The Power Of Listening Michał Moroz

In the book Listen! The Art of Effective Communication, Dale Carnegie wrote that there are 7 types of listeners. From these seven types, he pointed out that only the people who actively engage in the listening process are the ones who can make something out of it. In conflict resolution, that engagement needs to be put far further than you'd think.

Conflicts usually make listening harder. Compared to other situations, during a conflict situation people are emotionally invested in their opinions and might be entrenched in their positions. And this means you, mostly.

You see, the thing about resolving conflicts is that communication happens in the in-between boundary between people. This boundary can be constructed like a wall or a dam, where nothing comes through – but that wouldn't make it a very effective communication, would it? Before any change in the conflict space, it needs to be preceded by an exchange of trust and views in the communication boundary.

This boundary can be made a lot more permeable, and like a biological cell membrane, letting some things through, while keeping the integrity of the whole. Or, in terms of street epistemology, you need to be able to be influenced first in order to be able to influence someone else.

With that in mind, let's see what we have at hand. I'll keep it short and sweet; however, there's a lot to unpack.

Preparations for breaking the stalemate

Your views mean nothing. This is an extreme statement, I know. Please bear in mind I don't say that about you as a whole. It's just a reminder that you can shape your views as you wish and you'd probably need to remove a couple of the existing ones for the duration of the conflict if you really care.

Perspective taking. It's an empathetic skill with life-long benefits if you master it. Strive for the ability to represent the internal state of another person as a mental extension of you in real-time. As an extreme example, I can split out parts of myself to model other peoples' behaviors when I talk to them – and I keep two more parts, one representing my views and one observing them from a distance. Of course, the representation is not perfect, but we can use the techniques below to support the model. Keep in mind that this skill can be exhausting if you're not used to it.

Respect yourself and others – When it comes to you, try to keep your views equally important as others' views. If you tend to put yourself first, don't let the conversation turn into a struggle for power. If you put others first, write out the things you cannot concede beforehand – these will help you keep awareness of points you can agree to.

Listening to gain trust

Acknowledge the person and the right to different views – The earlier you do that in the conversation, you'll skip a lot of avoidable, unnecessary bickering. Unless you really want to harm them, do not treat them as lower than you, don't negate their feelings or say they cannot feel the way they do.

Redirect anger and spite to the situation – If you keep the emotions unspoken, these will spill over at some point. Instead, just point out that you are angry, spiteful, or resentful at this moment of the conversation; you can point out the trigger, too. Don't let the person become the trigger. If you do, replace yourself with someone else to continue the conversation.

Don't advertise your position – It's not the right moment to do that early in the conversation. We're not on a sales pitch. If that's hard for you, "shut up and write" would be the way forward.

Become the Iron Man – It's easy to listen to someone's argument, pick their weakest points, construct a similar argument that only has these weak points, and then attack it. That's called a straw man argument. Instead, pick the Iron Man argument. Become the devil's advocate, find the best version of their argument, make it even better, and try to defend it for the other side. This one technique can singlehandedly change someone's opinion of you for a more trustworthy person.

Listening for needs

"What do you need?" In emotional arguments, listen for as long as the other side needs to pour out their emotions. For some people, they will either state explicitly or give hints about their needs along the way. For some others, this will be just a raw, visceral outpour with no content. A well-timed direct question at the end of that will often drive the conversation forward.

Translate their feelings for confirmation. Paraphrasing the feelings is a very powerful tool for another group of people, ones who for some reason have difficulty naming their emotions. These people might be very logical in their arguments but never state that all that logic is just a well-sounded justification for hurt feelings. Try to do their work for them.

Give hypotheses in a non-violent manner. It's much easier to answer the question "Is X what you have in mind?" than "What do you need?". Such questions can quickly be answered by "No" and save you time from exploring a dead-end scenario (where nobody's needs are addressed). Harness the power of the word No, and ask, ask, ask. But there's a catch. There cannot be any hint of resentment or contempt in your voice when you ask them. Anger is OK, but only in combination with curiosity and openness (yes, this mix is possible).

The power of Toastmasters' evaluations

If you belong to Toastmasters, you already know a lot of these.

Your views mean nothing. You already know that. Just rephrase that with "When evaluating a speech, don't judge the content by the bias of your preferences."

Acknowledge the person and the right to different views. Every evaluator introduces a speaker. In the introduction, I usually say some good things about the speaker and find a link to their personal involvement with the topic. So go forth, try to remember a good thing about the other side of your conflict, and then find the source of their personal investment in their views.

"What do you need?" Just before writing this article, I saw someone's Icebreaker speech (it's the first speech in Toastmasters). Quickly, I discovered that the words in that speech didn't matter. The structure didn't matter, too. And that I'm participating in something much bigger – a person opening up for the first time after years to a group of people. Remember this: there's a need behind every speech in Toastmasters, and evaluations are a great way to learn how to uncover them.

Closing words

Enough! Go now and do something good in your life.