Listening Beyond Differences

Video link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsSd2nmoKNA 

with Elizabeth Lesser 

    Communication is an active exercise, is more than delivering a message and waiting for an answer. In this TED Talk video, Lesser (2017) explains the best practices to have a successful conversation with an individual with different and evident believes or opinions during lunch. The main points she encourages is to listen without interrupting, questioning and no room to attempt convincing the other person to support our differences. These techniques helped her to demolish the opinion she had towards the other individual, perceptions based on stereotypes.

    In the latest years managers have understand the importance of listening, through managerial approaches that allow for the inclusion of others points of view and empowerment of participation. Listening have demonstrated to have benefits for businesses. A few of those benefits are: 

(1) Managers that listed are more accurate, they make less errors and become a support for others.

(2) Managers that listen tend to maintain a greater respect among others; they are perceived as caring. 

(3) This quality can allow a more harmonious work environment because employees develop trust for those supervisors or managers that take the time to listen (Veltsos & Hynes, 2021). 

    Taking this experience to a workplace, I would attempt Lesser's communication exercise and develop a conversation  with someone who differs from my perspective or believe that business cultures should be founded on ethical behaviors and actions. A beneficial way of communicating with this person would be by avoiding to engage on listening barriers. These barriers include lack of motivation, lack of willingness, a noisy place with interruptions with not enough time to develop the conversation (Veltsos & Hynes, 2021). To have an objective and transparent conversation setting aside possible biases to avoid negative outcomes, to express my points of view and listen without judgement, instead use exploratory questions, would be some of the techniques we can apply to ensure a successful communication exercise or conversation. 

    Having honest and transparent conversations with individuals that possess different points of views or believes can help us to develop better listening skills along with broader understanding and tolerance. In the best of cases we should be able to erase any stereotypes linked to an specific group of people. As managers is important to listen and acknowledge everyone else opinions without comparing or contrasting them to ours, instead, ask questions before making any judgement. 

Who would you take to lunch? 

Thanks, 

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
― Stephen R. Covey

Reference: Veltsos J.R. & Hynes G.E. (2021) Managerial Communication: Strategies and Practices. Sage Publications (8th edition)  pp. 265-272