How to Listen So People Can Think

Ease

Discarding internal urgency

Ease creates; urgency destroys.

Ease, an internal state free from rush or urgency, creates the best conditions for thinking.

But Ease, particularly in organisations and through the ‘push’ aspect of social networking, is being systematically bred out of our lives. if we want people to think well under impossible deadlines and inside the injunctions of ‘faster, better, cheaper, more,’ we must cultivate internal ease.

— TimeToThink.com
The paradox

The Speed of Ease

Ease enables lightning-speed, profound,
holistic, cutting-edge thinking, that is rooted in all of our
thinking and all of our creativity.
Flashes of insight (=speed!) occur more readily
when there is freedom from internal urgency or stress.
Interrelated components

Ease

Each component of a Thinking Environment can impact the presence of any of the others.
For example, knowing that you will have your turn (Equality) engenders Ease, and
allows you to focus on the person currently thinking (Attention) and their
ideas, instead of wasting your energy on trying to figure out
how to wedge your way into the conversation to make your
voice heard.

Spot the missing component

To create a full Thinking Environment, all components need to be present. When the Thinking Environment is not what it should be, here are some things to look out for when it comes to Ease.

  • Am I feeling any internal urgency or stress?

  • Are there signs of conflict? (Not difference of opinion – irritation between people).

  • Do I sense unreleased feelings?

If Ease is not fully present, how can it be restored? Starting meetings with 30 seconds or one minute of silence in order to arrive, helps introduce Ease. Stopping and taking a deep breath can restore it. Reminding participants that discarding internal urgency will speed things up can also help. You will think of other ways, that are appropriate to the situation.