November 27, 2024

One of the most (if not THE most) effective things you can do if you want to connect with someone you care about, resolve a conflict, or both, is to listen in a way that makes the other person feel heard and understood. As you might imagine, this is more easily said than done, even if you know all of the steps.

In this post, I'll try to make it a little bit easier by pointing out where things can go wrong, and how you can turn things around if that happens. And since Thanksgiving is coming up, we’ll use politics as an example (everyone's favorite Thanksgiving topic), and the names of football teams in place of parties (to protect the guilty).

So let’s say you’re happily enjoying your Chex mix when your sister-in-law says, “Can you believe what’s happening in Congress? I’m not sure how the Packers are supposed to get anything done when the Steelers’ only goal is to sabotage them at every turn.”

Assuming you and your sister-in-law do not see eye to eye on this, you have a number of options at this point.

You could politely indicate that you’d rather not have the conversation by jokingly saying something like,  “I don't think I have the energy to do politics today - I can barely adult,” or “I have no idea what’s happening in DC and think I'd like to keep it that way." Or maybe just, “Congress,” while rolling your eyes and shaking your head. You can now follow this up by suggesting a more palatable topic of conversation, such as your recent root canal.

None of the above would be the worst choice, and might fall nicely in line with the sage advice to let things slide off of you, like water off a duck’s back.

But what if, instead, you’d like to use this opportunity to connect with your sister-in-law, and maybe even understand her perspective a bit better?

In that case, you could reflect what you heard by saying, “So you feel like nothing’s moving in Congress right now, and that's because the Steelers are trying to sabotage everything the Packers want to accomplish. Is that right?”

So far so good - you did your best to accurately reflect what you heard, using some of her words and some of your own, and you left her room to say more. Nicely done. 

And now your sister-in-law is feeling good about being heard, and she follows it up with, “Yeah, the Steelers don’t care what happens to the country, as long as their corporate sponsors are happy.”

At this point, if you're not careful, you could easily make one of the three common listening mistakes.

MISTAKE NUMBER 1: ASK A LEADING QUESTION. If you’re feeling triggered by what you see as your sister-in-law's hypocrisy, you might say, “Do you think the Packers are also influenced by their corporate sponsors?” You may tell yourself you're simply asking a question in order to better understand her thinking, but if have an agenda in mind, she'll sense it, and the conversation will probably take a nosedive.

MISTAKE NUMBER 2: AGREE. Maybe you decide this is hopeless, and say, “Yeah, well, you might be right about that.” In this case, you “yessed” her in order to end the discussion without an argument, but this is probably not the end. She'll have the sneaking feeling you weren't being truthful, and you'll know you weren't being truthful. Chances are more will be said, if not now, then in the future. And when that happens, the truth will come out, and not in a way either of you will feel good about.

MISTAKE NUMBER 3: WATER IT DOWN. Another mistake would be to do something in between those two options by saying, “So you're saying that politicians are influenced by money.” In this case, you changed your sister-in-law’s words into something that you could agree with. But changing what she said in such a way will not only make her feel unheard, it will make her feel misrepresented. This will leave her wanting to correct the record with an even stronger statement, such as “No, the Steelers are so much worse - it’s not even close!"

Not to worry! If this is where you are, you can always take a breath and start again by listening to this - what your sister-in-law is now saying - with the goal of understanding. You would then do your best to accurately reflect what she's saying with something like, “So you feel like the Steelers are WAY more influenced by their corporate sponsors than the Packers are, and it’s not even close."

At this point, she could breathe a sigh of relief at having been heard, and simply say "Yes!" And then save all the best pieces of Chex mix for you. Or maybe she'll add some nuance to the statement, and walk it back a bit. She may clarify, for you and for herself, what was missing in that reflection. Once there's nothing left to reflect, if you'd like to go deeper, you can ask her to share more.

Once she feels fully heard, she may even ask you for your perspective. And at this point, she'll be in a much better place to hear it. If not (and you'll know she's not if she starts to argue with you), you can simply go back to reflecting her perspective. At the end of the day, you may find that the two of you are not as far off as you might have thought.

And this is truly the beauty of listening with the goal of understanding - you can use it proactively to prevent an argument OR you can use it after an argument has begun. Doing so will turn things around and get the ball rolling in the right direction - a direction where you’ll have a chance to understand the other person better, they'll feel heard and understood, and from there they'll be more open to hearing your perspective (if you feel like sharing).

And even if you never see eye to eye, as long as one of you is making the effort to listen and understand, you’ll both feel much better about the interaction, and about each other. And the rest of the family will thank you!