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Empathy and Active Listening

Communication and listening as an encounter between worlds

© Article translated from the book “Ascolto attivo ed empatia. I segreti di una comunicazione efficace“. copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available. If you are interested in publishing the book in any language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact Dr. Daniele Trevisani.

The world of the listener and the world of the speaker are two different worlds

They are two different stories, they have different pasts, friends, relatives, different experiences, different bodies, different sensitivities. Active and empathic listening can perform the miracle of creating a bridge between these two worlds. 

Each of us has different mental images for every word that exists, even for the word ‘tree’, if we could create a drawing of it, 10 different trees would emerge out of 10 different people, ranging from palm trees to pines, with a great variety. Let alone when we talk about concepts like ‘love’ or ‘friendship’. 

 

Two people say ‘I love you’ to each other, or think it, and each means a different thing, a different life, even perhaps a different colour or a different aroma, in the abstract sum of impressions that constitutes the activity of the soul. 

(Fernando Pessoa) 

Imagine the difference between a senior basketball coach and a basketball player in his early twenties. There are huge differences, in age, in height, in physical performance, or in outlook on life.  

But if the player does not learn to listen, he will never get anything out of it, no juice, no teaching, and will remain at his level or maybe even get worse or not participate in the team game. 

There is something fundamental about listening, wanting to enter the world of the other, if only for your own interest. 

“If you listen and learn, you will win basketball games and, gentlemen, winning in here is the key to winning out there! ”  

Samuel L. Jackson – Ken Carter 

And for the coach, it’s no different. Listening to a complaint or a suggestion about a different position on the court to take, and understanding, can make the difference between a player who is comfortable on the court, and a player who quits the sport because he is forced into a role that is not his own, which for so long he has been trying to get the coach to understand. Listening, once again, is at the root of whole chains of events. 

 

“I hate man-marking, I’m a creative person, I like to create play, I’m not a puppet who has to stick to a guy and follow him even if he goes to the bathroom. If this continues, if the coach doesn’t stop putting me on man-to-man, I’ll quit football. I’ve told him 50 times, he doesn’t listen, he doesn’t understand, he hasn’t understood that I won’t be there next game. In fact, from now on, I’m not going to be a dummy.” (real testimony of a youth football player) 

© Article translated from the book “Ascolto attivo ed empatia. I segreti di una comunicazione efficace“. copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available. If you are interested in publishing the book in any language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact Dr. Daniele Trevisani.