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Conflict Resolution, ICF, ICF Core Competences, ICFCoreCompetences, jannayeshanova, Leadership Training, LeadershipTraining, Leo Buscaglia, LeoBuscaglia, Listen, listening Skills, ListeningSkills, Negotiations, Relationships, Training
Recently, I presented training at the International Coach Federation Columbus Charter Chapter. Interactive and dynamic training is always a blast! It was a reminder of how we should listen to invite better communication in our lives.
Keep in mind LISTENING is a skill – not an inherent ability. Good listening means fewer family divorces, better relationships with coworkers, clients, friends, neighbors and everybody around us.
At the end of our session I shared a poem of Leo Buscaglia that really impressed me. I decided to share it with you here. I hope you like it too.
When I ask you to listen to me, and you start giving me advice,
you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way,
you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,
you have failed me, strange as that may seem.
Listen! All I ask is that you listen.
Don’t talk or do – just hear me.
And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering,
but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself,
you contribute to my fear and inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact
that I feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational,
then I can stop trying to convince you and get about this business
of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.
And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.
So please listen, and just hear me.
And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn –
and I will listen to you.
Janna Yeshanova, MA, MEd, PCC – http://www.life-spark.com
Janna Yeshanova 