Meet local actor and leadership coach Andrew McMasters at book release event

Listening Without Agenda, the authorial debut from local actor and leadership coach Andrew McMasters, offers a fresh perspective on the critical role listening plays in human connection.

From the outside, the corporate world seems like the antithesis to art. For McMasters – actor, entrepreneur, and leadership facilitator – they are merely two expressions of the same thing; human beings responding to their experiences.

“As humans we listen from our own point of view because it’s the only frame of reference we have,” McMasters said. “So, the difficulty is when we are listening from our own point of view, we are taking the data that is coming in and we’re categorizing it against things that we already know.”

This process leads to a series of connections that converge into pattern recognition from our own experiences. Difficulty arises when connecting to our own experiences causes us to stop listening to the words being spoken because our focus has sunken inward.

As an exercise in listening in his corporate training sessions, McMasters has attendees break off into pairs. One party is given instructions to complain about anything they want for 90 seconds. The listener is then given the task of condensing what they heard into one sentence. Then they repeat it back to the complainer as what they heard.

“Internally, [this exercise] is shutting down a couple of the standard modes we have of listening,” McMasters said, “Which is listening to solve or even listening to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, my Aunt has one of those things, I totally know what you’re talking about,’ all those things, because I’m giving your brain a job, which is, you have to encapsulate this into one sentence and feed it back.”

This exercise often has surprising results in McMaster’s training sessions. Sometimes, the speakers in the exercise don’t feel heard even if the listener got all the facts right because the feelings of the speaker were missed. Other times, it was the opposite – all the frustration came through, but the meaning of the words got lost in the emotion.

For McMasters, these breakthroughs are what his work is ultimately about.

“I remember distinctly doing one [CEO training] where, after I finished 2 or 3 different things on listening, this guy just stopped and was sort of ashen faced and was like, ‘I don’t listen to anyone. I never listen to anyone.” McMasters said.

“He had the realization. And at the end it was like, ‘okay, what commitments are you going to do, what are you walking away with?’ and he was like, ‘I can’t wait to get home and talk to my kids because I don’t think I ever listen to them.’

“And it’s that sort of stuff where I’m like, ‘yay, good on you, man!’” McMasters added. “That’s the sort of stuff, to be honest, that jazzes me, because yes, I can help your company. Wonderful. I can help your team communicate differently. If suddenly I can make you – your home life, your kids, your spouse – if suddenly that is different? That’s freaking amazing, you know?”

McMasters hopes his book will prompt more of this personal transformational work.

“I hope people take away a better understanding of how they individually listen,” McMasters said. “The book is broken up into issues, the ideas that can help, and the exercises. The fourth part of the book is the impact we could have if we actually listen to each other. I want people to do the exercises. I wanted [the book] to be practical, something where someone could take it and be like, ‘I’m going to do that now.’”

Listening Without Agenda is available for purchase here in hardback, paperback and Kindle editions.

Meet the Author on Saturday, Mar. 15

Meet the author for a public Q&A and a glass of wine at Paper Delights, 901 SW 152nd Street, Burien, WA 98166 on Saturday, Mar. 15, 2025 from 5-7 p.m.