The best intentions in the
world often run up against things which are out of the control
of the individual. Each situation that you are in
happens against a background of decisions made by other people
and agendas that conflict with yours. The first step to
good listening is to learn everything possible about what is
going on AROUND the situation you are working in.
A consultant was asked to
provide training in communication to the probation officers of
a large city. The probation officers were currently
embroiled in a battle with the state judicial council over
their right to carry hand-guns. The same judicial
council had haired the consultant but without telling the
consultant anything about the hand-gun issue. For one
entire session the officers spoke only of their danger and of
guns because of their assumption that the consultant
represented their principal enemy. The ecology of this session
made it impossible to get beyond the issue of the hand-guns.
A school district hired a
consultant to provide inservice training. The first
session of the training was filled with hostility until the
consultant learned that the teachers had not been informed of
the training session until 3 hours before it was to begin. The
hostility was toward the superintendent, not the inservice
training as such. The the ecology of the situation could
not be ignored. It was an important part of everyone's
perception of the session.
Much of what goes on in our
contacts with other people, either as individuals or working
in organizations, is just not within our power to
affect. Look at the situational ecology first and just
leave alone those things over which you have no immediate
power.
