I Shared My Stories

Whether or lead to successful life requires that we tend to learn, and actively trying to understand what others feel and perceive, beneath the surface, beneath the words. Several sales and leadership programs aloft active listening of ” ‘tells us that this is the key to winning friends and influencing people. It makes sense, of course: listening that we could make a best mate and more efficient workers. But I say that many “exercise listeatrical active appearing as if you were attentive to another person.

Requirements: lean forward, make eye contact, nod, murmuring grunt to show that you’re awake and paying attention, and paraphrase something in return every thirty seconds. As one executive wryly observed I know many people in the local zoo could be trained to go through these motions, unless the paraphrase. What is missing in all this is that listening is a subject of attention, real depth, with eyes open and see the mind and open learning, open heart and feeling.