13 January 2008

On Good Listening

Good listening means that you look at the other person for who they are, and not who they are in relation to yourself. It's about asking the right questions at the right times to help them discover aspects of themselves that they need to see, while you yourself, the listener, are completely irrelevant.

4 comments:

Janiece said...

Now there's a novel concept. While I don't think this particular cryptic essay is meant for me, I can certainly relate.

Anne C. said...

I try to do that as often as I can, but it is challenging.

MWT said...

Heheh... more like a cryptic paragraph, if that. But this one wasn't meant to be one of the cryptic ones. It's derived from a philosophical conversation in a chat channel a couple days ago. ;)

And yeah, it's very challenging. People are naturally self-centered (which I don't mean in the way with negative connotations). It takes conscious effort (or a lot of practice) to be otherwise.

Jim Wright said...

Agreed. Good listening is a harder skill to master than good speaking. It's also a major key to leadership.