Defending vs. Listening

The rink lobby was emptying. Dean was kneeling over his son's hockey bag when a woman approached him. He recognized her. Her boy had started skating in the league this year, and was on the same peewee team.

"You cut their ice time in half," she said a bit too loudly. "You did. The governing board.”

Dean was on the youth hockey board, and for the past six years, he had run a structural engineering firm, now 120 people. He was used to being steady and rational. He explained to the mom that one of the rink's two ice surfaces was down for repairs, and the board divided the hours that were left by the number of skaters in each program. It was the fairest method available, and he walked her through it the way he would walk a client through a set of blueprints.

She got angrier. Every logical sentence hardened her face a little more. He stayed fairly calm, still right about his position, but getting nowhere with her.

Then he stopped. He had begun practicing a new technique lately, inconsistently, and not very well: he was trying to listen and understand rather than offer explanations.

He thought for a moment and said, "You're afraid he's going to lose his spot. After he finally earned it."

She settled. "That’s right. He tried out for two years. He made it this season."

Dean waited a few seconds and then asked, "Can I show you what the board was trying to do? You can tell me where we got it wrong."

She nodded, and a conversation started.

Later while driving home, his son asleep against the window, Dean saw that it had never been about ice time. The mom knew the rink was down a surface, but she needed to know her boy still mattered to the people making the call.

Being seen as fair was always important to Dean. When someone questioned his position, he defended himself quickly and completely. He usually won the point, but he didn’t always win over the person. He thought of the partner who had gone quiet in last month's project review. The young engineer who had stopped bringing him problems. For years he had been winning the point and losing the person who raised it.

Now he was making needed changes to his approach.

Defending answers the challenge. Listening answers the person behind it.

The Question

The next time you are certain you are right, who in front of you has stopped feeling heard?

"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."— Ernest Hemingway