Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Warning: Intersection Ahead! Listen with Caution . . .

In much of today’s discourse, it seems like driving highway speed in our human interactions is becoming the way people are interacting. Everyone wants to be heard and understood, but are we willing to give others the kind of listening we ourselves crave?

By Geoff Dueck Thiessen, Regional Director, Winnipeg Member Centre

Listening matters. That seems like an obvious statement, yet how we listen also matters. I’m stating these as facts.

It could be argued that each person is entitled to listen however they want, and if someone doesn’t like it, then it’s their problem. My hunch is holding that view will, in general, result in weaker and less satisfying relationships.

Consider two different styles of listening, as imagined by two different ways of driving a vehicle.

1. Highways – On a highway, you can often use cruise control, sit back and relax, listen to Tom Petty, and even drink a coffee with relative safety. There’s generally low stress, fewer decisions to make, and you get where you’re going faster.The downside is with increased speed, crashing has bigger consequences. And there are fewer opportunities for leaving the road and taking another path.

2. Intersections – Intersections make you slow down while offering the opportunity to change directions. The skills required to safely navigate intersections include gauging distance, paying attention to both vehicle and foot traffic from all directions, following traffic signals, factoring road conditions, and choosing the right direction.

With all that information in view, we try to ignore extra information that might not matter, like pedestrians who are not crossing the street, or the amazing CLAC advertising on the back of the bus in front of us. Fail the intersection, and you crash or end up driving in the wrong direction.

I propose that different kinds of human relationships require different kinds of listening. Sometimes, we need to listen like we’re highway driving.

Other times, we need to slow down, notice more information, proceed with caution, and, yes, take some limited risks. The more important the relationship, and the more conflict potential, the more we need to slow down and take more care.

Barreling through on cruise control increases the chance of missing the turnoff or worse, crashing big. And while the metaphor might seem dramatic, the consequences of poor listening can be catastrophic and even fatal.

Listening with intersections in mind can help understand someone in their “social location.” For example, understanding an Afghan woman would depend on where and when she is located.

In Afghanistan before the Taliban, after the Taliban took over, and then once she comes to Canada. Understanding her in each situation would be different because her place, status, and position in each context would be different based on where her identities as Afghan, woman, mother/not, wife/single, educated/not, immigrant, income, social supports, etc. placed her.

When we slow down and consider someone intersectionally, we are actively increasing dignity and respect while decreasing marginalization. And it’s up to us as listeners to slow down for the intersection, because folks experiencing difficulties are often reluctant to voice them, sometimes because of feelings of shame or experiences of when it didn’t work out for them.

How many times have you been puzzled by someone’s behaviour and later learned something that helped you understand it? Were they grieving a loss? Struggling through anxiety or depression? Are they on the autism spectrum? Have they experienced discrimination? Were they going through a separation or divorce?

Slowing down and navigating the intersection with someone is perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give them, a powerful magnifier of dignity.

4 Keys to Intersectional Listening

Unconditional positive regard – Carl Rogers made this famous (and controversial) and named it as a core condition for the therapeutic conditions necessary for change. Jesus also captured this in his directive to love one’s enemy. And it’s a key ingredient to the kind of labour relations that CLAC commits to.
Cultural humility – This involves being aware that culture matters in every interaction, even when two people seem to come from the same ethnic and cultural background. Awareness of my own culture from a place of humility should make it easier to appreciate that the other person also has cultural lenses.
Curiosity – This one isn’t complicated, but it sure isn’t easy. Another way to say it is taking a posture of “not knowing.” If I think I already know the thoughts and intentions of the other person, I’m less likely to slow down and pay attention.
Empathy – This involves stepping out of our own way of seeing things and trying to enter the other person’s experience. Rather than focusing on our own story, staying with and deepening our understanding of theirs is key.

Using these skills is not a matter of perfection. Research supports that attempts at cultural humility increase the strength of relationships whether or not these attempts are done without error. As long as we are trying to use them, minor fender benders should be no big deal because our conversation partner will sense that we are trying.

Thanks for reading to the bottom. I think this traffic analogy has run out of gas, and it’s time to put the brakes on it for now. All the best on the journey!

Warning: Intersection Ahead! Listen with Caution . . .

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