Ways to Listen

It seems that we are awash in outrage these days, and righteous indignation. I am not immune to this. I often grapple with how best to engage when there are wrongs that I see, and harms being done, especially that will affect my kids. I believe that we have an obligation to other people and to those that come after us to try to leave the world in a better state than we found it. Failing that (and we emphatically are failing at that), we should act to reduce harm.

So then, how best to engage with the world, how do we conduct ourselves when we opt, for better or worse, to step into the arena? I should state right up front that I don't know the answer to this question, but I've recently come to believe that, as strange and unlikely as it sounds, listening is a powerful factor in advancing a cause and bringing about change.

People are driven by emotion and not facts

This is the worst one. This is painful and unfair and comically tragic. It applies to both you and I even though neither of us really thinks it does. It's so well studied and yet I'm not sure anyone really internalizes it. I suspect it under-girds so many of the troubles we're experiencing and have experienced.

Our brains are lazy. To avoid having to do a full-blown analysis of every decision–and especially complex decisions–they use heuristics and shortcuts (e.g. emotions and feelings) to decide how to approach many problems. Up there among those heuristics is how our tribe thinks about the issue, how it relates to our mental image of ourselves and how distressing the implications if the idea are to us (it's harder to change your mind about something that puts your past decision in a bad light). Tragically, the smarter we are the better able we are to construct narratives that protect us from distressing ideas, or ideas that don't fit with our mental image of ourselves and our world. This is why facts alone are rarely able to convince someone of something.

But then how do we change minds?

If facts don't work–or at least don't always work–then how do you change minds about important issues? This is where listening comes in. There needs to be a relationship first, and for there to be a relationship there needs to be trust, and for me to trust you I need to know that you've heard me and understand my position. More and more I don't think there's a shortcut to the relationship-building step.

Now, I get that it seems like we're drifting towards saccharine platitudes here, or at least a way oversimplified view of the world. Am I saying there aren't power dynamics and money and self interest and other such things at play when it comes to changing minds? Of course not. But I tell you that, after hearing this take on the power of listening, and then looking for it in my life and my advocacy, I've seen it work.

With regards to climate change I'll bring to bear every scientific and economic and moral argument I can think of but, when I see a surprising shift in attitude, it's never once been because of a compelling factual argument, it's always been because there was progress in the relationship.

Ways to listen

I've seen a few different models for how to practice effective listening. Everything from simply making sure you're not talking more than half of the time all the way to systems like Reflecting Listening and Motivational Interviewing. I'm very much sold on the effectiveness of these systems. My likely over-simplified take on reflective listening is that you:

• Shut up and hear what the person has to say without interjecting
• Prompt them to elaborate if it seems appropriate, even if you think you understand
• After having completely heard them out reflect back your understanding of what they've said in your own words
• Make sure that your understanding is correct

At least for me this is really hard to remember to do. In a recent talk by Pamela Benson Owens she said that we spend a paltry 15 seconds listening to people before we start trying to formulate our response. That utterly destroys our ability to really hear what someone is saying. Often when we're formulating our response we mean well, we want to jump in with our own similar story, or talk about why we agree. But the speaker can feel the disconnect, and it doesn't advance trust or really make a person feel heard.

I like active listening because, if we're going to repeat back what someone is saying we have to listen to them. When we restate our understanding of what the person has said, they know we've heard them and they're able to correct misunderstandings. Pamela points out in that talk that even that interjection can be disruptive, but mostly I think that having any plan for ensuring that we're listening is so much better than nothing.

Sometimes practicing this feels awkward. By default I wouldn't talk this way. But there really is something magic about the phrase "that's interesting, tell me more" or "I think what I hear you saying is...". After picking up on these tips I suddenly started seeing them everywhere. I noticed that my favorite podcast hosts or interviewers were using versions of these communication devices constantly. Also, it's not really a trick as I thought it might be at first, you're not using a scheme to get undue influence over someone, how could you when the whole point is to make sure that you've heard them? Or, if anything, the trick is on yourself to short-circuit your innate compulsion to jump into a conversation with your own opinion. Using these tools you, by necessity, really do understand the person better than you would have otherwise and, very often, you learn things and come away with a better and stronger relationship.