I’ve recently discovered something amazingly powerful and simply – well, simple.
Listening.
Being at ease, interested and totally focused on the person talking, I can give the gift of true listening. The results can be extremely powerful. How do I know this? I’ve begun to experience it on the coaching course I’ve just started. It’s early days and my fellow students and I are slowly getting to grips with it ourselves – along with dozens of other fascinating coaching tools.
“Ease creates. Urgency destroys.” Nancy Kline
The source of this philosophy is an American lady called Nancy Kline. Over a period of 15 years, she developed the “Thinking Environment”. Her book, “Time to Think” gives a full and detailed account of how she and her colleagues have worked through ideas based on listening to help individuals and organisations move forward. It’s a set book on our course and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who’s job or daily life revolves around communicating with others.
“A Thinking Environment is not just a theory and set of skills. It is a way of being in the world.” Shirley Edwards of Xerox
I’m nearly at the end of the book, at the part where she describes how doctors advised that her alternative course of action to deal with her cancer would kill her within a month. That was nearly 40 years ago. One major aspect of her experience was how the medical profession didn’t listen to her, treated her as something to be fixed without taking her – the person – into (much) consideration. A common trap for those of us whose mission it is to help.
“We think that to help is only to talk, to ask, to suggest.” NK
We believe, in our rushed, busy lives, that by delivering a quick answer or solution we’re saving time. But are we?
“To take time to listen thoroughly is to increase the total time available to you. Interrupting takes twice as long.” NK
Learning about thinking carefully and listening thoroughly, I started to see how this philosophy could be applied to teaching. Teacher Talking Time regularly pops up as an issue for discussion. I know I’m fond of talking about my favourite subjects. I like to show my students how wise, knowledgeable and well-educated I am by telling them all the ways they can improve their English skills. When given half the chance, they do actually come up with their own ideas for improvement. More experienced learners can often fix their own mistakes when given space to think in their own time.
“If you really believe that someone can think well for themselves, you do not feel the need to think for them… The quality of your listening will ignite their thinking.” Course notes, Barefoot Coaching.
Being aware of the power and value of listening, I’m going to test it out in my teaching sessions and see what impact my new skills have on my students. Away from professional life, I’m applying this new found knowledge at home too. And you know what? It’s actually a huge relief to not feel the need to come up with the solution all the time. Listening – truly, genuinely and actively listening is definitely a skill to be learned. The reward is more energy. Wracking your brains for the answer, trying to come up with the next pithy question before the other person has finished, or jumping in to complete the other person’s sentence – that can be exhausting. Sit back with ease, relax, keep your ears and eyes – and heart – open, and you’ll be amazed at how the other person blossoms before your eyes!
