Listen to the news and you’d think the world couldn’t get any more polarized. People talking at people rather than with them, all the while not hearing what anyone has to say.
· Communications is a two-way proposition.
· And it’s as much listening as talking.
It’s almost like people don’t want to get into discussions – the briefest comments lead to the quickest assumptions. No give and take. No common ground. If you’re not this then you can’t be anything else. But look what happens when there’s an emergency or something unexpected happens – people drop their pretenses and pitch in. We’ve all seen that happen – a fire, flood, tornado, blizzard or worse, and everyone is there with only one thought: how can I help. At work, the differences are set aside for the good of the team – the people you work next to are colleagues and nothing else matters. At the park, produce a softball, basketball, or soccer ball and teams are formed without thought to backgrounds or political preferences. In those situations, it doesn’t matter what ship or horse you rode in on – everyone is in the same boat. Remember that when listening to all the talking heads on TV. Make it a point to do more listening and look for common ground today.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 –1968): American Christian minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.
No comments:
Post a Comment