Listening, *really* listening, is a rare superpower.
I was a bad listener most of my life.
Then I fixed that a few years ago.
Night & day difference in my leadership ability.
I learned that we can learn to listen well.
A thread on listening (and learning it from movies🎞️)
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First, why is listening hard?
It’s because we have:
- the fear of being wrong
- an inability to be present
- a desire for validation
- a lack of curiosity
- the urge to impress
- a feeling of superiority
For an example of *bad* listening, let’s learn from this epic scene from the movie, The Darkest Hour.
The setup: World War II. There are disagreements among British leadership about whether they should pursue peace talks with Germany or an all out war.
Go on, watch the scene.
Really, watch the scene before proceeding to the next tweet.
So what can we learn from this scene about listening?
The superficial lesson is not to interrupt others.
But the deeper lesson is that most of us are like Churchill w.r.t. listening.
How so?
While we may not interrupt vocally, *we are interrupting others with our thoughts*