Learning to Listen
Sometimes, the real work is not in what we say, but in what we are able to hold from others.
I attended a session this past week on diplomacy and negotiation. The module focus for the week’s session was on speech-making and active listening. Two things that sound simple. Familiar, even. Until you are asked to do them properly.
Before the session started, the facilitator gave us an instruction: prepare a one-minute speech on issues around information integrity and Internet governance. One minute.
It felt short at first. But when people began to speak, you could tell the work that had gone into it. Everyone showed up prepared. Clear points. Strong delivery. Well-structured thoughts. Each person stayed within time and said what they came to say.
It felt like a room full of people who knew how to communicate. Then the exercise changed. After everyone had spoken, the facilitator asked us to do something else.
Summarise the main point of the person who spoke before you. That was when things shifted.
People paused. Some hesitated. Others tried to recall fragments. A few spoke with confidence, but you could tell they were guessing more than remembering. Very quickly, it became clear that most of us couldn’t clearly say what the person before us had actually said.
Not because the speeches were unclear. But because we were not really listening. We were waiting. Waiting for our turn. Thinking about what we would say next. Rehearsing our own points while someone else was still speaking. And in doing that, we missed the point entirely.
That moment stayed with me. Because it showed something I had not fully admitted to myself before. How easy it is to focus on being heard, and how little attention we give to understanding.
We all want to be the main character. The one with the idea. The one with the voice. The one people listen to. But a room full of people trying to be the main character at the same time doesn’t produce clarity. It produces noise.
That exercise made something simple very clear. You cannot truly communicate if you are not willing to step back. To listen fully. To hold someone else’s thought long enough to understand it. To carry it forward, even briefly, before returning to your own.
That is not a small thing. It requires presence. It requires patience. And sometimes, it requires letting go of the need to be the one speaking.
I’m starting to see that listening is not passive. It is work. And maybe it is also what makes speaking matter. Because if no one is truly listening, then what are we really doing when we speak?
I left that session thinking less about how I sound and more about how I listen. About how often I rush to respond. How quickly I prepare my next sentence. How easily I miss what is right in front of me.
And I think this is the part we don’t say enough. You don’t lose anything by being the supporting character in someone else’s moment. If anything, you gain something. Clarity. Understanding. Depth. And in the long run, that might be what allows you to show up more fully in your own story.
I’m now learning this, and the session feels like a great place to start.
Till the next one,
Mustapha Lawal
