Developing and honing effective listening skills for trainee, new and existing police officers at all levels. Learning how to be an effective listener is one of the most vital communication skills for successful policing.Drawing on the author’s vast experience as a specialist frontline police officer, this book is informal and easy-to-understand, with a sprinkle of humour, making it highly readable and accessible.It introduces an effective, tried and tested model to guide difficult conversations and covers a range of key topics of relevance to operational policing, including issues connected with diversity and with suicide.Supported by academic research, including counselling theory, it provides real-life examples to demonstrate how the tools work in practice, and questions and exercises to encourage personal reflection.