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The Art of Listening

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Submitted By qwerty1056
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What gets in the way of my listening and ability to be present for others during interactions?
A lot of things get into my listening. Sometimes I go into discussions with others with pre conceived notions which impair my listening abilities and by extension, my thinking. Sometimes I used to judge people on the basis their spoken English and go in meetings with false, misplaced superiority complex. This is one of my favorite quotes on the art of listening, “most people listen, not with the intent to understand but with an intent to reply”.
Over the years, I have worked on this skill actively in my interactions in my office and NGO. I have interacted with people from various walks of life and from a variety of backgrounds. These experiences have taught me to actually listen with impartiality as we might get to learn something. I remember this one incident where I was in a meeting with a few of my team members and we were bouncing off ideas for the project, I had just joined my first company. I had presented my idea to the others and was not willing to listen to any constructive criticism (I believed I had the best idea, period). This stubbornness on my part was pointed out to me by my project manager and my team members and I realized my folly. Over the years I have worked actively on my listening skills and do consider myself to be a good listener. I think we resolve a lot of issues by just listening. I remember another incident from my office. Two of my team members were in a heated argument about their suggested solution. As a team leader, I stepped in and had a meeting with these two resources and just heard their ideas. Once they started listening to each other’s ideas, they realized that they were pretty much suggesting the same thing. All it took from me to resolve this issue was to listen to them. It would be wonderful if all our country heads just stop

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