23/05/2021
Listen UP – Why active listening is the key to resolve conflicts
While facilitating a workshop on “managing conflict”, the participants highlighted the importance of “active listening” as essential to solving conflict situations: the ability to suspend judgement, to listen in order to understand and not to reply or to win.
Disagreements are a natural occurrence – add emotional energy, like passion and anger to it, and this will swiftly result in conflict. It can only arise because we CARE about something. Both sides have something at stake. Both are willing to take a stand.
Conflict triggers our survival instincts; the biological impulse alarming us to fight or flight – we feel threatened. At that point, it is crucial to press your internal stop button, step back, and take a deep breath.
Are we willing to create an emergent space for conflicting conversations and to extend trust? Do we have the courage to remain in a “good faith environment” and be curious to explore the thoughts and feelings of the other party? Do we realise that no matter one’s hierarchy or status, each individual is MORE than what meets the eye? Underneath, each of us has needs and desires to be heard and understood.
The surest way to get a fair hearing is to give a fair hearing and stay calm. Listening is the foundational skill in conversations, but especially in conflicts. It is not for nothing that listening has been declared the key to human relationships.
Listening is so much more than hearing. It is more than giving each other time and space to speak without interruption. Listening must carry the quality of genuine interest, curiosity, and the intent to acknowledge another’s point of view.
We have to interrupt ourselves in order to listen. We can ask clarifying, open-ended questions to make sure we understand where the other is coming from and refrain from why and yes/no questions which often triggers the other party’s defense mode.
The aim of conflict is not just to de-escalate it but to transform it. To lift the conflict from the destructive space to a constructive one. Good listening transforms the conflict into a positive conversation with solution oriented, win-win outcomes, or at least acceptable compromises.
Excellent listeners may challenge assumptions and disagree, but the person being listened to feels the listener wants to understand and support, not to win an argument or judge. The conversation will become a positive experience. We engage through listening. We connect first. Correct last.
We all want to be listened to in a safe environment where issues can be addressed openly and honestly.
And lastly, I like the idea of good listeners being like trampolines. You can bounce your ideas and worries off with them. Instead of just silently absorbing what we share, they activate and energise our thinking or reassure us. We gain from the conversation instead of being robbed of energy and self-worth.
Listening well does not come easy, and I think, it starts with a mind-set to be open to one another. However, the skill to develop sensitive responses and to encourage trust, is one that can be developed. Good listeners are practiced listeners.
Maybe there is, in fact, a reason why we have two ears and only one mouth…
As I end this, here is food for thought: have you noticed that the word LISTEN has the same letters as the word SILENT?
Let us discuss this over a listening coaching session, I look forward to LISTENING to you.
listening management conversation resolution coaching
