Listening to Learn

"People have an overwhelming desire to be connected to each other."

• Dave Oldham
  

Listening to Learn

We were all sitting around a table talking about how to improve Dave's presentation in an effort to help him to raise investment capital. There were five of us in all. We'd been through this process with him a couple of times before and we were making great progress. That's because Dave was a ready listener who took the time to carefully consider, think through and then make the new thoughts his own. I was enthralled by his ability to craft our suggestions into something well beyond mere words and into an amazing communication.

Dave owns a company called O-Codes and I'm pretty sure he and his team are on the verge of changing how all of us interact with magazines, catalogs and the Internet. The other four of us are part of his network of trusted advisors. We're all working together to combine our experience and expertise to create new jobs, opportunity and a better economy as volunteers through a process of give and take developed by Brad Bertoch, CEO of the Wayne Brown Institute.

As we sat around this table I watched and listened as each participant went through and applied this method of cooperative venturing. We all took turns to offer our reaction to what was said and shown. I watched carefully as every person thoughtfully offered his critique. It was a method that I'd seen and participated in for more than twenty-two years. But, there was something different about this particular meeting.

I think the difference was my desire to truly listen and learn myself as well. As I've grown older I've come to recognize that I've taken communication too much for granted. I've assumed too much as I've been pretending to listen. Now, sitting in this room I found myself listening for more than just the words. I found myself listening for the underlying reasoning behind and underneath the words being offered. I spent more time asking questions about the meaning of the words offered and as a result, I experienced my mind becoming excited about the discovery of new ideas that wouldn't have occurred to me had I not listened in this way.

It was so exhilarating to me that after the meeting ended I seized the opportunity to continue to sit with Dave and listen as he was kind enough to transfer his views of social networking into my mind. It was an amazing experience because he was able to give me insights I never would have obtained on my own. So, when he said, "People have an overwhelming desire to be connected to each other," I knew I was experiencing that very thing right then and I took a silent vow to make sure I connect with people in this way from now on.