When I was about 5, we went on some kind of trip as a family. All I knew was that we were parked in a line of cars, and my mom kept saying the Fairy was coming. I was very excited. She said, "look, there's the Fairy!" Try as I might, I could not see any pretty winged ladies with pink tutus flying towards me. I must have been looking in the wrong direction. And then we drove onto a special boat to cross the water to get to our destination. I was listening the best I could, but my little 5 year old ears did not understand what my mom was saying. Of course, as an adult, I'm a super good listener, as I'm sure you can all attest. Since I'm SO good at listening, I will now impart my wisdom upon you.
Some things most adults don't know about being a good listener:
1. You should spend time hearing what the person is communicating to you instead of formulating your next question in your head, or deciding what shirt you should wear today. There's an exercise where you listen to a person talk for one minute about a given topic, and your objective is to repeat back what they have said to them at the end of that minute and see if you got what they were saying. Sounds easy, right? Not always so. Especially if you're paying attention to your inner dialogue instead of them.
2. You should ask lots of questions. Try this: the next time you are talking to someone who is spilling out their guts to you, see how long you can keep the conversation going by asking good questions. You would be amazed how long a person can talk if they feel you are genuinely interested in hearing their thoughts.
3. If you are paying attention, you might notice that someone is trying to spill their guts to you. Put down the remote. Back away from the online chess game. You can do it. I know you can.
3. If the person expresses a feeling you consider a little whacky, don't try to frame that feeling for them by putting it in a context you understand. You should try to find out where on earth they are coming from. Because in their world that feeling makes sense. This is where the questions come in.
4. I know you think you are the Yoda of our day and time, but most likely the person pouring out their guts to you is not asking you to solve their problems. So knock it off. It's irritating. Look for key phrases like "what should I do" or, "what would you do?" If you don't hear those phrases, it is quite possible that person is just talking it out. Also it's possible they are not complete idiots and can see the solution right in front of their face. And you listening for five minutes to their problem does not give you the complete picture, so you are just acting like a big, know-it-all jerk offering a really stupid solution.
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