The final stages of the authentic listening process are checking out your understanding, and asking any questions that might be unanswered as a result of the speaking and listening process. The reason you want to check out your understanding is because you can never say what someone said, you can only say what you heard. A critical aspect of the authentic speaking and listening process is to respect the notion that in order to assure understanding you have to go through this reflection or feedback process.
As a listener, once you are clear that you’ve heard and understand what the speaker said you can either respond by starting your own speaking process or even ask questions. We leave the questions to the end because if the process is done correctly they should be very little if any questions. But if, for some reason, the listener did not get key information from the speaker this is the time to resolve any missing information. Our example, if as a listener you did not hear how the speaker felt about the situation or what the speaker wanted to do about the situation, this is the time to ask those questions.
The next set of posts will put the speaking and listening map together and show how they can be used as very effective conflict resolution tools. If people engage in open and authentic conversations, there should be very little energy around legitimate differences of opinion. Resolving differences should have the same emotional energy is pouring a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, when people do not speak openly and authentically, then conflict usually contains an emotional charge. This limits the ability to resolve conflict quickly, creatively and in such a way that maintains or enhances a relationship.
