Voices Carry

A little over ten years ago, my dad went on a business trip to New York. On that trip, his cab got into a rather benign car accident, but a car accident, nonetheless. A day after the accident, he was back in California and experiencing massive chest pain. My mother rushed him to the hospital. Given the car accident and my dad's generally stressful lifestyle running his own company, a heart attack was not out of the question. Twelve at the time, I was left home alone with my two-year-old dog.

For what felt like an eternity, but was really closer to four hours, I focused all my energy on shedding my worries. On convincing myself that everything would be okay. A little after my parents rushed out, my dog nudged open the door to my room and came and sat down in front of me. It was her "obedience" pose. The one where she stares into your eyes with her big brown eyes, head tilted to the side, ears cocked. She had sensed my apprehension and was there to listen. To comfort me.

I stared back at her. Then, out of nowhere, started talking. I remember admitting to her how scared I was, despite the harsh exterior I tended (and continue) to sport. I told her that I loved my dad. I rarely even told my dad that. It was one of those things that was just implied. Her eyes widened while mine became smaller as I fought back the tears. I kept talking. When I think back on the conversations and consolations of my life so far, this one, with my dog, sticks out as one of my most comforting. It was because she was hanging on to every word I spoke. She was listening. (It ended up that my dad was fine.)

There is one particular friend of my family whose presence, over the years, was always felt at parties. She is positive, cheerful, and extremely garrulous. Despite her big personality, though, I've always found it difficult to engage in conversation with her for longer than a few seconds. She has a habit of asking a question then continuing to speak without waiting for an answer. She has those eyes that dart away, that are too distracted to make eye contact.

In school, I absolutely despised the courses in which participation factored into our grades. Almost always, this meant that my classmates and I would speak just to get points on the board. Few of the comments had real value, and ironically, though it was all about getting your voice heard, your words were truly expressed to vacant ears. Nobody listened. Everyone was simply waiting to talk.

Even in the corporate world, I've witnessed meeting after meeting unravel into breeding grounds for miscommunication or dysfunction as participants ignore other comments until they can get a word in, or worse, talk over one another. Often, the statements add little value to the discussion but gain the speaker "participation points" so to speak (no pun intended) in the meeting.

In high school, one of my favorite English teachers had only two rules when it came to class participation: raise your hand to speak and don't raise your hand while someone else is speaking. This allowed for everyone who had something to say to say it, and everyone else to listen while each other person spoke. Truly listen. I'm sure that psychologically, we associate a raised hand with waiting to speak. To rehearsing in our heads what we want to say. To well, not listening.

Yesterday, my team met with the founder of our company to review our product and get some guidance on our general direction. The meeting ran for a little over one hundred minutes. For the first seventy five, members of my team spoke. We hear each other speak everyday. During this time, our founder took copious notes. Asked some clarification questions, but for the most part, just listened. I looked at my watch about seventy minutes into the meeting. Wow. We haven't even gotten his thoughts yet, I thought. Five minutes later, our team was done talking. Our founder looked up from his notes. I sense that from your silence it's time for me to say something, he remarked, jokingly. He proceeded to reveal some of the most insightful thoughts I've heard in any world, academic or corporate, in a while.

Granted he is a very intelligent man, I would argue that the value in his words came from the thought he had put into them. The time he had spent listening. Understanding. Processing.

We live today in an instant world. From social media to text messages, packets of thoughts are sloppily meshed into words and carelessly transmitted. A world where what you say is sometimes less important than the fact that you said it. Pressed to respond as quickly as possible, there is little time spent reflecting. It is about action and reaction. And as much as I love and thrive in that world of quick-witted banter and the race to meaningless but ego-building validation like Twitter retweets and Facebook likes, I'm starting to worry that it is at the expense of listening.

These days, silence is associated with disengagement. Carelessness. Defeat.

Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain is a thought-provoking read on human nature told from the point of view of a dog named Enzo. Throughout the novel, Enzo provides the reasons he believes he is ready to be reborn a man. He explains, "Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot talk, so I listen very well. I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like being a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street [. . .] Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories."

Think about a time that you have felt a dire need to speak to someone. A friend, a family member, a coworker. When you've needed to express your thoughts. It was probably because you needed someone to listen to you, more than someone to talk over, at, or back at you.

In the interest of talking less, and listening more, suffice it to say that the art of listening is endangered. Without listening, talking is irrelevant. It's just noise. And after all, when a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around, it doesn't make a sound.