If Everyone is Talking, Then Who Exactly is Listening?

This week was an education for me in more ways than one. I jumped head first into the world of social media, specifically, micro-blogging. Yes, I am officially “face booking” and “twittering”. Experts say that upwards of 208 million people belong to these sites now (April 2009) and they project as many as 1 billion users by 2011. As a twenty year marketing veteran, I admit that I am shamefully behind on this. I am still evaluating the pros and cons of social media, but my immediate observation is that there is an awful lot of talking going on and not a lot of listening.

Our home school lesson on listening couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. Being deeply engrossed in the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which recounts 50 years of the life of a man with great capacity to influence and persuade others, I wondered what he would think of “social media.” What would Benjamin Franklin tell his son about listening, and what advice would he impart about the role of social media in our 21st century culture?

I believe he might begin by telling his son that “listening” is a precious gift that we give to one another. Think about it… when someone wants to be heard, what they are really craving is significance. For just a moment, they desire the attention and acknowledgment of another human being. When we choose to actively listen, devoting 100% of our focus to another person, a positive exchange begins. And respectively, when someone really hears us, we recognize and appreciate that gift. Before we know it, we are ready to return the favor. This reciprocation can continue ad infinitum and real honest communication takes place. It is the very foundation for genuine and lasting relationships.

Benjamin Franklin might tell his son that active listening requires that one be in an ideal “listening state”. Being angry, impatient, worried, or distracted is not conducive to listening. One must be calm, present and open to really “hear” someone. Therefore, learning to listen means we must first learn to control our emotional state. Someone much wiser than me said “seek first not to be understood, but to understand.” This statement, to me, epitomizes effective listening. It suggests that a better result will be obtained if we silence our mind and open our ears before engaging our mouth. Even when we are in disagreement, we will be better able to manage our state and move to a positive resolution if we follow that advice.

Next, I think Benjamin Franklin might share the idea that listening, like writing is a learned skill which must be practiced regularly in order to gain mastery. Give and take is an essential component of conversation. This is where the nourishment of the soul and strengthening of bonds occur. If you have been caught in a “one sided conversation” with a “listening leach”, I imagine it has left you speechless, empty and unfulfilled. True relationships are founded on give and take, verbal and otherwise.

As humans, we have an inherent need for significance and will go to great lengths to get it. On this crowded but often lonely planet, is it possible that the need for significance is driving the explosion of social media? What are the long term repercussions of a world where so much of our effort is focused on personal branding and so little on authentic listening? Will talking AT each other heal the planet or hurt it?

For me, the jury is still out on the long term consequences of social media. It’s difficult to ignore a potential 1 billion user trend. However, I believe Benjamin Franklin might advise us to partake at our own risk, to maintain a healthy distance, and to allocate the lion’s share of our time and energy to opening our ears and connecting with one anothers’ souls. He would suggest that we aim to build the kind of genuine relationships that can withstand MUCH more than a power outage, computer viruses, and technical difficulties.

What role is social media playing in your life? Is there any genuine listening going on in your circles?

Benjamin Franklin and the Art of Persuasion. (Part one)

My children and I are reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin as part of our home grown leadership program. His writing style is simple, elegant, concise, and humorous. This manuscript is written to his son, and he shares the story of his life as if he is sitting in the room with him, casually conveying the intimate details of the defining moments of his life and the lessons he learned from them.

I thought I knew quite a bit about Benjamin Franklin and his achievements as an inventor, a diplomat, a printer and an author. I was not aware however, that underlying his undisputed genius, was an intense, self directed passion for the art of persuasion. I am inclined to believe this provides a simple explanation as to why his talents and contributions were so vast and legendary and why, during his own time, and even to this day, he is viewed as one of our most pre-eminent “thought leaders”.

The guiding principles of his life seemed to be to observe, to listen, to improve and to persuade, and he enthusiastically applied these principles to each of his notable endeavors. The first three principles, while significant, would have been fruitless without the fourth. He could observe, listen, and improve, but if he hadn’t developed his powers of persuasion, his improvements (i.e. inventions, literary works, and diplomacy) might not have been embraced.

I am finding it invaluable to encourage my children to see beyond the significant accomplishments of the leaders we study to the underlying principles which guided them. In the case of Benjamin Franklin, exposing my children to the persuasive part of his nature is like studying the basic ingredients for life mastery. Instead of following the lessons of a poorly written 5th grade reading and writing primer, they are learning first-hand, from the words actually written by him, in context of a the past which has shaped our culture as we know it.

As a mostly self-educated man, his autobiography reveals that he was an excellent listener and observer of events around him and that, having no formal curriculum; this is what motivated and directed his education. When he saw awkwardness, failure, or shortcomings in human nature or process, he called upon his guiding principles. The stories of his ingenious and self-directed methods of learning, and his sly attempts to get published, provided humor and examples of pure ingenuity. I could see the wheels turning in my children’s heads as they were listening with intensity. Instead of minds closing from boredom, they were opening from inspiration. It was a poignant lesson that they should move beyond “writing for the sake of writing,” striving first for thought leadership, and then for the mastery of persuasion.

Persuasion, whether written or spoken can be used for good or evil, to create or to destroy, to hinder or to heal. God has given us the gift of thought, and I believe we have the responsibility to take great care in crafting what we say and choosing the ideal communication format, be it poetry, prose, oration or conversation. I have spoken before about the importance of helping our children transcend knowledge to gain wisdom. For me, this kind of learning (straight from the source, so to speak) bridges the gap.

Regarding his view on the power of persuasion, Benjamin Franklin wrote…

… “and as the chief ends of conversation are to inform, or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well meaning sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive assuming manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us”…
And of his methods for learning he wrote…

“I continued this method for some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence, never using when I advance anything that may possibly be disputed, the words, certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive, or I apprehend a thing to be so or so, It appears to me, or I should think it so or so for such and such reasons, or I imagine it to be so, or It is so if I am not mistaken.”

There are memorable lessons to be learned in these passages that apply to forming compelling thoughts and then arranging our words into persuasive communication. Benjamin Franklin confesses he didn’t naturally possess these skills. He studied, practiced and mastered them, and the stories he shares convey important concepts such as:

Repetition is the mother of skill.

Seek first to understand, not to be understood.

Men should be taught as if you taught them not.

My intent is not to recount the entire autobiography of Benjamin Franklin in this essay. If you are interested, I highly recommend this edition from the Easton Press for it was carefully and beautifully printed from the manuscript as Franklin wrote it, including his preliminary outline. Thank you, Mom and Dad for the beautiful gift!

The important message is that without his propensity and mastery of the powers of persuasion, this great man as he was known by his contemporaries, and as we remember him generations later, owed much of his success to his communication skills. Even when we are all grown up with our degrees adorning our walls and our business cards, it is my feeling that the world would become a better place if we would all continue to improve upon our communication skills. And, we cannot ignore the fact that in a world where “noise” comes at us from all directions, our children, even more so than ourselves, need to master the art of persuasion, for they are the thought leaders of tomorrow.

Stay tuned for my thoughts on how Benjamin Franklin would view our new world of social media.