2 Mar 2008
Leaning into Silence
At a recent workshop I was giving a demo of Supportive Listening. Granted it wasn’t a totally natural scenario, with a crowd of on-lookers, but it was close enough.
I let her carry through the momentum of her first thoughts, and I didn’t interrupt. There were places where I could have jumped in, but I chose not to. So far so good.
Then as that initial momentum started to dissipate, I was tempted to jump in and fill the silence. I had a sense there was more, though. So I waited. It was a little more uncomfortable.
And then she seemed to have stopped. And I waited a little more. This was even more uncomfortable. And she talked a bit more and then stopped.
After a good deep breath, I shared with her a brief piece of “what I’d got” from what she’d said, and she picked up on it and further developed that thinking.
By leaning into the silence, and only talking when I really thought it was needed to help the speaker pick up again, she relaxed and came up with some creative ideas for her challenge.
To a casual observer, it might appear that I’d done “nothing.” But I knew better. 🙂
Paul.
