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ENERGIZE
FOCUS
INTEGRATE
FOCUS
REALIZE |
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Genuine Listening
This entry was posted on 5/8/2009 10:08 AM and is filed under Education,Personal Development,Human Resource.
"Genuine listening means suspending memory, desire, and judgment - and, for a moment at least, existing for the other person." Michael P. Nichols |
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| Genuine listening comprises an intricate balance of art and skill. It is learned. It does not come naturally.
At our family gatherings, genuine listening means putting away all of the electronic devices and standing around the kitchen or sitting around the dining room table and not trying to one up the person who just spoke. It contains laughter, sadness, empathy and best wishes.
Genuine listening consists of turning off everything else in the immediate vicinity and giving all of your attention to whomever is speaking. One cannot be restless; one must be subdued. One can get excited by what they are hearing, but they are want to pass immediate judgement.
Genuine listening may be part reflective - simply stating back to the individual who has shared comments what you heard them say. This reflection is often a good idea. Particularly as one ages and words begin to have the same sound.
Reflective communication forgives misunderstandings and clarifies desired actions. It dismisses what may have happened at a former time and focuses on the now. The present is foremost.
Had genuine listening been used, how many predicaments could have been prevented? In your own lifetime, are there times, when you revisited conversations, weeks, months, or years later, only to find out one party was not fully present and did not hear what was being said?
Practice..practice..practice...and genuine listening will still require practice.
I raise this topic because of a recent hospital stay and other sterling episodes of "customer service."
Had someone paid attention to what I said, or read what had been written, perhaps, just perhaps, a repeat performance for a "pain" and the resulting trauma might not have occured.
As customers, vendors have an obligation to those who pay for services. How does this sound for some genuine listening?
"You think you got problems Lady. Get in line. You're one of 88 million customers." WOW. Was I put in my place! So glad to pay that bill - the problem lingers.
Every CEO, every professional, every customer service representative, let's make it every student, should spend time in a semester called, "Genuine listening." It would include etiquette, the art of conversation, time management and perhaps many, many word games.
I am hastened back to Father Bartel in Creative Writing at St. Francis University back a ways ago. Mr. Demetrius had us for English Composition and brought new meaning to the phrase "great teachers" but I heard this was to be a great class.
Father Bartel had us begin writing one word sentences for our homework assignments, gradually building up to 25 words. Each week as we read our assignments, do you believe that there was some genuine listening going on in the classroom? Absolutely. The shared respect fellow classmates had for each other to go through each report was heightened - rapport enhanced outside the classroom. But picking our words carefully, and with intention were foremost.
Could genuine listening benefit from exercises of this nature? Perhaps. I'd be curious to see research conducted that would measure improvement in customer processes and the impact of genuine listening had upon that delivery.
What do you think?
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