Two Basic People Skills: Listening and Speaking
Ed Lisbe
Listening and Speaking are the two basic "people skills" because those are the only choices available when two (or more) people are trying to have a conversation. There isn't another possibility. At each moment, in any conversation, only one of the choices will be appropriate.
This simple listening and speaking distinction makes even the most difficult conversation easy to understand and to manage. Success with "people skills" does not require learning how to handle a wide variety of interpersonal contexts. Typically, to handle strong emotional situations at work, employees and managers are offered hundreds of different skill training seminars with titles such as "Communication Success Skills," "Dealing With Difficult People," "People Problems in Meetings," "Managing Strong Emotions," "Supervisory Skills," "Results-Based Listening," etc.
Each of these types of programs offers its own separate terminology and its own separate principles. Even the most conscientious employee will be hard-pressed to remember all the learned options and then to access the appropriate skill set in emotionally charged and stressful moments:
- when two team members escalate into a volatile argument at a meeting when an employee resentfully or sarcastically disagrees with his/her rating during a performance review
- when a customer raises a strong objection to something a salesperson has presented and knows will meet the customer's needs.
Two People Speaking at the Same Time Rarely Works
In such examples, there is almost always only one real problem: people speaking, instead of listening, in response to the other person's speaking. This response is automatic, like breathing to get air, especially if we don't like or agree with what the person is saying. Feeling "right," we speak to persuade or convince the other person. The other person is speaking with the same intention toward us. No matter what the interpersonal context, two people speaking at the same time inevitably results in unwanted conflict.
Listening is the only option to speaking when another person is speaking. One-to-one or in a group, face-to-face or on the phone, at home or at work, we choose to speak or to listen when someone else is speaking. Being conscious and making the appropriate choice prevents almost 100% of our people-problems in conversations where the content is negative, corrective, or in some way "bad" news.
The choice to listen or to speak is determined solely by assessing which person has the strongest emotion in any given moment in any conversation. (See Conscious Conversation.)
Next: Listening
Ed Lisbe
Listening and Speaking are the two basic "people skills" because those are the only choices available when two (or more) people are trying to have a conversation. There isn't another possibility. At each moment, in any conversation, only one of the choices will be appropriate.
This simple listening and speaking distinction makes even the most difficult conversation easy to understand and to manage. Success with "people skills" does not require learning how to handle a wide variety of interpersonal contexts. Typically, to handle strong emotional situations at work, employees and managers are offered hundreds of different skill training seminars with titles such as "Communication Success Skills," "Dealing With Difficult People," "People Problems in Meetings," "Managing Strong Emotions," "Supervisory Skills," "Results-Based Listening," etc.
Each of these types of programs offers its own separate terminology and its own separate principles. Even the most conscientious employee will be hard-pressed to remember all the learned options and then to access the appropriate skill set in emotionally charged and stressful moments:
- when two team members escalate into a volatile argument at a meeting when an employee resentfully or sarcastically disagrees with his/her rating during a performance review
- when a customer raises a strong objection to something a salesperson has presented and knows will meet the customer's needs.
Two People Speaking at the Same Time Rarely Works
In such examples, there is almost always only one real problem: people speaking, instead of listening, in response to the other person's speaking. This response is automatic, like breathing to get air, especially if we don't like or agree with what the person is saying. Feeling "right," we speak to persuade or convince the other person. The other person is speaking with the same intention toward us. No matter what the interpersonal context, two people speaking at the same time inevitably results in unwanted conflict.
Listening is the only option to speaking when another person is speaking. One-to-one or in a group, face-to-face or on the phone, at home or at work, we choose to speak or to listen when someone else is speaking. Being conscious and making the appropriate choice prevents almost 100% of our people-problems in conversations where the content is negative, corrective, or in some way "bad" news.
The choice to listen or to speak is determined solely by assessing which person has the strongest emotion in any given moment in any conversation. (See Conscious Conversation.)
Next: Listening
