Leading Wisely

8Listening

A closed mouth catches no flies.

—Miguel de Cervantes

There's a lot of difference between hearing and listening.

—Gilbert Chesterton

Lesson 5: Listening

Listening and speaking are the basic communication tools that we use every day. Naturally, the best way to understand people is to listen to them, but all too often, we take listening merely for granted. If we do not know how to listen effectively, however, it will be a real challenge to understand what other people are trying to say. Truth be told, by and large, most people prefer to talk, but they do not realize that too much talking will be a barrier to effective communication. They do not heed the words spoken in the Book of Proverbs: ‘Even a fool, who keeps quiet, is considered wise, discerning, if he seals his lips.’ The Zen Masters also put it quite succinctly: ‘The one who knows, does not say. The one who says, does not know.’ They know that wise people know how to listen.

Listening implies inviting another person into your life. Listening is about making space for the other person, but as you may have discovered for yourself, to create this space is not always easy. In many instances, if you would be prepared to do a time and motion study, you may discover that while you think that you are engaged in an interchange of give-and-take, in reality, you are spending most of your life speaking. In fact, most of us spend only a very small portion of the time listening to what is being said. The truth of ...