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Hear and Heart – One Letter Apart
We listen all day long… to our peers, friends, family, co-workers, children, partner. But do we really HEAR what they are saying?
The ability to listen and the ability to really hear are two different things. One is mechanical and the other is an art form.
I have been a student of listening for over thirty years now. My journey with my mentor has been a never ending journey of awakening and discovery. Listening is the most profound master teacher that I have ever studied under.
I have had a few great master teachers in my life time! But not one with the power to carry me through multidimensional levels of awareness in a moment by moment process. My Listening Mentor wears a coat of many colors and just when I think that I have become my own master, my mentor morphs, showing me a depth I never saw before.
The very first lesson that my master teacher shared with me is that HEAR and HEART are only one letter apart. So the first teaching I received at the feet of my master teacher was, “To really hear what is being said you must connect with heart!”
Action Step – try this over the next week:
- Whenever you are in a listening situation during the coming week, imagine opening a channel from your heart to your head.
- Be aware of your heart and your hearts’ capacity to “hear” or feel what is being said.
- Be aware of your heart as you listen and notice what if you discover. Without judgment or opinions, just listen from your heart and notice what comes up.
Difficult Conversations
One of the great challenges in our professional and personal lives is communicating in difficult situations. People often avoid difficult communications hoping the need for them will go away. Others avoid them because they don’t feel skilled enough to communicate in a positive, clear and specific tmanner. Most of the time a combination of these is prevalent and exacerbates the avoidance cycle.
In the diagram below, notice that any conflict, whether internal or external, can throw us into avoidance. In the specific situation of difficult conversations avoidance often leads to one of three things. We might try to ignore the situation, hoping that it will go away. We might emotionally withdraw from the situation not wanting to invest ourselves any further. Finally, we might try to appease the person, even though we may inwardly resent the feelings of imbalance in the relationship.
The challenge with any of these, is that resentment and frustration build. Then the communication can go awry at the most inappropriate time. Below are three keys to moving past discomfort and avoidance so that you can have a positive conversation even when the subject is challenging.
- Plan your conversation – Ask yourself WIIFT (What’s In It For Them). What are the other person’s goals and values? Intentionally frame the conversation with their values, not yours. Then use a ‘no blame frame’. Show that you value them and their view point. (In the examples below the other person’s values are in bold print.)
- Listen – Ask for their viewpoint and then listen to what they say. In depth listening blends mind and heart as well as sensing feeling and intuiting. It includes listening beneath the lines to the implied as well as the literal meaning of what is being said.
- Brainstorm together – Once you have communicated and listened. State your goal and engage them in coming up with ways to move forward together.
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- “I know how resourceful you are in different situations and I need your help with something. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
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- “I respect your professionalism and efficiency and I have something I wanted to discuss with you that I feel will help us work more effectively together.”
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- “I value your creativity and your innovative spirit and I’d love to get your ideas on ________. Then I’d like to lay out a plan together that would involve the team in the change process.
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- “You’re such a progressive thinker that I’d like to get your perspective on _______ and then together we might brainstorm some ideas to improve our process.”
I will be doing a full day on giving feedback in difficult situations with CSE in Melbourne in August. I hope to see some of you there!
Forever Listening
As you know, I have been practicing listening and expanding my 
listening skills for many years now. In fact my study of listening began some 25 years ago when I started to realize what a ‘sketchy’ listener I was. What I mean by ‘sketchy’ is how much and how often I would drift in and out of the conversation losing words, phrases and even sentences as the other person was communicating with me.
Wondrously, after years of practice and teaching listening skills, Listening is still my master teacher and I am still her humble student. It seems to me that her treasure chest of riches is ever replenished by the flow of daily life. Family and friends, the people that I meet and those that I work with always provide a new source of opportunities to enrich my listening skills. So it is probable that I shall mentor under Listening and continue to learn from her for a lifetime.
Yesterday I discovered another secret about listening from Frances Chen. Watch the video to discover the new insight I received.
Thank you, Frances, for expanding my study of listening!
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