Listening During Conflict

Part one of this article highlights some of the assumptions we make about listening during conflict and considers the nature of listening required for the resolution and transformation of conflict.  In Part two (August issue) I explore what we listen to and filter out during conflict and highlight the disciplines needed to cultivate high quality listening.

During conflict most of us are so concentrated on sending messages, advocating our rights, pursuing our interests and defending our positions that we pay little attention to the quality of listening we engage in.  The quality of our listening is often poor even though our listening, more than our words  influences the outcome and state of our relationships in the wake of the conflict. 

We take for granted that we know how to listen and often assume that listening is easy and that we are good listeners.  We assume that just because we can be good listeners in many circumstances that we will be equally competent when in conflict. A great many people assume that listening is a passive activity and that we do not need to learn how to do it or prepare ourselves to listen.  Few of us stop to reflect on how we listen, realise how complex a task it is, or how difficult it gets when we are in conflict.  A close examination shows that many such assumptions do not hold up. 

There is so much emphasis in the literature on communication on how we send our messages, but little on how we receive them.  Most agree that listening is a crucial competence underpinning everyday communication and interaction but the demands made of our listening in the context of conflict are far greater and deserve special attention.  Our competence in listening is a far greater hazard but potentially a greater source of added value in dealing constructively with conflict. 

What does it mean to be listened to?

At the core of conflict are voices wanting to be heard, listened to, acknowledged and affirmed.  In the clamour for attention these voices may not have had the energy or power to make themselves heard,  achieving neither the attention, awareness, significance or response desired.  Many protracted or intractable conflicts have escalated because such dissonant voices were ignored, marginalised or suppressed.  Had they been listened to and their messages acknowledged, understood and engaged with, the conflict might have taken a more productive pathway. 

When we say we "want to be listened to" during conflict we are usually demanding, often unawarely, far more than simply having our words registered in the hearing mechanism of the other.  We are often looking for recognition of our identity and right to be heard, acknowledgement of our point of view, sympathy for our position, a positive response to our needs, support for our values and sometimes much more, all or some of which we may or may not be able to articulate.  We can be demanding to be understood - sometimes in ways we ourselves do not yet understand or recognise. So how might listening be of value here and what kind of listening might it take to enable ourselves and others feel "listened to"?

The intent behind much of our day-to-day listening is to get a grasp of, or make sense of something, and to find information that we seek.  It is a focused listening that is on the look out for something and is filtering out and selecting on that basis; a kind of programmed search that only registers what is searched for.    Likewise during conflict such listening, i.e. focused searching, can often cause us to discount or disregard much of what is being said.  As a result we may fail to hear the message and signals that the other is trying to communicate, trying both our patience and theirs.

The listening required in a conflict scenario is more of an allowing of oneself to be immersed in the messages and signals sent than a focused search type of listening.  It is an allowing of the field of messages and signals to make us aware and educate us as it will, rather than an attempt at directing and controlling the search.   It has connotations of giving people our full attention, temporarily setting aside or bracketing our own needs, interests and desires.  It is as much about creating a space, an inner silence (e.g. stopping the constant chatter) in our heads, hearts and bodies, where listening can occur, from where we can attend to messages from ourselves, the other and the environment.

More demandingly it often requires we set aside our bias, frame of reference, preconceptions and prejudice so we can hear the messages received on their own terms rather than whether they confirm or disconfirm our existing stances and preconceptions.  It requires utilisation of all our senses and the engagement of our intuition, meaning making, and understanding capability more than our existing body of knowledge.  It means cultivating our capacity to live with not knowing and especially not knowing better and not knowing first. 

Listening in this way means being impressionable and being sensitively attuned on multiple frequencies and wavelengths at once.  We listen not just with our hearing but also with our eyes, our bodies, our emotions, our hearts, our minds and spirit.  We receive without resistance - these messages and signals into the empty space we have created within ourselves for listening.  Such listening is an opening up to both self and other, making oneself vulnerable to the message received, to being influenced by them and ultimately open to being transformed by them.

Such listening is deeply affirming and life enriching to the person being listened to. It draws one outward and invites into being - a welcome into existence of parts of ourselves, others, and the emergent field.  It is an act of love of which most of us find ourselves incapable in the midst of conflict because it runs counter to our usual drive to get our message across and defend against the influence of the other.

Listening well is a challenge even when we are calm but very difficult when we are under attack or off balance.  Hatred, anger, fear and anxiety close down our attention and focus it on the person or construct we have created to hate.  The object of our hate, anger or fear sucks in our attention and energy like a black hole.  It hijacks and pulls us in.  We are enthralled - it has control of us and takes away our freedom to notice and witness, except other than from that blinkered position. 

Often by the time conflict has become heated we have had enough - heard enough - and now want to give the other a piece of our mind.  We often assume that just because we have not been saying anything that we have been listening for long enough.  We then join in the battle of the messages;  adversarial monologues where we switch off the listening channel or only listen to identify the vulnerabilities in the other's argument or position.  It is said that most of us don't have a hearing problem - we have a listening problem.  When we have our purpose in mind we are able to filter out anything which does not relate to it.  We hardly even realise we are doing it after a while. And don't realise what we have filtered out. 

In part 2 we explore what does/does not get listened to and how we might cultivate quality listening.