Workshops

I once had a conversation with a journalist from South Africa, who was sharing his impressions about the massive changes sweeping that country at the time, as white-minority political rule and the legislative and economic structures of apartheid were being dismantled.  After discussing the complex constellation of factors that were at play, I asked him, “What’s your sense of what F.W. DeKleerk and Nelson Mandela think of each other?” (DeKleerk was the white president at the time, and Mandela the black leader of the African National Congress who assumed the presidency in the early years of majority rule.)

“Aaahhh!” the journalist replied as his eyebrows went up and his hands few into the air.  “That’s exactly it!  There is hope for a relatively peaceful transition in South Africa for the first time in generations because those two individuals simply like each other.  Yes, there are many other factors at play, but none of those would matter without their relationship as the catalyst.  They have moved beyond fear to trust because they have bothered to understand and respect each other, and that has come because they have listened to one another.  They have chosen to do the hard and frightening work of listening to the other.”

When’s the last time you felt like you were being heard?  You know, really listened to, as if you had something important to say, and as if you yourself actually mattered?  What was that like? How did that feel?  And how often do you find yourself really listening to someone else, devoting your whole self, your entire attention, to that person what they she or he has to say – with their words and their voice, as well as with their faces and bodies, and with what they’re not saying?  How often do you help them to hear the wisdom that resides within themselves, by asking open and honest questions that invite the soul to expand – rather than just plowing ahead with advice or direction?

What a powerful, transformative, potentially life- and world-changing thing.  Just to pose a meaningful, well-timed question.  Just to listen, really listen.  And to be listened to.  Yet it’s also incredibly rare.  And so incredibly important – in relationships and families, in communities and organizations, and in leadership.

This interactive, experiential workshop sheds light on important skills of deep listening – “arts of attention.”  And it goes far beyond that to examine key but often unrecognized obstacles to listening, to understand its power and central role in life and leadership, and to explore the capacities of self and qualities of character – “postures of presence” – that ground and empower positive change.

Yes, it can be “hard and frightening work.”  But it’s also what we yearn for, a way of being-with one another that can change the world.