The Art of Listening

Whether you are a business person attempting to communicate with a potential client, or a parent interacting with a child, or someone in a relationship, one of the biggest investment of your time, energy and focus is to listen intently to the other party. I learned this simple lesson just the other night, when I attempted to interrupt a heated interchange between two of my teenaged children.

I had the script of what I was going to say planned. Before I ventured into their domain--the space where emotions were skyrocketing--I had taken many deep breaths and had decided how I would manage the situation.

Did I?

Hardly.

Instead, I failed abysmally.

Rather than calmly settling the fight between my teens, I found myself raising my voice and pointing my fingers. Soon, instead of correcting the one offending teen, the teen I was convinced started it all, I had both teens turned against me! They accused me of heavy handed dealing.

"You always do this, Dad! You don't even know what is going on and you stick your head in and start accusing someone! You never listen!"

Ouch.

I had to eat humble pie. I had to retreat, apologize, and try again. On a different day when tempers subsided.

The lesson was so simple. Listening. You have only to listen, and you have only listened if the party you are trying to communicate with perceived that you have done so!

Listening begins with an attitude. It translates into an active intent of caring for the other person. Listening empatically also means you need to drop your scripts. You need to stop rehearsing what you're gonna say next. You gotta involve yourself with the other party's world. How do they feel? What matters to them? Why do they think the way they do? What's their situation?

Sometimes listening means never having to say whatever you had planned to say. Listening also means you are prepared to have your mind changed. I learned that profound concept reading Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. When I first encountered it, I had to reread it a couple of times and reflect on it before the principle sank in. Since then, I have realized how powerful it is in communication. Genuine, two-way, empathic communication really begins to flow when I allow myself that humble attitude of listening empathically and being prepared to have my mind changed as a result interacting with my dialogue partner.

Rather than go in with the intent to change the other party's mind, our relationship takes on a new, profound level: that of a partnership. As partners, we begin to figure out new solutions together in a spirit of mutual cooperation and care for one another's best interests. We become community.