Listening changes how people lead and work together
High-quality listening does more than improve conversations. It changes how people reflect, collaborate and lead under complexity.
Research shows that listening increases psychological safety, cognitive complexity, trust and humility - core foundations of effective leadership and organizational learning.
Psychological safety
People speak more openly, think aloud, and contribute what would otherwise remain unspoken.
Cognitive complexity
Listening helps people tolerate tension, reflect more deeply, and develop more differentiated perspectives.
Trust
High-quality listening strengthens respect, connection, and the relational basis for meaningful collaboration.
Humility
Better listening supports a less defensive, more reality-based way of leading, learning, and working with others.
You can’t change organizations without changing conversations.
Most transformation efforts focus on structures, processes, frameworks, and roles. But in practice, change happens in moments of genuine human connection, in the invisible space co-created between people, and only those conversations have a lasting effect.
Add listening as a powerful lever in your coaching work
Most coaching approaches already work on what people say, how they behave, and how they structure collaboration.
This program adds a focused intervention on how people listen - and how that shapes the entire conversation.
For coaches
Integrate evidence-based listening interventions into existing leadership, team, and transformation work.
For facilitators
Work more precisely with group conversations, tensions, silence, contribution, and alignment.
For agile contexts
Improve retrospectives, planning, reviews, and cross-functional collaboration by changing the quality of listening.
How Holistic Listening Works - and Why It Matters for Your Work
In many coaching and facilitation contexts, listening is treated as a basic skill: something that supports rapport, empathy, or understanding. In Avi Kluger’s work, listening is understood differently: not as a soft skill, but as a mechanism that changes how conversations function.
Listening is not what you intend. It is what others experience.
The impact of listening does not depend primarily on the listener’s intention. It depends on whether people perceive that they are being listened to. This perception changes what happens next in the conversation.
1. Listening changes thinking
- People articulate their thoughts more clearly.
- They explore ideas more deeply.
- They become aware of assumptions and tolerate contradictions.
- They develop more differentiated perspectives.
2. Listening changes contribution
- More relevant information surfaces.
- Difficult topics are addressed earlier.
- People speak up instead of holding back.
- Fragmented knowledge becomes shared understanding.
3. Listening changes relationships
- People experience respect.
- Autonomy and belonging increase.
- Trust becomes more robust.
- Psychological safety follows from better listening.
What this means for coaches working with organizations
This is not primarily about one-on-one coaching. It is about working with conversations at scale: in teams, leadership systems, transformation processes, agile routines, and organizational development.
Where this becomes useful in your work
The program is designed for coaches who work in real organizational contexts - not abstract training rooms.
Leadership development
Help leaders create environments where people contribute relevant information, voice concerns, and think more clearly together.
Team development
Improve how teams think together, handle tension, build togetherness, and develop working relationships that carry pressure.
Transformation & OD
Make change conversations less political and more productive by improving how people listen before they decide.
Agile work
Use listening in retrospectives, planning, reviews, conflict clarification, stakeholder conversations, and team alignment.
About Prof. Avraham (Avi) Kluger
The workshop is led by Prof. Avraham (Avi) Kluger, one of the internationally leading researchers in the field of listening and workplace interaction.
Avi Kluger is Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has spent decades researching how listening influences thinking, learning, relationships, psychological safety, contribution, and performance in organizations.
His work combines rigorous empirical research with highly practical intervention formats used in coaching, leadership development, team development, and organizational settings.
Participants work directly with the methods, exercises, and intervention formats developed and taught by Avi Kluger throughout the workshop.
Based on research - designed to improve how people work together
This program is grounded in research on listening at work, including the work of Prof. Avi Kluger and colleagues. The central idea is not that listening is “nice.” The central idea is that listening changes cognition, contribution, relationships, and ultimately the quality of work outcomes.
We don’t train psychological safety directly. We change how people listen - and psychological safety follows.
Experiencing the impact of listening firsthand
This is not a program where listening is explained from the outside. Participants continuously alternate between practicing listening and experiencing what it feels like to be deeply listened to themselves.
