“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood.
The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”
~ Dr. Ralph G. Nichols
When is the last time you were in a conversation with someone on your team and your FULL and ONLY intent was listening to understand?
This means you were NOT listening to:
- fix
- move
- change
- resolve
- plan
- etc…
I’m asking, most of all because I needed to ask myself. This week I don’t think I did a very good job of listening to understand; I could F E E L the weight of my expectations, agenda, or distractions in many of my conversations.
None of those people had their basic human need of understanding fulfilled as they were talking with me.
It makes me wonder what have been different if I could go back and redo my week with a focus on listening to understand. Of course I can’t.
I can make sure this coming week I do a better job of it.
How about you?