Is silence the golden rule?

Ask any parent of a teenager and they are likely to agree that they often have better conversations with their child sitting next to them while driving a car than across from them at a dinner table. Or how many of us have ever experienced that it's easier to resolve a conflict with our partner when taking a walk together in the woods rather than sitting at home? Why is that? 

According to Arawana Hayashi, Shambhala Buddhist teacher and co-founder of the Presencing Institute, "The eyes are the easiest escape from the body". What she is referring to is our body's natural capacity to be mindful of ourselves and aware of others--in other words connected. The problem is that for many of us, we have completely lost touch with the variety of ways in which we can sense and connect with what is going on in the world around us. As a result we rely heavily, and at times exclusively, on visual stimulus to connect. While the visual world is beautiful, many of us use our eyes to project our inner thoughts onto the world that we then end up seeing, rather than seeing the world for what it is and allowing that to shape our reflections about it. 

“We have completely lost touch with the variety of ways in which we can sense and connect with what is going on in the world around us.”

The above examples represent situations where other forms of communicating actually allow us a deeper and more meaningful way to relate to and understand another person. These are situations in which side-body and back-body "listening" take priority over exclusively listening through our eyes and ears. In a way, it's almost as if changing our orientation from both facing each other to both facing forward opens a deeper listening capacity within. There is something profoundly basic and beautiful about two people side by side both sharing a common forward view whether sitting in a car, walking amongst nature or staring out at an ocean view. This shared experience has the capacity to unlock additional sensory "antennas" that we can use to actually feel another person during conversation.

“Silence...has an amazing power to bring to surface all the somatic feelings that we otherwise miss while remaining attune only to our heads.”

But what does that mean to feel another person without physically touching them? Take a moment to reflect on the last time that you felt that someone was standing behind you before you could actually see them, or when you felt a warm rush in your heart while listening to a friends story, or had a strong sense in your gut that someone wasn't telling you the truth: these are some of the ways in which our bodies use felt sense to speak to us. For the most part however, we have completely blocked our body's attempt to communicate with us in all instances except for when we are feeling ill. When sick we become hyper-sensitive to our body's needs and how we are feeling. Yet outside of this situation so much of our communication is interpreted and influenced through thoughts from our mind. And while there is value to the information registered through our brains, there is also a world of body intelligence that many of us are completely ignoring. 

For those interested in reconnecting to their bodies there is a golden "trick" that allows us to rapidly jump from being consumed by our mental chatter to beginning to feel our body's natural sensing: silence. Silence, through meditation or even simply between two people during a conversation, has an amazing power to bring to surface all the somatic feelings that we otherwise miss while remaining attune only to our heads. Although initially silence may make us uncomfortable and provoke even more thoughts, with a bit of practice the conscious use of silence can allow us to let our thoughts go and bring our attention to our feelings. Suddenly we notice different parts of our bodies speaking to us through gentle movements, new sensations and even uncomfortable reactions. If after some silence we then consciously speak and listen from our heart and gut, rather than from our minds, we may find ourselves connecting in ways more meaningful and authentic than we usually do. 

Remember, in the end it's not about one over the other, but rather honoring the beautiful communication between mind and body that we all have the natural capacity to experience. 

Is your body anything more than a brain taxi?

For most of us, everything from the neckline down doesn’t play a role in our day to day jobs. At most, our bodies act as a brain taxi: transporting our brains from one office to another, from one meeting to another, from one conversation to another. It is our incredibly complex and intelligent brains that get all the attention. And why not? Our brains spend hour after hour thinking through complex situations, crunching numbers, formulating ideas and processing information. In the way we currently work the brain plays the most important role. 

But should it?

“Our bodies are a majorly untapped source of intelligence and knowledge. ”

The truth is that within the corporate world our bodies are a majorly untapped source of intelligence and knowledge. Stemming from its puritan roots and resulting in a culture ready to sue over about anything, the American and Western business world has all but shut out any integration of the body at work. The body is covered up in conservative business attire, greeted with no more than hand-shake contact, and never viewed as a source of wisdom. 

Except for one part of the body: the gut.

Interestingly, the gut has managed to escape work-place imprisonment and has its own valued place in daily language. We often hear people say things like, “I just have a gut-feeling that this is the wrong thing to do”, or “I can’t explain it but my gut is telling me that this is the right choice.” Wait, our guts are telling us what?! Particularly fascinating about our reliance on gut-wisdom is the word most often paired with it: gut-instinct. Instinct refers specifically to a knowledge that doesn’t necessarily adhere to reason or logical proof, but is just something we feel is right. It is in other words an intuition we have. Stemming back to its Latin roots, intuition actually refers to a process of looking inside and contemplating, suggesting that gut-instinct or intuition actually refers to an inner kind of knowing. This inner knowing doesn’t come from the analytic left-side of the brain, but rather from the intuitive right brain and the body--specifically from the heart and gut.  

“The heart pulse is the first point visible in an embryo, the first organ to form during human development and in an adult body radiates an electromagnetic field far larger than the brain. ”

So how much could or should we rely on intuition and feeling in the workplace? Well perhaps at least as much as we rely on the brain. Why’s that? The heart pulse is the first point visible in an embryo, the first organ to form during human development and in an adult body radiates an electromagnetic field far larger than the brain. The gut, sometimes referred to as “the second brain” contains some 100 million neurons and is shown to be responsible for far more than digestion, including most interestingly our emotions which of course then have influence on our thoughts. Einstein himself was quoted as saying that what is really wrong with our time is that we have made the King -- the heart -- serve the servant -- the brain. 

