There are plenty of generic reasons to be an active listener. Dale Carnegie swears that active listening is the key to making a great first impression (he’s right). Dr. John Gray promises to improve your cross-gender relationships with active listening that gets to the heart of the unimaginable motivations of the opposite sex [tongue in cheek].

As a business analyst or product manager, you have some very specific goals and challenges. Joy at Seilevel recently wrote about the challenge of convincing people that documenting requirements is important. She looks at the motivation of the naysayers, and recognizes that the reasons may not be logical, or they may not have the data. This is a great example of the kinds of situations, beyond gathering requirements, where active listening skills can help.