Listening

The older I get the more I realize how hard it is to just listen. Just listening; without coming up with a resolution, without becoming defensive, without yessing the person just to stop them from talking, without interrupting. I am not immune to these reactions at all, in fact, because I am so intentional in my work, I sometimes let this slide in my personal life, just because it takes so much work to listen without being attached to the outcome. And so in my personal life, I have to commit to being an active listener. I work with organizations in an organic way. What I mean is that I may be called on to provide a training and I use the training as the space to model and teach. From the moment I enter the room with my clients I am there in mind, body and spirit. My work and teachings evolve from their work and from how they operate as a team. My idea is that it is only in those real moments of dialogue when one isn’t being “trained” that patterns of behavior and histories of organizational trauma emerge. I am so thankful to all of the organizations and specifically executive teams, who trusted me enough to let go and welcome me into their spaces.