Being Heard and Valued
In my former life
I can say with confidence that I’ve spent a significant part of my life reflecting on speaking and listening. In my former life as an ESL teacher, these were two skills that I taught regularly. And yet, they are challenging skills for an ESL student to improve. It’s less about memorizing grammar rules or lists of vocabulary and more about practice, practice, practice. There are no shortcuts. It takes time and hard work.
Becoming a child again
No, I’m not talking about being born again as Jesus describes it to Nicodemus in John 3. I’m talking about learning a second language. A child learns to speak by listening to the language input of the surrounding environment. At 29 years old, I had to start learning a new language and paying attention to my speaking and listening skills in a whole new way. Again, no short cuts. It took time and hard work.
In my current life
I appreciated that Julian Treasure connected speaking and listening in his book How to be Heard. We so often focus on one or the other. Maybe we tell someone, “You’re a great listener.” Or we lament, “I hate public speaking!” But Treasure’s core idea is expressed right at the beginning of his book when he says, “These 2 crucial abilities affect one another in a circular relationship: it’s hard to be a great, powerful speaker if you don’t listen, or to be a great listener if you can’t articulate your own thoughts.”[1]
This “circular relationship” reminds me of a ball being tossed back and forth. In fact, that’s how I’ve come to think about communication – two or more people throwing a ball around. Yes, the “sender” has to launch the message pretty much in the right direction, but the “receiver” also has a responsibility to catch the intended message.
Erin Meyer talks about this in detail in The Culture Map. In direct cultures, notably Anglo-Saxon cultures, the definition of an effective communicator mostly means someone who communicates literally and explicitly. Communication is deemed “good” if it is clear and explicit. She goes so far as to say that in this type of culture if a misunderstanding occurs it is generally blamed on the speaker. By contrast, “in many Asian cultures…Good communication is subtle…with responsibility for transmission of the message shared between the one sending the message and the one receiving it.”[2] This holds true in French culture as well, as we’ve been told many times, “What is left unsaid is as important as what is said.” Talk about an extra layer of complication when you’re operating in your second language!
Looking ahead
In June, I’ll have the opportunity to attend a conference in Sarajevo and run a workshop on my NPO topic – parenting. This is outside my comfort zone, and yet so aligned with what I want to do in the future that I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I’m looking at it as a great templating experience; it’s a relatively low-risk way to practice exactly what I hope to do more of after I have my doctorate in hand. As I read Chapters 5 and onward of Treasure’s book, I was diligently taking note of things to implement in my upcoming workshop.
- “Make your speech simple, easy to understand, logical, plain, direct, complete and specific, and you will generally find it effectively received.”[3] Given that I’ll be speaking to an international audience and the presentation will be translated, I’ll have to avoid idioms, jargon and overly complicated sentences.
- Speak from a place of love. “If your speaking comes from well-wishing love, then honesty, authenticity and integrity flow much more naturally.”[4]
- Consider the audience carefully. Referring back to a listener’s filters in Chapter 3 Treasure advises a speaker to “spot the listening and thus adapt your speaking to make sure that you hit the target.”[5] As a reminder, those filters were culture, language, values, attitudes, beliefs, intentions, expectations and emotions. Those are a lot of ways that our message can get derailed!
- The list could go on, but I’ll end with one more quote. “It’s said that we seek 3 things in a relationship: to be heard, to be understood and to be valued.”[6] Have you ever heard a talk, be it a sermon or a class lecture or maybe just a TED talk and you felt like the speaker truly “got” you? You felt seen and heard. In my NPO research, I find that is one thing that parents desperately desire, and it’s a way to connect with just about any parent. My hope, as I craft this workshop (and, Lord willing, more like it in the future) is to communicate in such a way that parents feel heard, seen and valued.
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[1] Julian Treasure, How to Be Heard: Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening (Mango Media Inc., 2017). 11.
[2] Erin Meyer, The Culture Map: Breaking through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business (New York: PublicAffairs, 2014). 31.
[3] Julian Treasure, How to Be Heard: Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening (Mango Media Inc., 2017). 211.
[4] Ibid. 223.
[5] Ibid. 225.
[6] Ibid. 168.
About the Author
Kim Sanford
6 responses to “Being Heard and Valued”
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Hi Kim, I finally know what your NPO is about. I think it is brilliant that you bring Treasure’s book into the work you are doing. As an ESL compatriot, I feel free to confess that I am using Krashen’s comprehensive input into my Interlinkt telephone app. As part of helping refugees resettle in the 1st 30 days, I am using Krashen’s compelling input theory for refugee adults. I hope to craft a simple, free app that will not only inform the refugee but also use ESL techniques to elevate his language learning (hmmm…I think that is first time I said that- need to write it down.
Best wishes on your Sarjevo talk. Sadly, my Hungary trip this summer fell through (I have to work and take care of my special needs daughter). But, our organization http://www.goodsportsinternational.org is still doing two camps for Ukrainian refugees.
Nice post…Shalom…Russ
Hi! Kim~
I am so glad you brought Erin Meyer’s work into your post as you wrote, “Erin Meyer talks about this in detail in The Culture Map. In direct cultures, notably Anglo-Saxon cultures, the definition of an effective communicator mostly means someone who communicates literally and explicitly. Communication is deemed “good” if it is clear and explicit. She goes so far as to say that in this type of culture if a misunderstanding occurs it is generally blamed on the speaker.”
I am wondering how you perceive “good communication” now that you’ve lived in a new culture? How have you had to adjust to not expecting everyone around you to be clear and explicit?
You are right in guessing that this direct vs indirect communication style has changed me significantly, sometimes for the better but not always. The French perceive a good communicator as someone who can receive the message without the speaker spelling it all out, and I admit I’ve become a lot more like that too. The downside is that I am (like my French friends) constantly looking for a person’s implied meaning “behind” their words. Often with my American friends or colleagues I have to explicitly remind myself that there probably is no second meaning behind their words! Interestingly, I’ve heard many French people say that they don’t actually like this style of communication, that it’s exhausting. They will describe a good friendship as one where they don’t have to carefully select their words and where they don’t have to wonder what their friend really means to say.
Hi Kim, You noted the circular relationship between speaking and listening, liking it to a ball be passed back and forth. What helps you as the receiver catch the message? What do you experience when you are the speaker and the message isn’t received?
I love that you are listening to parents! I look forward to hearing how your workshop goes in Sarajevo. what a wonderful opportunity to engage with your NPO and move into what you hope to be doing in the future.
Good questions, you really made me think about it. What has helped me “receive” indirect messages? Consciously anticipating the needs of others, but honestly this has been a discipline and has taken a lot of practice. Also, paying attention to others and observing those subtle interactions between French people around me. I confess, now it’s almost comical to imagine little thought bubbles containing their real messages.
Your second question, what do I experience when others don’t “catch” my message? It can feel like a lack of care, especially when I feel like, “I TOLD you.” I have to check myself and remind myself that I didn’t TELL explicitly. It helps to come back to the “tossing a ball” metaphor. It makes conversation feel more like a game.
So I think about parenting a lot too! I always thought how amazing it would have been to have had mentoring parents who were just a few years ahead of us with the same kind of child we had, a child with autism. He is our first, and not only was it challenging to figure out parenting with your partner who is from a whole different family, and now our child is “different”. I love that your NPO is working with parenting! I also loved your tossing ball metaphor. There is responsibility in making it work on both ends!!