• “The Three Resolutions”
  • Personal Value Statements
  • Set Some Goals – A 3R Form
  • Three Resolutions Podcast
  • Time and Self Management Books
  • Values Development Exercise
  • Who I am
  • Your Best Year Ever – Programmes

THE THREE RESOLUTIONS

~ Your Personal Mission Controller – Self-Leadership That Works

THE THREE RESOLUTIONS

Tag Archives: comnpetence

Listening requires Discipline, too.

Featured

Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Character and Competence, Discipline

≈ Comments Off on Listening requires Discipline, too.

Tags

comnpetence, compassion, discipline, heart, listening, patience

One competency that people often lack is the ability to listen. I recall as a husband and as a school pupil the accusation that ‘you never listen’, but I don’t recall the lessons in listening that accompanied literacy and numeracy. Do you? Do you remember being taught attention management as a listener rather than as a teacher? Nope? Me neither.

Listening is a skill. The ability to not just hear what is being said, but also to see how it is being said and to understand why it is being said are the three elements of good listening. They are summarised in the expression that good listening requires HEART – an ART of using the EAR to HEAR what’s in the HEART. Yes, I know – ouch. Yet perfectly apt.

The ability to truly understand through listening is therefore a competence, one that can be studied, learned and finally applied. But all of that competence requires something else, something that underpins all learning.

Discipline.

Not just discipline required to apply oneself to the learning of the competence, though. That’s only half the story.

Discipline is also required to actually apply that learned skill at the appropriate moment. It means pausing in the gap between hearing someone say, “I want to tell you something” and the knee-jerk “Not now, I’m busy” which we tend to apply.

Not as easy as learning about how to listen, I’m afraid. We all live in our own world, and other people’s need to intrude upon our inner peace (i.e. while watching Line of Duty) tends to lie secondary to what we have ‘going on’ in our own heads. It takes discipline to decide to be present for another person. Until that discipline can be applied, all the listening training in the world won’t make you a great listener.

It’s easier to pause and listen to someone important to you in an intimate sense – immediate family, best friends, and so on. It’s also arguably easier to listen at a time of crisis, because the crisis is salient, it’s ‘in yer face’ and can’t be avoided.

But there are times when someone needs to be heard, but there is no obvious sense of urgency and so the moment is missed because the intended listener hasn’t developed the skill, and discipline, to be (a) willing to listen and (b) able to see that listening is needed now.

Next time someone seeks to attract your attention, pause and ask yourself – am I ready and willing to take the time to understand why this person wants me at this moment? That pause will inevitably result in better communication, even if the result is to arrange a better time for the conversation – the individual knows they have been and will be heard if the counsellor actively acknowledges that there is a conversation required.

Not easy.

But try.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

It’s never too late – nor too early – to learn

04 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Character and Competence

≈ Comments Off on It’s never too late – nor too early – to learn

Tags

comnpetence, learning, relationships, second resolution, seven habits, stephen r covey

Ordinarily I write my blogs on the day I post them. I wrote this one five days ago, because I knew I’d be busy this morning. I mean that morning. I mean …. Oh, you know.

I knew I was busy on the morning this post would appear (that’ll do) because of my adherence to my personal value relating to ‘intellectual pursuit’ in that I had booked to attend a webinar. To be frank, it’s a webinar the content of which I already know and I could probably plan and present it myself (although the presenter is doing a bang up job). It’s on a subject I’ve studied for decades, hence my apparent over-confidence.

But I have always been of the opinion that ‘competence’, the ‘working’ half of the Second Resolution, is not something you achieve once. Competence is an ongoing obligation, and as competencies develop so does my need to maintain some kind of currency with the latest thinking on the subject at hand. It ahs been said that competencies have a half-life of about two-three years, meaning in that period you’ll lose half your usable ability if you don’t maintain some kind of continuing professional development. I know from recent experience that the procedural changes in the organisation I left in 2014 and to which I returned 18 months later meant that I was way behind in some respects. A steep learning curve was a pleasant surprise!

Many people rue additional training, while some welcome it. I find that the first group is split into people who hate it whatever it is, while some (cough) just detest such training if it is unnecessarily frequent or poorly delivered.

(Did you know that on the first anniversary of the day they are taught how to hit people with a metal bar, police officers are deemed to have forgotten? The same with First Aid. Complete mental collapse in some areas of their work that many apply frequently but on day 366 – all forgotten. Yes, I am being a bit sarcastic and there are valid exceptions.)

In the main, however, frequent attendance at training courses will at best enhance your professional (and personal*) competencies and at worst reinforce the ones you already possess.

So why not approach imposed training as something which will serve you in some way, and proactively seek out training in areas which until now you may have felt unnecessary – or better still, something you want to do just ‘because’.

When the lockdown finishes you will no doubt get the opportunity to return to a community college, further education facility or other provider who will teach you something you will need to know, or will want to know.

I know I will be.

( *I’m booking some ‘relationship’ courses even though I’m approaching my 40th wedding anniversary. Can’t be too careful…….)

For more on principle centred leadership, ready my book The Three Resolutions, available HERE.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Archives

best blogs

Blogroll

  • Blogtopsites

Blog Stats

  • 18,062 hits

Categories

  • Character and Competence
  • Discipline
  • General
  • Purpose and Service
  • Rants
  • Time Management
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • THE THREE RESOLUTIONS
    • Join 148 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • THE THREE RESOLUTIONS
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: