Listening as a Solution

There is a reflex many of us carry when someone shares a problem. We listen just long enough to identify the issue, then we offer a solution. It feels helpful, but often the person across from you is trying to feel heard before they can think clearly.

I notice the tension in myself because I have a friend who is quick with solutions. Whenever I bring up something I am working through, he rushes into answers as if ending the problem would also end the conversation. His intent is good, but during those moments, I usually want someone to stay with the thought long enough for me to sort out what I am feeling.

There is an anecdote about Abraham Lincoln in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People that captures this feeling. In Carnegie's telling, Lincoln invites a friend to Washington and spends hours weighing emancipation, going through arguments and reading the conflicting views sent to him. When he is finished, the friend leaves without having been asked for advice. What stays with me about the story is the friend's presence: someone was there while Lincoln worked through a decision he still had to make himself.

This reminds me of rubber duck debugging in software engineering. An engineer explains their code to a rubber duck, working through what it is supposed to do and what it actually does. The duck cannot answer, but the explanation can expose a step the engineer had been skipping over in their own head.

With a friend, there is more to it than organizing a thought. I want to know that someone is willing to hear it before I have made it neat or figured out what to do. Sometimes I understand what is bothering me only as I try to explain it, and an answer offered too quickly can interrupt that.

To offer this to the person talking to me, I have learned to pause before responding. I ask myself whether they need guidance or are still finding the words. Rather than filling the pause, I try to stay with what they have said. Leaving a little room gives them a chance to continue, and gives me a chance to understand before I offer anything.

Takeaway: I listen better when I stop treating silence like a gap to fill and give the other person room to finish their thought.