I was staggered by the intensity and number of fiery responses that last week’s article provoked. The article was about “using” listening as a “technique to get the outcome you want”.
The question I asked was, is it possible that when this is done, the relationship is damaged in some subtle but essential way?
I experienced two striking observations as I read all the responses.
The first is that absolutely no one likes to have this (the other person “using” listening to get to what they want) done to them. No surprise if you think about it.
The second observation was this. The most impassioned responses were from people who are negotiating high-stakes outcomes. The ones who stand an extreme chance of winning or losing, whether in their professional or personal lives.
They recognized themselves in my article. They wrote that the article hit them in the head like a ton of bricks.
I admire these people. They’re focused.
They hit on something fundamental, the reason many people stop listening. And that is this: People stop listening because it feels like listening is moving you further and further away from the outcome you want.
Quite understandable.
And in these important situations, all you have to do is add the element of compressed time, and you drive quality listening out the door faster than you can chase out the speed of light.
The recipe for a listening disaster is when you have an outcome you MUST have, the other person disagrees, they’re not listening to you, they’re talking a lot about things you don’t want to hear … and you don’t have time.
Now listen.
Few people can.
And why would you listen in that situation? It looks POINTLESS.
You can easily see why people turn listening into a technique. NOT listening doesn’t work (we find that out the hard way) and we feel we desperately need a technique in that moment to help us out.
I don’t use the word desperately lightly. What happens is people start feeling like they’re losing control. This makes them desperate. And when they’re feeling like they’re losing control, they struggle to regain it with techniques and unusual solutions. Too many to list.
Here’s how it goes down. As you listen it feels like the other person is controlling the conversation. You’re losing more and more control. It feels horrible. You don’t want to let them control the conversation anymore. It looks like suicide to listen because they’re driving toward a different outcome. You don’t want them to have any control at all. You get desperate to control it.
A person thinks, I need a technique that’ll get me back in control and get them to listen to me so I can get the outcome I want.
And then it’s a short step to, I’ll pretend to listen to them.
I understand how that feels. We all do.
The thing is, I deal in transformation, REAL transformation. And there’s a world of difference between techniques and natural laws.
I’ll write more about natural laws one day. They help you understand human beings, all human beings. And they always work. They’re much more grounded than techniques. They’re filled with truth.
Today, we’ll touch on just one of these natural laws. Let’s examine the reason for high quality listening. The REAL reason, the only workable reason for humanity.
What does high quality listening mean? ALL thinking gets in the way of listening. When you’re listening, really listening, you’re not thinking about your outcome. You’re not thinking about anything.
During REAL listening, you’re focusing 100% on totally understanding the other person. In three dimensions, seeing the world through THEIR eyes, their perceptions and their emotions, understanding them as richly and as fully as you can. It’s a FULL-TIME job for you to LISTEN while they’re speaking. There’s no room for thinking. No room for anticipating. It’s very in the moment.
The way it works, the way it’s SUPPOSED to work, is that during this time, the other person is 100% in control of the ideas on the table. You are simply receiving and understanding them as deeply as you can. That’s listening. You’re letting them control it. While they are speaking, you’re giving them full control. They control time.
The SKILL of listening is knowing this and granting them control while they’re talking. You’ll get your turn. But it’s their turn now. If you’re never willing to give them 100% of this control, you’ll never really listen, you’ll never really hear.
I know, I know. Give up ANY control? That’s HARD!
So, why do it?
People who wrote me do it because:
Then they’ll listen to you.
It’s the only road to creating the outcome you want.
It’s the only chance you have.
All of those may be true. But having these as your reasons perverts real listening.
There’s only one reason to listen to someone.
Listen because listening is sacred.
I don’t mean that in a religious sense.
Listening is a ritual that’s older than any civilization we have. A ritual is a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.
Sacred means never to be broken, infringed, or dishonored.
Listening is a sacred ritual between human beings. Recognized as such by every culture, all the way from primitive to civilized.
Listening is sacred to humanity.
No other reason.
All cultures recognize this. All humanity.
And when listening is held sacred by you, not because I say so, but because it’s a natural law of humanity, when listening is sacred to you, an amazing magic happens. To you. To them. And I’m not talking about your “outcome”. I’m talking about a magic between you and that other person that words could never express, a magic in that moment that transcends the “normal” human experience. Communication starts to really work and real communication is magic.
Yes, it’s true. When the other person sees that you are treating their communications as sacred, they start treating yours as sacred also. Yes, that happens. And it’s true you get a much better outcome. Yes, it even opens the path to an outcome that turns out to be magical.
But don’t do it for that reason. Those reasons change you in ways that aren’t really you.
Just do it because listening is sacred. That was decided long, long ago.
One amazing woman wrote me this after doing this with her daughter. She wrote:
“After listening to her, I found it impossibly easy to acknowledge her communication. I think my magical ingredient was 'interest'. I was genuinely interested in what she was saying. I also found it very easy to understand what she was saying. This occurred several times during our call. Each time I acknowledged her, she relaxed. I could feel it. I was happy that she felt understood. That was all that mattered. It was bliss. Overcoming that reactive inclination to defend was bliss.”
Here’s an experiment for this week:
Choose one of your conversations. When the other person is talking, forget about time. Stop thinking. Listen. Listen with 100% of you. For no other reason except to really hear them.
Let me know what happens. I love getting your emails.
Next week I’ll write about what happens next.
Be the cause!
(Start from the beginning of the series - The secret to melting resistance...)