Mindful Listening

Utilize affirmative body language—position toward the speaker, nod, and vocalize agreement.

Summarize or paraphrase key points to show understanding and strengthen the connection with the speaker.

Hopefully you can see that the issue was simply that they were unprepared.

listeners do not receive the same level of praise, attention, instruction, or credibility as speakers. They should!

Instead, the demand to listen is often conveyed without concrete instruction—and it’s often delivered as an emotional threat or power play (“You’d better listen to me!”).

individualistic culture, people are programmed to believe that listening is something you begrudgingly do for the sake of the other person, but also to earn your right to snatch back the limelight and continue to do the more interesting part—getting them to listen to you.

Yet when it comes to communicating, we all seem to assume that this most essential skill will more or less come naturally without any planning or preparation. While we all recognize the importance of structuring our thoughts and ideas when it comes to speaking (or writing, teaching, etc.), we can forget that there is just as much intentionality required on the other side of things—the listening.

The reason we do this is because we think of speaking and writing as active, and listening as passive. We imagine that listening is simply not doing. And how many ways can there be of not doing anything, right?

This misconception, however, is at the heart of our misunderstanding about how to communicate better. Listening is just as important as speaking, if not more so, and it takes just as much skill, deliberation, and practice—there is nothing obvious or automatic about it!

Later, when you get home, you think with some disappointment that the meeting didn’t go so well. You used to be great friends, but the

this chapter: The first task of listening is to be prepared, receptive, and willing.