Graham Bodie

Graham Bodie is an internationally recognized expert on listening and has published extensively on the subject. Dr. Bodie teaches students about the power of listening and advocates for the power of listening to help depolarize our social fabric as Chief Listening Officer of Listen First Project.

I’ve noticed something lately. As someone who has studied listening for two decades, I have followed the public use of “listening” in news outlets, opinion pieces, company statements, and other writings. Several years ago, after I joined the team at Listen First Project, I started a Google Alert for the phrase “Listen First.” Most days I did not get an alert. A few times a week, the email would have one or two stories in it. A few weeks back, after I hung up the phone with Nick George, founder of The Listening and the individual who invited this perspective, I turned to find the most recent Listen First alert in my inbox.

Seven stories. Anecdotal, yes, but I have noticed something lately.

It’s not that all-of-a-sudden America woke up to realize the power and potential of listening. Many across the country (and across the globe in fact) have spent a large proportion of their personal and professional lives striving to be more attentive and empathic. Many of us believe, along with The Listening, that by listening first to understand we can “engage, change and save lives.” Indeed, there are hundreds of organizations dedicated to raising our collective awareness of the positive potential of listening for individual healing, relational well-being, and social improvement. What I have noticed is that collective awareness rising in the public sphere.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. For some time now, America has been infected with a virus of outrage, offense, and contempt that has reached a pandemic level and is attacking us from within. We sit in our own echo chambers, reading like-minded media and conversing with like-minded others, only further polarizing our attitudes (political and otherwise) without even realizing it. Unsurprisingly, our understanding of each other is heavily distorted. We frequently dismiss those with whom we disagree as enemies with bad intentions, threats to be destroyed, rather than fellow Americans—human beings—worth understanding.

“For some time now, America has been infected with a virus of outrage, offense, and contempt that has reached a pandemic level and is attacking us from within.”

— Graham Bodie

To Listen First means to recognize, appreciate, and sit with the humanity of another individual. It’s the Pledge to lend your ear to another person. Not to argue, but to understand. Not to agree, but to connect. Listening well begins with a genuine desire or motivation to attend fully to the perspectives of others, an approach-oriented mindset that places priority on recognizing the humanity and inherent value of others in an open and respectful manner. Listening is, of course, not just a decision, however. Learning to listen requires constant practice and re-evaluation, especially of our own biases and habits that often create barriers to attention and comprehension. It is an acquired art, not an inherited capacity, and we often fall short; just ask the last person with whom you interacted! Or login to Facebook and scroll for a minute to find a heated exchange that features people more interested in being right than being with. Whether it is your friend, family member, co-worker, client, or student; everyone has a need to be understood. Listening effectively can allow you to fulfill that need.

The benefits of listening are often located at the level of the individual in need of being heard, and these are important outcomes to be sure. When done well, listening results in a range of positive outcomes including, but not limited to, increased respect, awareness, understanding, and relationship satisfaction. We need better listening because our individual and relational health and well-being depend on it. Similarly, the health and well-being of our country, and more globally of society, depends on listening well.

We live in a culture that stresses the power of speech. We are told to “think before you speak” and “speak your mind” – but where are the reciprocal statements for listening? Where is the attention paid to our right to be heard? What if we took the emotional and psychological needs of all people seriously? What if we, in the language of Hanzi Freinacht, built a Listening Society? What if we taught, at an early age, the need to think before we listen or to believe that we should fully listen to others. What if our society put as much (or more) emphasis on mental well-being, felt dignity, and similar personal indicators as we put on gross domestic product or stock prices?

Truly attending to others can be a powerful way to connect; to, in the language of our current campaign, begin #WeavingCommunity, something even more necessary in our collective time of crisis. Your ability to connect with others begins with a simple step, discovering listening: learning what listening is and what it can help accomplish. Then, learning the skills that can help you improve. Then practicing and failing and learning anew, with each person you come into contact with who is bound to teach you something you did not already know. And with improvement in listening comes better relationships, more productive work environments, and a general betterment of the human condition. That is what it means to Listen First. That is what I have noticed lately.

Our Values: Building an INNOVATIVE Movement with Listening