Our bodies are “speaking” to us throughout every moment of every day. Though we have socialized their voices out of current corporate culture, we all know what it feels like when our bodies try to warn us about the fatality of a decision we are about to make. How many of us have read accounts of bankers after the past decade’s financial crisis admitting that in their hearts they knew that their decisions could lead to a complete financial meltdown but their brains kept pushing forward motivated by profits and rewards? 

I’m not suggesting a total shutting down of the brain. Rather, let’s find a way to bring the full body system -- mind, heart and gut -- into the natural balance with which it was designed to function. Do you believe your quality of work could be improved if you let your body come into conversation with your mind more often? Perhaps at your next meeting you’ll find that communicating what you body is feeling could be the one critical perspective that was left unshared. 

Active listening vs. Real listening

With a culture so focused on leadership and public-speaking, much of our Western education model makes sure to offer plenty of opportunity to develop our capacities in these areas. However, very little if any attention is given to counterpart roles of followers and listeners. As a result, we are living in a society where our understanding of good followership is nearly non-existent, and our capacity for listening is mostly summarized under the skill-set of “active” listening while missing the much more profound capacity of “deep” listening.

“The most alarming side-effect of active listening is the power of listener to manipulate what a speaker actually talks about.”

Active listening often involves a type of participatory, affirming set of techniques that has the listener employing behavior like regular eye-contact to show connection, head-nodding to demonstrate understanding, the use of “uh-huh, mmm, yes” to encourage and support, and the use of lots of supportive questions and paraphrasing to make sure the speaker feels heard. While this approach to listening is great in many circumstances and is a sure-fire way to make a speaker feel heard, there are also unrecognized side-effects. 

The most alarming one resides in the power of listener to manipulate what a speaker actually talks about. Through our use of affirmations, paraphrasing and body gestures, we send strong signals about whether we approve and agree or not, and this can often lead a speaker to continue their course of thought or shift and change to another one, accordingly. Active listening also suggests that a listener must somehow demonstrate their level of participation and engagement, and this often leads to a “thinking about what I’m going to say/ask next” monologue. We often try to jump in with opinions or stories to show how we can relate. The problem here is that while we are busying ourselves with all the effort required of actively listening, we aren’t fully paying attention to the speaker and tends to keep conversation at a relatively generic level. It also often leaves listeners feeling tired at the end of the conversation, suggesting that active listening also requires extra effort and energy. Active listening can be attributed to Level 1 or Level 2 listening, sometimes called downloading or factual, and remains on the level of polite conversation or debate, often producing results by the end of the conversation that could have already predicted by everyone at the onset.

“As such, active vs. deep listening is a matter of paying attention to our attention, and practicing and experimenting with the various levels of listening whenever possible so that we can fine-tune or sense of how to best use all 4 levels.”

Deep listening on the other hand requires a whole other set of techniques and presence, and allows for Level 3 and 4 listening, when empathic or generative dialogue are sought after. In this case, the goal of the listener is to give full and undivided attention to the speaker in a way that holds space for the speaker’s greatest possible wisdom to emerge and remains curious about essence and source from which the speaker shares. The invitation here is to restrain from any verbal or physical affirmations and simply support the speaker in following their own deep sharing thought-process. In deep dialogue, we often encourage speakers to imagine they are speaking from their gut, rather than their head, and to only share the truth that comes out from there. Many people often notice that the volume of a conversation often decreases when people start speaking more from their bodies than their heads. Additionally, listeners pay attention to their own inner monologue and notice voices that can distract them from deep listening, such as voices of judgement, cynicism, or fear. When the listener notices the voices he/she simply lets them go and returns to giving full attention to the speaker. Lastly, the listener focuses on staying fully mindful and embodied in their own presence, and only asks questions that feel truly in service of the speaker and the generative dialogue. Often the results of these types of interactions are a new understanding and emergence of wisdom on whatever topic is being explored. Results are often different than what participants had expected and energy is notably higher. People note a sense of speaking from the whole rather than from their own individual perspective or needs.

Ultimately, it is the quality of our attention that dictates the outcomes we see and experience . As such, active vs. deep listening is a matter of paying attention to our attention, and practicing and experimenting with the various levels of listening whenever possible so that we can fine-tune or sense of how to best use all 4 levels.

MOVE workshops always use education and practice about deep listening as a foundation for our work with clients. For more information about deep listening you can also check out this fantastic brief article by Alan Seale. 

Daniel's keynote on embodied leadership

This past weekend, MOVE founder Daniel Ludevig gave an interactive keynote lecture at the London Natural Leaders-Now conference. A total first, Daniel opened his presentation with a swing lindy-hop performance with his dance partner Claire Chen. He then went on to give a 45 minute masterclass lecture on the topic of embodiment and presence in leadership. He explained his definition of leadership as not just having the capacity to see the whole but also to care for it. His experiential talk invited the mixed audience of leaders, grassroots activists, business people, established change agents and simply curious participants to stand up and move throughout the auditorium where the conference was held. They experimented and felt into the exploration of presence and intelligence within movement and our bodies and engaged with new possibilities for understanding leadership. For a longer length clip click here. 

Newspapers interview Daniel and MOVE's story

MOVE founder was interviewed by two separate publications. In an article which appeared in the German newspaper, Deutsche Welle, the background story behind the creation and history of MOVE Leadership is explored by writer Michael Scaturro and includes details about the evolution of the company’s methodology. It also addresses the reasons that using embodied and alternative learning tools and practices is more important now than ever before. Hendrik Backerra, one of MOVE’s associates, is also quoted in the article when he speaks about some of the great problems in today’s business world and the incredible solutions offered by his collaborative work with MOVE. 

In an interview from the Hungarian coaching magazine Magyar Coachszemle Daniel is interviewed by Csetneki Csaba about the development, philosophy, challenges and future work of MOVE Leadership. The article looks into the opportunities and challenges behind consulting companies using alternative and creative learning strategies and methods.