|
|
Sample 3 Book 2 the Power to Succeed LISTENING
YOUR WAY TO GREATNESS
What
you listen for determines what you get from your conversations. Too often, we listen in a casual or unfocused way and come
away with little. We often find ourselves listening to our own thoughts and
internal chatter instead of to what the person is saying. Let’s
examine a few ways you can get more by listening for more. *Listening
for the greatness in others. A
characteristic that powerful people possess is the ability to empower others to
be their best. This is the ability to see things in others that they do not yet
see clearly in themselves while creating the space for them to recognize this
potential and rise to the challenge. It’s about seeing others as great without
any attachment that they live up to your expectations. We
instead, typically listen from our opinions and judgments. Listening this way
filters out what is actually said and impacts what we are able to hear. How we
see others — as powerful or ineffective, intelligent or slow-witted,
insightful or with little to contribute — has everything to do with what we
get from conversations with them. When we hold others as great we empower them
to become so. Getting the most out of others - our spouses, families, friends,
co-workers, employees etc. - is made more likely if we consider them to have the
potential to be greater than they see themselves. This
is the Pygmalion effect. By listening to people as though they already are
magnificent, those positive qualities we expect to see in them readily show up.
As we champion them to excel, they become aware of possibilities in
themselves they did not previously see. Listening
to others routinely in this way enables them to gain confidence and strength
until they see themselves as powerfully capable of producing whatever effect
they desire. The
key to empowering others is to never offer the kind of help that makes them
small, weak or dependent. Champion people by considering them already great and
listen for the possibilities they represent. Support them to see what may be
missing, that if put into place, would have them step into power. Listen for
what others need and want - not what you want. What you want is usually of
little value compared to what they are ready to receive. You
have the gift to empower everyone who comes into your life. Likewise everyone
has the same gift to contribute to you. Interact with others with the
expectation that they have come to receive this gift of empowerment from you.
Your job is to discover what that looks like. Through your listening to
contribute to others, they give the greatest gift possible back to you. They
have supported you to become the person you have chosen to be on purpose. *Listening for what others might
contribute to you: If
you enter into each conversation expecting to hear something of value you can
utilize, you will likely come away with that very thing. While generating this
listening is easy with someone you consider to be powerful or insightful, it
will require returning yourself to your commitment to listen with a positive
expectation when his or her speaking does not reflect this power. For
example, if you typically listen to others in an impatient way - hurry up and
get to the point - you will need to remind yourself of your commitment to stay
present in a conversation with a slow and deliberate speaker. Remember,
someone’s style of speaking may have little to do with what you can garner
from your conversation. *Listening for what is important to
others: By
putting yourself in the other person’s world and developing an appreciation
for his or her values and concerns, it is much easier to understand why they
think, speak and act the way they do. Misunderstandings that might have resulted
in confrontation or lack of affinity are replaced with an empathy that allows
for exploration of common ground. When you can hear the commitments of others,
you act with a compassion that results from your interest in what it’s like
for them to be who they are. *Listening with something at stake: What
we get from a conversation is often a function of what we have at stake. To
illustrate this point, contrast how you typically listen to pre-flight safety
instructions given by a flight attendant before take off. If you are like the
rest of us, you’re probably not really paying attention to what is said.
You’re probably either reading or distracted, figuring the chances of the
plane crashing are slim to none. Besides, you’ve heard it all so many times
before! Compare
this to a situation where, half way through the flight, the attendant announces
that the engines have failed and the plane is going down. With your life at
stake, you listen to the instructions like you have never listened before. Your
listening is directly related to what you are listening for. To
gain the maximum amount from every conversation, listen from the viewpoint that
everyone has something to share that is of great value.
Your intent is to get it
regardless of who the person is, how powerful you consider him to be, no matter
what his style of speaking . Listening
for value in EVERY conversation will provide you with unending insights that you
would not get from listening with less at stake. *Listening for the good intentions
of others: Another
valuable listening involves coming from the assumption that everyone operates
from what they consider to be good intentions. I am NOT saying that this is
necessarily true. It is simply an empowering interpretation to support you in
your relationships. This can be particularly valuable when the evidence strongly
suggests the contrary. A
highly controversial, extreme example is to consider that someone as evil and
deranged as Adolph Hitler operated from what
was to him the best of intentions. This is not
to condone his horrible actions. It is merely to illustrate a point. When you
step into another person’s world and attempt to see things as they do, it is
possible to imagine that they have acted from good intentions. Listening
in this way allows you to come up with an interpretation that supports the
possibility of your relationship with the person. This perspective may support
you at times and perhaps not at other times.
It is entirely up to you to use as just another tool in your toolbox to
maximize your effectiveness with others. Listening
For The Greatness In Others
1)
For the next 30 days, practice any or all of the following listenings: ·
To
empower others to realize their greatness ·
To hear
how they might contribute value to you To
appreciate their commitments and concerns and what it’s like to be them ·
With
something significant at stake (perhaps your relationship to the other person) ·
To hear
the good intentions of the other person 2)
In your journal, note any insights or possibilities that were created by
listening to others in these ways. |