The Share-Out #8: Listening To Appreciate – The Secret Path To Trustful Connection

I have recently made some insights about listening that I’d like to share.

In my work with leaders and leadership teams, people are often fascinated by the level of active listening that takes place in the sessions we hold.

Some people say that they experience a rush from being listened to for the first time in ages. Others claim that “in the last two minutes, I feel like I have got to know this person better than after ten years of being colleagues”.

How does that connection happen?

The framing is very simple: We just help people to listen to appreciate. No more, no less.

Listening to appreciate is immensely powerful. It connects the speaker and the listener in a way that does not happen when we are just having a normal conversation. Because even if that is not our intention, in a regular conversation we listen to judge, and we listen to defend. 

Somehow, we always seem to have something to defend. Ultimately, I guess we are defending our ego and our concepts about how the world works. (You know: changing beliefs takes energy, whereas nature is conservative and wants to maintain homeostasis). And in doing so, we are listening for the things that somehow – even in minor ways – are threatening our current beliefs, ready to question or dismiss them.

We don’t think of it as defense though, because it occurs to us as logic and reasoning. But it gets in the way of truly getting in contact with the other person’s perspective. Our own inner conversation about the things we are talking about effectively filters out what the other person is conveying. So, in a way we are not even listening; we are only preparing for how to reply. 

But when we listen to appreciate, we step out of the mindset of “Yes, but…” and into the realm of “Yes, and…”. We actively seek out the golden nuggets of the other person and their beliefs – even though these might seem strange at first – and we embrace the potential of the multitude of perspectives. It is a way of listening with generosity, humility and mutual growth.  

And it requires nothing more than a shift of mindset. We listen to the exact same words, but through that shift of mindset, we focus entirely on the good parts: What we like about it and what we can gain or learn from it. 

Edgar Schein, the organizational culture guru defined his humble inquiry practice as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.”

To me, listening to appreciate is the key element of getting in contact with that curiosity, and letting it guide you in connecting with other people and their beliefs. It’s the foundation of a leadership built on reciprocity and mutual trust, where we are constantly seeking alignment - not through brute force, but through consensual choice and sense of purpose.

If you would like to feel the power of listening to appreciate, feel free to contact me and let me show you how to. Or attend one of Real8’s webinars, where we put it into practice in a larger group (currently only in Swedish).

What about you, what are your best practices of appreciative listening? I am curious to know!

/Ola

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