power of Listening Well
A classroom toolkit for teaching listening — companion pages to the AOM 2026 PDW
These pages are a teaching companion to the AOM 2026 PDW “The Power of Listening Well.” Each page hands you one classroom-ready exercise.
The exercises are drawn from the listening-focused pedagogy described in Lehmann, Kluger, Cojuharenco, & Itzchakov (2025), and from courses Avi Kluger has developed and taught since 2013.
Who these pages are for
University instructors who teach — or want to teach — listening as part of a leadership, negotiation, teamwork, communication, coaching, or OB course. No prior facilitation experience is assumed.
How to use these pages
- Each exercise stands alone. Pick any one. Run them in any order. None depends on another.
- Every page is built the same way: At a glance · Why this exercise · How to run it · Debrief · Teaching adaptations · What the research says · References.
- Read the page once before class. Everything you need to say and do is on it — including timing, room setup, and the words to open with.
The six exercises. Use the sidebar to move between them. Each is self-contained — pick any one.
- Accepting Offers — three short warm-ups that build the container
- Inviting Stories — the cornerstone exercise
- Time-Sharing — equal, uninterrupted turns with a silent listener
- Asking Questions — the questions that open a story, and the ones that kill it
- “Yes, and …” — accepting offers, in words
- Listening Circles — silence and the talking object
The theoretical frame
These exercises rest on Episodic Listening Theory (Kluger & Itzchakov, 2022): listening is not a stable trait but something that happens between two people inside a conversation. We define listening as the extent of one’s devotion to co-exploring the other — with the other and for the other (Kluger & Mizrahi, 2023). A high-quality listening episode produces creative thinking, goal clarity, psychological well-being, and relational attachment. Each exercise is a way to give students that episode, and then a language for what they just felt.
And the effects are not small. A meta-analytic review based on 664 effect sizes and 400,020 observations found robust associations between perceived listening and a wide range of work outcomes — trust, relationship quality, performance, and well-being (Kluger et al., 2024). Listening is both consequential and trainable; these pages are about the training.
References
- Kluger, A. N., & Itzchakov, G. (2022). The power of listening at work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 9, 121–146. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-091013
- Kluger, A. N., Lehmann, M., Aguinis, H., Itzchakov, G., Gordoni, G., Zyberaj, J., & Bakaç, C. (2024). A meta-analytic systematic review and theory of the effects of perceived listening on work outcomes. Journal of Business and Psychology, 39(2), 295–344. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-023-09897-5
- Kluger, A. N., & Mizrahi, M. (2023). Defining listening: Can we get rid of the adjectives? Current Opinion in Psychology, 52, 101639. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101639
- Lehmann, M., Kluger, A. N., Cojuharenco, I., & Itzchakov, G. (2025). Cultivating humility in business education: A listening-focused pedagogy for future leaders. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-025-06099-2