4.
LISTEN

Research shows that doctors typically wait only 23 seconds after a patient begins describing their chief complaint before interrupting and redirecting the discussion. A study carried out by Dr Howard Beckman and his colleagues from the University of Rochester Medical Center showed that the low quality of the doctors’ listening before redirecting the conversation can lead to missed opportunities to gather important data.⁷⁵ The study also found that the patients would have been able to talk about all of their concerns if the doctors had waited only six more seconds before starting to ask questions. As doctors usually interrupted after the first concern was expressed, many patients failed to bring up other important issues.

Otto Scharmer, Senior Lecturer at MIT and founding chair of the Presencing Institute, is the originator of “Theory U,” a process based on a concept he calls “Presencing.” Presencing is described as a heightened state of attention that allows individuals and groups to shift the inner place from which they function so they can begin operating from the emerging space of possibility.⁷⁶ In Theory U Scharmer describes four types of listening:77

Downloading, where we are purely listening to reconfirm our judgements. “I know that already.” We are looking for what we already know.

Factual, where we are paying attention to the facts to gather more data. We are looking for what we don’t already know.

Empathic, where we are able to listen with an open heart and connect with another person by engaging in real dialogue and paying careful attention to them and their story. We forget about our own agenda and see the world through their eyes.

Generative, where we connect at a deeper level, and to something larger than ourselves. This experience is hard to describe; it has an “out of this world” quality, where things slow down and we are fully present to what is unfolding.

Nadine McCarthy is a corporate coach in Ireland. In 2006, while still a trainee coach, she worked on a project involving a CEO client of a leading Irish organization. The CEO’s 360-degree performance feedback showed strong leadership but lower levels of competency in being at ease and stress-free in the job. In a coaching session with Nadine the CEO identified the main cause of this lower level of competency as high and unrealistic expectations of herself and others, and the stress of putting in extremely long working hours. Given the CEO’s strong leadership qualities, Nadine was shocked to hear her express this as “nothing I do is good enough, nor will it ever be.” Nadine remembers feeling increasingly frustrated with herself during the coaching session, getting mentally distracted, and feeling frustrated at her own inability to help her client. The more she probed and asked questions, the more anxious the CEO seemed to get.

“Suddenly, I became aware in that moment that I was in fact listening to myself rather than my client. I was listening to the voice in my own head, worrying about how I could help her, questioning whether I was a good coach, wondering what she thought of me now, that it was obvious I was only a trainee coach.”

In the midst of this turmoil Nadine remembered that the CEO had mentioned her father a number of times during the session. Nadine decided to follow this lead, but this time she decided to listen not just to the words, but to be fully present to how her client was sitting, breathing and her facial expressions.

“I stayed like this, just listening to her until I felt every part of me was listening to her, trusting that the right next step would un-fold. As I listened in this way, it was as if every word she was saying lit up and I could see it in my mind’s eye. I then heard her saying that she just needed to learn to relax.”

Nadine took this cue and guided her client through a visualization to allow her body and mind to relax. Gradually the CEO’s features softened and her breathing slowed down. Afterwards tears appeared in her eyes and she started recalling a powerful memory of her father. She described a time when she had just received the results of her first university degree: “I had achieved a 2:1 (high second-class honours) in my degree and I was thrilled. I had gone home to celebrate with my parents. As my dad opened a celebratory bottle of champagne, he said: ‘It’s a pity you didn’t get a first!’” As she said those words, the CEO stopped, sat in stunned silence and then looked at Nadine, blinking and shaking her head with a newfound insight into why she had been driving herself relentlessly for the past 26 years. Nadine reflects: “Something really magical happened in the coaching session when I surrendered to Not Knowing and truly listened.”

Generative listening is as old as the world’s ancient cultures. We can learn from the Aboriginal people of Australia, the world’s oldest indigenous culture, who learn by sitting, listening, watching and waiting. This is called “dadirri.” Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, artist and tribal Aboriginal elder from the Daly River in the Northern Territory, describes this special quality as “inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness.”78

“Dadirri recognizes the deep spring that is inside us... A big part of dadirri is listening ...When I experience dadirri, I am made whole again. I can sit on the riverbank or walk through the trees; even if someone close to me has passed away, I can find my peace in this silent awareness. There is no need of words. My people are not threatened by silence. They are completely at home in it. They have lived for thousands of years with Nature’s quietness.”⁷⁹