This week I've laid out 4 steps of good listening: 1. Pay Attention, 2. Clarification 3. Evaluation and 4. Feedback. The final step is Reconfirmation.
It's not bad manners or a mark of instability for people to change their minds. Real estate agents often say "Buyers are Liars" as if this is great wisdom that was etched on a tablet and came down from a mountain. The subtext could be that the agent stopped listening and is locked onto the initial conversation with that buyer as The Truth.
In fact, as buyers start looking at homes, they encounter all kinds of reasons to change their minds. Maybe none of their friends have granite countertops and they'd never seen them before and now the #1 thing on their wish list is granite countertops. Everything else slides down below some imaginary line.
The buyer ends up buying a condo when he had told us he needed a rambler with a big back yard. We walk around lamenting that buyers are liars. Had we been listening well and had we been reconfirming throughout the process, we would have learned that in fact that wish list had changed. It had turned into a must have granite countertops list.
Of course, this happens in personal relationships as well. Have you noticed when you go home for a visit the family treats you the same way they have since you were 15? In my case, that means that there is a new stock pile of food that I no longer eat. I am treated as if I have attitudes and interests that are long gone. Somehow, families and friends tend to lock on to The Truth as they know it about you and rarely reconfirm. That's one reason we drift apart.
Here's wishing each reader a renewed interest in great listening both for profit and the undeniable pleasure of improved relationships!
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