I wrote previously about the importance of listening if nonprofits want to do a better job of reaching and moving their audiences. However, listening is not only a crucial step in crafting effective messaging. Genuine listening can be hugely persuasive in itself.
In his excellent book How Minds Change, David Mcraney describes a campaigning approach called Deep Canvassing, which has repeatedly shown to be extremely effective in persuading people to support things like LGBTQI rights, or access to abortion. In contrast to traditional political campaigning where canvassers bombard voters with pre-planned talking points, Deep Canvassing involves having a long in-depth conversation with someone, listening to them carefully, and asking probing questions - until in the end, people come to see the contradictions in their own views, and in essence persuade themselves. When this kind of change happens, it is much longer lasting than that of traditional persuasion techniques. A deeper lesson behind Deep Canvassing and other similar approaches is that human connection plays a huge role in how we form and maintain our opinions and beliefs.
Listening is incredibly important as a way of supporting and showing solidarity with the people we aim to serve through our work. As a way of just being with people, and bearing witness. Author and activist Sisonke Msimang offers a powerful example in this story she told during a Moth event in New York. She describes accompanying a friend in crisis, and trying to figure out how to help, until she realizes she just needs to sit with her friend and be there for her. The kind of listening that Msimang describes in her story is not easy. It is not listening with the aim of helping or fixing things - it is listening that simply aims to be fully present.
I often struggle with this. In a world that values action, simply being with someone and listening in silence, can seem pointless. A few years ago I co-organized a weekend-long workshop on ‘radical listening’. In one of the exercises, participants were placed into pairs, and asked to simply spend time with one another, in silence. I was partnered with someone, and we spent 10 minutes in silence together, simply walking around the grounds of the venue. To me, it was unremarkable. That person returned to the workshop the next year, and shared that those 10 minutes of silence had given her a huge psychological breakthrough. It was a powerful lesson for me about the value of being silent and just listening.
Listening is crucial to democracy too. If we are to live together in a society with others who are different from us, we need to be prepared to listen to one another. I don’t mean this in a simplistic way - that if only we could listen to one another, we’d all get along. Listening is complicated. Our listening and ability to listen is shaped and distorted by inequality, power imbalances, racism, and prejudice among other things. There are also limits to listening - extreme situations where one might justifiably choose not to listen or interact. Listening may not bring us closer - it might cause us to realize how fundamentally we differ from and disagree with one another. The important thing though is the commitment to listening as a principle and a practice. The commitment to listening says we recognise others’ right to coexist with us, and that we have to figure out how to live together somehow.
If we want to encourage a focus on listening, we need to show that we value it. This means allocating time and budget for listening-related activities. It also means things like showing appreciation not only for the people who talk a lot in meetings and take up space, but also for those who sit back and listen, and hold the space.
Listening and talking are two sides of the same coin - if we want to succeed at one, we have to put just as much time and effort into the other.
*This article is the first of a two-part series. Read The Neglected Art of Listening (Part 1)
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Brett Davidson

Narrative Strategist
Brett is a narrative strategist with deep experience in health equity, with a particular interest in the role of storytelling, popular culture, and arts activism in bringing about social change. Through his company Wingseed, he works with foundations and nonprofits interested in using the power of narrative and creativity for social justice. Brett is also the Narrative Lead at International Resource for Impact and Storytelling (IRIS), a donor collaborative for philanthropy focused on strengthening civil society through narrative strategies and creative moving image storytelling for impact.
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