Subject: Re: Accountability for listening and speaking From: InaRuth@aol.com Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 20:22:48 EDT

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Ina here:

A few responses.

To Brian on Accountability:  Yes.  I find the discussion slippery and hate
slippery conversations.It seems to me that some definitions of accountability
sounds more like promises and agreements than a state of being.  Perhaps
accountability is both.  I am accountable in my business for a lot of areas,
no promises, no agreements.  Just the buck stops here - actually for
everything.  Period.  I had one discussion with a major customer who was
unhappy with something one of my employees did.  I thought he would go into
shock when I told him that as CEO, I'm responsible for everything that goes on
in my business.  Believe I went up a few more notches out of that one.

So what if accountability can be both a way of being (stands) as well as
doings (promises, agreements and actions)?  

We would then need to distinguish "No Adult As possibility without
accountability"  Right now, as in the conversation at my homework group,
that's the quandry.

Janet and Jean,

While I much appreciate listening as a skill, I also appreciate anyone
attempting to communicate and distinguish something in inquiry.  Few words can
be marvelous - being succinct.  There is a time and place for it. 

I'd like to share one of the best tools I learned from Werner and out of
leading Introductions to the Forum and being a Seminar Leader.  Werner used to
call it "mining the gold".  It's a listening skill referred to in other words
in my field.  You can see it occuring in seminars with really good seminar
leaders.  The basic principle is that you listen to what someone is saying,
sift through the dirt to get to the gold.  What I discovered was necessary to
do that was to totally suspend my judgements and evaluation.  To have an
already always listened - designed - that there's gold in them there words -
and my job is to listen to find it.

Listening is a trained skill.  It is not simply being passive or allowing
words to wash over oneself.  In fact, listening, as an active co-creative act
in the communication process is a more demanding action than the speaking.  In
our culture, we tend to focus on the speaking - only 50% of the action.  So,
while I can empathize that some people in this group occur some ways for me
while others occur other ways, it's usually my judgement and evaluations that
get in my way of listening everyone keenly.  Now the question is, does
everyone deserve to be listened to keenly?  Only if they're human.  If they're
adroids, no.

love and kisses,
i

From Idadb@aol.com Thu Aug  6 20:34:58 1998
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