Of all the communication skills we learned in school, surely the most neglected was listening.
Because we have not learned to listen, truly listen to each other, calls for national reconciliation and unity are literally going to fall upon deaf ears.
What does it mean to truly listen? True listening is reflective listening. It is proactive, and it requires enormous effort and self-control. That is because we tend to listen, not with the intent of understanding, but rather with the intent of responding. As a result, rather than trying to understand the other person’s point of view, we are instead thinking about how we are going to respond, and what our counter argument is going to be. That has been referred to as “the dialog of the deaf: two people talking, nobody listening.”
Reflective listening means that we listen to another person’s point of view for the sole purpose of trying to see the issue from their perspective. The idea is to be a mirror and to do nothing but reflect back to that person what you hear them saying. You offer no objections, no counter-arguments and no “buts.” You simply reflect back, in your own words, that person’s perspective. Then the other person either says, “Yes, that’s it exactly,” or “No, let me clarify that some more.”
Communicating in this way gives the other person air. It liberates them to tell you exactly how they feel, and at that point it is like peeling away the layers of an onion as they feel free to say what they want to say without fear of judgment.
When the speaker is completely satisfied that you understand and are able to correctly restate his or her position, and tells you so, then the roles are reversed and it is now that person’s turn to listen to you with the sole intent of understanding and to say absolutely nothing but reflections of what they hear you saying.
Only when you are satisfied that the other person not only understands, but can accurately restate your position without judgment or prejudice, do you move on to the next step, which is to explore those areas where, often much to your mutual surprise, you have discovered common ground.
This process works best in an atmosphere in which both parties are thinking “win-win.” Most arguments are fought on a “win-lose” basis. We want to beat the other person; we want to win the argument. That is why we don’t truly listen. That is why we don’t try to see the issue from the perspective of the other person.
It has been said that none are so blind as those who will not see. It should be added that none are so deaf as those who will not hear.
As a result, many of us have enveloped ourselves in an ideological bubble. Some conservatives would not dream of watching anything on MSNBC. Some progressives refuse to watch anything on Fox News. Highly politicized college students demand “safe spaces” where they are in no danger of being exposed to any form of expression that offends them. Such behavior is absurd. We should go out of our way to expose ourselves to the marketplace of ideas and to have the intellectual courage and integrity to expose our most cherished ideas to the challenge.
I highly recommend that readers who want to know more about reflective listening pick up a copy of Dr. Steven Covey’s “The Seven Basic Habits of Highly Effective People,” from which most of the ideas in this column have been drawn.
One final thought: Wisdom is the reward we get for a lifetime of listening, when we would much rather have been speaking.
Filko lives in Williamsburg and has taught Economics and American Government.Take ti
