The People Whisperer!
If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk. – Robert Baden Powell, a former member of the British army who wrote the book Aid to Scouting, which spurred the growth of the scout movement for boys and girls.
If you flip through the channels in your cable television line up, you are bound to stumble upon a series called the Dog Whisperer starring Cesar Millan. You might also recall a movie named the Horse Whisperer starring and directed by Robert Redford. So what’s all the whispering about with all these Dr. Doolittle wannabes? Well I got sucked in one night and actually watched Millan do his thing…and what I noticed was that he was not really whispering anything, rather he was watching and more importantly listening to everything. I found it fascinating as he took a dog for a walk, traumatized owners in tow, to assess why this animal had such a high level of anxiety while taking a simple walk in the neighborhood. For most observers, it may have seemed like a chaotic dance as the dog would rip back and forth while the whisperer would laser focus in on the slightest of movements and sounds all the while interpreting in seconds what the dog was saying! It might seem like hocus pocus but the results were undeniable…within an hour’s worth of work, Millan had the dog running freely and excitedly like it had been freed from a self imposed prison…pulling Millan down the street on his roller blades!!
Ok so the guy is good with dogs but what really happened here is remarkable for all. Obviously, there seemed at first to be a small language barrier…Millan speaks human and the dog speaks dog! So how does he do it? He listened! We have talked about how we seem to make everything so complicated even when it’s really quite simple, but here’s some serious proof…Millan bridges a species gap! You see, what’s great is that by simply listening to these dogs over time, he has come to understand what they are saying and he simply reacts to that language and then and only then does he take action! This may sound silly to you but then consider that this show has been on the air for years…because he’s on to something!
So how does this relate to you? Many ways! Let’s consider business first…have you ever been in a situation where you have been asked to complete a task and then you get hollered at by the boss because you didn’t listen to exactly what you were instructed to do? Have you ever been given a systemized way to do something, then instructed on exactly how to do it and then wonder why the result is not the one you expected? Did you really listen to all the instructions or did you hear only what you wanted to hear? How about during a negotiation? Did you really listen to the other side first or did you just blurt out your demands and paint yourself into a corner? How about a relationship gone awry? Did you really listen to your spouse, your kids, your parents or did you just inflict upon them your demands, your needs and assume that there was nothing worth listening to…again painting yourself into a corner with your mouth when your ears might have been able to set you free!! By the way, I’m pleading guilty…I have never been short on words but have found my life becoming less complicated and stressful by making a conscious effort to listen. So maybe we all might want to start whispering with our ears!
