Yesterday in aftercare the topic was "listening", how if we listen creatively we will learn more about the speaker. At first the group was cool to the subject. Then, after one member volunteered to begin, the participants warmed up.

The consensus was that most of us spend more time thinking about what we're going to say than we do listening to the speaker.

An interesting twist came when someone suggested we can get what we want if we listen to the other person. Sometimes we're so wrapped up in our own wants, needs, and feelings we don't hear. One group member said we can also get what we want if we ask creative questions. The questions we ask helps the speaker realize a couple of things. First, the speaker knows we care what he's saying. Secondly, he will feel we respect him. We’re not simply listening while anxiously waiting to blat out our opinion. The right questions help us clarify what the speaker is saying.

Creative questions help us find what the speaker wants, regardless if it's only a moment of our attention.

A good example of failure to listen came out. One of the managers, also a group member, thought he heard one thing about a man who had been laid off the job. What he heard was the man had refused to work. However, after he told the man he couldn't be in our program if he refused to work he found out what he had heard wasn't what happened. What happened was the employer told the labor group dispatcher he didn't want to use the man any more because he'd found someone more experienced. Nothing was said about the man refusing to work.

A lot of controversy could have been avoided if this manager had just listened carefully.