Listening without resistance and systems thinking

Listening Without Resistance and System Thinking Identifying what I resisted, reacted to, and judged during my past week’s conversations Listening without resistance is a difficult but a very essential task. According to Allison and Reeves (2011), it requires both discipline and compassion of the people involved in the conversation. In the past weeks, I have not been able to attain this kind of listening. This was due to my reaction, resistance, and judgments during conversations. I have been resisting in audible voice during conversations when the other party in a conversation spoke inaudibly. More often when the other party in the conversation pronounced words wrongly, I had been feeling uneasy listening to him. In addition, I have been judging the accent of the other party in the conversation. I have been thinking that people who have great accent are less literate. This has been making me get less keen when listening to them.
Determining whether this was a discussion or a dialogue
Conversations I have had in the past weeks were just discussions. Discussion is listening without a desire to be changed by the conversation (Mozdzierz, 2009). A dialogue, on the other hand, is a special way of conversation in which one is willing to be influenced by the conversation (Robinson & Rose, 2007). The conversations I have had in the past weeks could not fit to be called dialogue. This is because of my behavior of choosing not to be keen when the other party in a conversation had an accent, pronunciation problem or spoke less audibly. In most cases, my actions were either partially or completely withdrawing myself from the conversation. Therefore, I have done more of discussion than dialogue.
How to turn my conversation into a dialogue
Conversations could be easily converted to dialogue using several advantage points. One of the points is completing the features of a conversation. According to Nikulin (2010), this could be done by personal voice, unfinalizability, and allosensus. Another point is asking for clarifications during the conversation. This could increase someone’s attentiveness on the conversation. As a result, the conversation would have a great influence on the person and thus converted into a dialogue. The other point is reframing the message communicated during a conversation. This could avoid negative reactions and judgments made during conversations. As a result, the conversation would have a great influence on the parties involved and thus it would have been converted to a dialogue.
Impact of systems thinking approach to my current educational community
System thinking is one of the five disciplines defined by Senge to guide activities of a learning organization. According to Wyk (2003), system thinking could be conceptualized as a tool for making complex patterns in a learning organization much clearer. When used in a team learning, it would have very great impact on my current learning environment. Its major impact is that it would make the concepts addressed in the educational community to be less complicated. As a result, it would favor dialogue between the learners and the educators, thus promoting the learning process.
In order to take advantage of this discipline, it is necessary to make the community to think in this manner. One of the ways of making the community think in this manner is by removing their illusion that the world is made of separate unrelated forces that could influence learning. This could be done through guidance and training. Another way is through understanding that they cannot completely separate themselves from their enemies. This would make them to include even their enemies in their system, thus they would be able to change to thinking in this manner.
References
Allison, E., & Reeve, G. B. (2011). Renewal Coaching Fieldbook: How Effective Leaders Sustain Meaningful Change. John Wiley & Sons Publishers.
Mozdzierz, G. (2009). Principles of Counceling and Psychotherapy: Learning the Essential Domains and Linear Thinking of Master Practitioners. New York, NY: Routledge.
Nikulin, D. (2010). Dialectic and Dialogue. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Robinson, G., & Rose, M. (2007). Teams for a New Generation: A Facilitator’s Field Guide. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse Publishers.
Wyk, G. V. (2003). A System Approach to Social and Organizational Planning: Cure for the Mess in Health Care? Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing Company.