The Art of Listening

"You listen not for the purpose of judging, criticizing or analyzing. You listen only to help the other person to express himself and find some relief from his suffering." 

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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I have been leaning into my coaching skills for the last 5-6 months heavily. I have begun working where I am often coaching teachers and leaders around curriculum implementation and teacher support, and I am thankful that I have some skills of coaching under my belt. As much as I enjoyed facilitating sessions about coaching and helping people develop their skills of coaching, nothing compares to using these skills and seeing progress.

I have particularly been thinking a lot lately about the critical role of listening in the coaching world, and I have come to discover (or affirm) that many do not understand what listening really is. That is why I love this quote from the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Though, obviously, he was talking about listening with a spiritual outcome, perhaps with higher stakes than a coaching conversation in a school, the importance of that skill is quite a gift to the person that you are coaching. I will acknowledge that in a typical coaching conversation, your listening may not relieve someone from suffering, but it can give the time and space for reflection, which can help a person become unstuck or lean on  their resources to help solve a problem or think about a potential solution or applicable strategies.

When I am in a coaching situation, I am listening to paraphrases and not to respond. Those are two distinct outcomes.

In a world where listening is a lost art, I want to take a moment to remind us about the skill of listening and the critical role it plays in coaching others. Often, we say that we are listening when in actuality, we are hearing what someone is saying and perhaps formulating a response. The act of listening is a two way street. That is why I love this idea of coaching around thinking v coaching for behaviors. When I am in a coaching situation, I am listening to paraphrases and not to respond. Those are two distinct outcomes. When I am in a conversation with someone and I am listening to paraphrase, I have to be in tune with what the person is saying. I often find in educational work that many people do not feel that others really listen to them. I know that in the world at large we are not listening to each other.

Recently, I was presented with a coaching opportunity where I had to come in the middle and take over for another coach at two different schools. Of course, the schools were frustrated because they had had a disruption of support and coaching, and now I was in the position to build up a relationship and continue the coaching in a short amount of time. As I prepared to meet with the teachers and the staff at the schools, I was in tune to this fact and consciously leaned in on the idea of listening. I had surmised that listening was going to be the highest leverage skill that I could employ to turn the tide. When I met with the teachers and the leadership staff, I was in acutely in tune with what they were saying as I was also conscious to make sure that the paraphrases I was offering were reflecting what was being said. 

When I entered the meeting with the staff, I could feel the tension in the room. None of them wanted to be there. Besides, they had been left alone for several months and now I was coming in to “coach” them. Schools are busy places, and I understood that there were other priorities that this staff had energy for. As much as I felt the tension in  the room, I also felt in  that same conversation where the tension shifted– it all came about through listening. I heard the teachers’ frustrations. I heard the teachers’ passion. I heard the leadership and teachers’ needs, and I was able to succinctly articulate them and reflect them back to them. In that one moment, I understood keenly how coaching skills can build trust and rapport. I remember feeling that day a great sense of accomplishment and pride but also a sense of purpose– I was there to help support them, to help them draw on their resources and to help them when they did not have the needed internal or external resources to meet the moment.

This larger thinking about listening led me to further ponder the idea of discourse. Discourse is a term that we throw around, but never really define it, or at least in the circles I have traveled I have not gained clarity. I have been pondering about how we teach discourse and how we model discourse. Most of us think of discourse as allowing students to talk, think, or write, or to set up opportunities for them to engage with communication. However, it is deeper than that. Discourse involves the deep skill of listening. All you have to do is turn on a news channel with a panel of guests and they are talking mightily but not listening– mostly because they are entrenched in their own thinking, and are using those silent spaces to formulate a response. I want to see us both teaching and modeling discourse so that those engaging in the discourse understand the complexity of it. If I am listening, I will be able to reflect that thinking back to you. If I am really listening, I am able to logically process your thinking against my own. If I am engaged in productive discourse, my thinking could shift as a result of what you are saying, if I have truly listened. 

Deep Listening is the skill that I leaned on in the schools I was coaching. I had been told a lot about them and I had read through the previous coach’s notes, but I went into the schools with the intent of listening, and some of what they were saying was a belief I held, but there were also moments when the teachers and leaders and I were in discourse, and my thinking was impacted. I had to be willing to allow my thinking to be interrupted with another thought and processed in a way that would truly allow me to assist them. At the end of the day, and certainly by the end of the coaching, I really know that because deep listening– without judgment, without criticism, without analysis– offered me an opportunity to support others in expressing themselves and ultimately finding some ways to move forward.