I consider myself to be a good listener. Having been through a couple of courses of therapy, I've come to realise that this probably comes from early conditioning to prioritise others' needs before my own. Before we consider this noble in any kind of way, let's not get it twisted - this isn't healthy. It fosters self-sacrifice and an inability to make room for one's own thoughts and feelings, which can ultimately deprive us of living our authentic selves.
Thankfully, over time, I've become pretty good at expressing my opinions in professional situations. Mostly because not expressing my opinion has often led to awkward (read: bad bad bad) situations in my early career. I imagine that most of us have faced similar situations as fresh-out-of-uni graduates. More than a decade later, I'd consider myself highly-opinionated and highly unafraid of challenging the status quo.
However, I'd consider myself to not be very good at making room for my emotions when interacting with others. I find it difficult to express if I'm feeling sad, mad, glad or all of the above. Many years ago, I was called out by a client who said that I was "too professional" and that it's like my "heartbeat operated at just one frequency". Admittedly that feedback scarred me LOL. It pushed me to be much more expressive in professional settings and to let some of my emotion seep into conversation. However, actually verbalising how I feel still feels challenging.
Thankfully, I have a couple of people in my personal life who have learned to 'coax' me into verbalising my emotions, which is what I've needed to get out of this emotional shell. I'm currently learning to verbalise my emotions without needing that initial nudge, as it's a lot to expect from people to expect they will 'know' that you need nudging.
What I've come to realise is that many of us have this trait to some extent. We don't want to share everything, especially our emotions or needs. Understandably so - it's scary! We'd be putting ourselves at risk of ridicule, rejection, or worse...being entirely ignored. Regardless of whichever childhood micro-trauma led to this trait manifesting in each of us (e.g. Dad may have raucously laughed at your 4 year old self's request to help him make pancake batter - damn it Dad!), it's still something that we can learn to recognise and embrace. Only once we've embraced this can we expect to undo some of the conditioning and share a bit more than we're used to.
However, let's flip this. I believe that most of us do not give others enough time to express themselves. I sometimes get excited and interject in a conversation. Or, more often than not, I wait until someone's finished and then assume that they have no more to express. This assumption is very often false. People always have more to express.
I recently discovered that it's common for the Japanese to include pauses in conversation to allow room for the speaker to finish speaking. I find that to be remarkable! In English conversation, we find pauses to be nigh-on unbearable - almost as if a pause means the conversation is somehow breaking down. What if we gave people the time to finish what they're saying, maybe even pausing a little after they've supposedly finished, making sure they've said everything they wanted to say?
This is far from easy and I imagine most times it will need us to nudge the other person verbally and / or non-verbally, e.g. "that's intriguing, please keep going", or a smile and a gentle nod. But what if we exercised this pausing or nudging, not just in personal settings but in professional settings as well? When speaking to your customers, stakeholders, manager, peers or reports, imagine how valuable a little extra information might be. Imagine how much more powerful a little more emotion might be - you not only know what they think, but you now how they feel. Emotion is infinitely more valuable than just information.
Let's give it a go. Listen to people just a tincy bit longer. We might be surprised at what we find out.