The workshop combines practical methods with direct experience. Participants coach each other, reflect together, and explore how listening influences thinking, contribution, connection, and collaboration.
This creates a learning environment in which listening is not only discussed, but experienced directly in the interaction with others.
Feedback
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“The Train-the-Trainer seminar was an eye-opener... ”
Søren Dallov Ibsen
Read more
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“The Train-the-Trainer seminar was an eye-opener... ”
Søren Dallov Ibsen
Read more“The Train-the-Trainer seminar was an eye-opener. It was like opening a box of new listening experiences on a level I never thought was possible. The teaching was conveyed with humor, laughter and seriousness.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“After working nearly 30 years as a media- and communication trainer, I thought I was a good listener, but now I consciously notice ... ”
Katrine Adair
Read more
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“After working nearly 30 years as a media- and communication trainer, I thought I was a good listener, but now I consciously notice ... ”
Katrine Adair
Read more“After working nearly 30 years as a media- and communication trainer, I thought I was a good listener, but now I consciously notice when I'm truly listening, and when I'm not.
Avi has taught me how to listen in a new way. His research and training has made me aware of listening hinders, as well as ways to overcome them. This has supported me in how I want to relate to others, in both my private and professional life.
One of my clients shared with me the other day: "I've learned a completely different way of giving feedback now, because I've become aware of how to listen."
Learning to listen, and experiencing being listened to, in the way Avi teaches it, has become one of the most powerful communication tools I have ever experienced.
What makes the experience with Avi powerful, is his combination of sharing scientific research and his personal unique way of teaching listening.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“As a tech founder in the space, I’ve previously trained and collaborated with world-class listening experts...”
Adi Y. Segal
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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“As a tech founder in the space, I’ve previously trained and collaborated with world-class listening experts...”
Adi Y. Segal
Read more“As a tech founder in the space, I’ve previously trained and collaborated with world-class listening experts, including Prof. Avi Kluger. But nothing compared to a multi-day immersive experience with a focused group of dedicated listening leaders and one-on-one attention from the world’s top researcher and practitioner.
It was both an educational and transformational experience. I would do it again in a heartbeat and highly recommend it to anyone serious about listening.”
Workshop Program
The original program structure is retained and reframed for coaches who want to apply listening in leadership, team, agile, and transformation contexts.
Lunch, refreshments, fruit, snacks, and drinks are provided throughout the program to support a focused and welcoming atmosphere across all three days.
Day 1: Building Connection
09:00 h – 16:00 h
- Accepting offer games
- Inviting stories for deeper engagement
- Mastering the Feedforward Interview Basic Protocol
- Reflective Listening Circle
Day 2: Deepening Understanding
09:00 h – 16:00 h
- Feedforward Interview for resolving problems
- Discovering strengths through personal hobbies
- Crafting your own leadership narrative
- Reflective Listening Circle
Day 3: Expanding Horizons
09:00 h – 14:00 h
- Navigating conflicts using the Negotiational Self Method
- Exploring Clean Language for clarity and growth
- Understanding the limits of active listening
- Expanding social ties with the “Bubble” technique
- Goal-setting with a devil’s advocate perspective
Who should attend?
Primary audience
- External coaches and trainers
- Internal coaches
- Agile coaches
- Transformation coaches
- Organizational development practitioners
- HR and leadership development professionals
Especially relevant if you work with
- leadership development
- team effectiveness
- agile transformation
- New Work initiatives
- conflict-heavy environments
- cross-functional collaboration
Date, location & pricing
Join the 2.5-day Train-the-Trainer workshop in Wiesbaden.
Date
18th Nov 2026 to 20th Nov 2026
Location
Heimathafen Wiesbaden
Format
2.5-day Train-the-Trainer
Early Bird Ticket
Valid until 30 June 2026
Limited to 10 Early Bird tickets
Early registration for those who want to plan ahead.
Regular Ticket
From 1 July 2026
Regular participation fee.
Registration
Secure registration and payment via Pretix.