The art and skill of listening has been analyzed, written about, discussed, and mulled over extensively in the past decade. I have no desire to recap those many accounts. But let’s be clear on what I mean when I say “listen, then act.”
Listening means sincerely trying to understand another person’s point of view until that person feels understood. Many books and training programs go into detail on developing this skill. Needless to say, listening is a hard job. As Nobel Prize–winning author Andre Gide said, “Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens, we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.”
After you listen and truly understand, then comes the action. Acting after listening ensures you are doing things that will actually solve some problem, issue, or concern. How many times have you acted first based on rumors, innuendos, half truths, and judgments, only to find out later that your actions were meaningless or even embarrassing because you didn’t listen?
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