Center of all healthy relationships
By: Raj Santhanam
Tags: Relationships, Listening Skills, Leadership Skills, Communication Skills

Can this topic even be covered in a single page article? Of course not. However, the subject doesn’t really require a utopian world to exist. In small baby steps, one can move closer to healthy relationships by following one simple, aesthetic, highly underrated tool — “Effective active-listening”. Dictionary, if given a choice would have chosen the phrase ‘listening with intent’. It’s a sincere desire to hear what someone has to say.

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Effective active-listening is an art form that enables leaders of an organization, features in product development, shines in sales negotiation, propagates care in numerous everyday conversations at hospitals, stores, and most importantly, plays a significant part in our everyday conversations at home. It well and truly demonstrates your absolute interest in that relationship.

Obviously, like many other essential skills out there, it’s not an easy one to achieve in a crash course and is more of a learned discipline over the course of several years. Needless to say, it requires practice, practice, patience, practice, diligence, training, practice, adjustment, and character formation. I, for one, will shamefully accept that I am still working on it, but, harder than ever before. It is difficult to listen to someone that may be insulting you or has ulterior motives. We don’t really fare well when triggered by emotions, do we? Emotional intelligence thus becomes the second most quintessential tool towards our topic. But that discussion is for a different day.

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So, what makes it hard to listen if just listening is all you need to do? Well, unless you are are doing mathematical equations solving Drakes’ equation it is hard to listen beyond the words, and even past facial and bodily expressions, that may or may not align with the message being relayed. It is difficult to extract the messages in a non-conducive environment for communication with or without words. A way to begin working on such a complex thing is to start simple. Isn’t it the case with most of the stuff? I have laid down 3 simple steps to help you, and me, start this journey of ‘listening with intent’

Start fresh— Most of the people who we want to listen to are actually always around you, be it your life partner, a co-worker, an employee that reports to you, your good friend. what makes this simple step difficult? It is the history of information that you have stored about this individual and almost instantly have access to. The first challenge to you is to leave those thoughts and start fresh. Easily said and never done? Agreed. Think of it this way, its a better alternative than to change the past. Trust me, it's not as complicated as resolving the ‘Fermi paradox’. And it just makes it easy if you can successfully tune yourself to the thought that this individual has actually walked into your life that very day. Genuinely care for the individual — Leave your body out and start focusing on the person next to you. Be more organic about it. They are spending this microsecond with you, out of the many things, just to be heard. Well, that may be a little expanded idea, but believe so. This is different from your ‘Fake it until you Make it’ plan, of which I am not a big fan of. It’s more of ‘Mean it because you Trust it’ as the best way to build relationships Allow them to work for you — In this quest of yours, the person next to you is the player, motivator, scorer, and the winner. Assume that paraphrasing and rephrasing are the only tools in your hand. All you then need is undivided attention. Make these handy tools and that person work for you. Some call this communication technique “reversals” rather than questions and it does make sense.

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I trust that this will trigger interest in you discovering the power of hearing, more so, listening in the journey of personal growth. It is core to real communication, central to dialogue, and at the heart of understanding each other. Embrace it with all your love and energy.

P.S → This story is inspired by an email from my director at work. It struck a right chord with me and I felt the need to push it to you, my fellow learners.