As I come to grips with the tragic truth that I don’t know everything and my opinion is not necessarily right for everyone, I am finding that I am learning more from other people than ever before.

Yep! “They” are right . . . There IS a reason we have 2 ears and only one mouth.

Stephen Covey was right with his 5th Habit:

Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Use empathetic listening to genuinely understand a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to being influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, and positive problem solving.

The Habit 5 is greatly embraced in the Greek philosophy represented by 3 words:

1) Ethos – your personal credibility. It’s the trust that you inspire, your Emotional Bank Account.

2) Pathos is the empathic side — it’s the alignment with the emotional trust of another person communication.

3) Logos is the logic — the reasoning part of the presentation.

The order is important: ethos, pathos, logos — your character, and your relationships, and then the logic of your presentation.

Do less filling of silence with words and find within you the personal discipline to allow others to have their say – their WHOLE say – before responding.

This can be very difficult for most of us because we have been conditioned to react and negotiate especially when we are resolute in our “rightness”.

It’s even more difficult when that other person has MANY words to say . . . so we wait and listen and take notes as we know that they will eventually run out of breath (and words) and when they do, we allow for a moment of silence as we then formulate a response of understanding: “So what you have said is . . . ” followed by confirmation by them that we are now speaking the same language.

If we get that wrong, we ask clarifying questions until we DO receive confirmation that we are “getting” what they are saying.

It is only then that we can confidently meet them where they are and shift to helping them understand our take on the matter.

Please understand that NONE of this is about changing other people’s minds/positions and ONLY about mutual understanding.

In this way, we find and learn each others’ boundaries thereby creating a “safe enough” space for us to collaborate on the oh-so-important issue or opportunity at hand.

Don’t forget that none of this can happen if we don’t show up and engage with our full presence . . . which cannot happen unless and until we step out of the maelstrom of our daily cacophony of electronic noise.

My advice?

Frequent use of “airplane mode” on your digital devices.

About Barry Owen

Strategist-CEO of Pareto Realty Inviter-Facilitator-Practicer of Open Space Technology Opening safe space for people & organizations to self-organize around issues & opportunities Invite-Listen-Love