Why Listening Well Can Make Disagreements Less Damaging

Listening takes concentration and mindfulness. You must focus only on the speaker and forget about what you want to say. Whether or not you ultimately decide that you agree with your critic’s perceptions, listening gives you the opportunity to learn.

To encourage the free flow of meaning and help others leave silence or violence behind, explore their Paths to Action. Start with an attitude of curiosity and patience. This helps restore safety. Then, use four powerful listening skills to retrace the other person’s Path to Action to its origins. • Ask. Start by simply expressing interest in the ot

The good listener knows that we’d ideally move – via conversation with another person – from a confused, agitated state of mind to one that was more focused and (hopefully) more serene. Together with them, we’d work out what was really at stake. But in reality this tends not to happen, because there isn’t enough of an awareness of the desire and ne

Communication moves in two directions, even when one person speaks and another listens silently. When the listener is totally present, the speaker often communicates differently.