The Promise That Changes Everything (I Won't Interrupt You) - by Nancy Kline
Date read: 2022-07-21How strongly I recommend it: 6/10
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We've all heard the importance of active listening, but this book takes it one step further. It asks that you not interrupt, to the point it will be extremely uncommon and uncomfortable for you and the speaker, with the goal to give them the space they need to truly think out loud.
Contents:
- PART ONE – UNDERSTANDING INDEPENDENT THINKING
- 10 COMPONENTS OF A THINKING ENVIRONMENT
- PART TWO – UNDERSTANDING INTERRUPTION
- PART THREE – UNDERSTANDING THE PROMISE
My Notes
The one thing we can absolutely depend on in life is that we will be interrupted when we start to think. In fact, according to the Gottman Institute in Seattle, three years ago the average listening time of even professional listeners was twenty seconds. Now it is eleven.
Polarization is not a result of disagreement. It is a result of disconnection. When we disconnect from each other, when we see each other no longer as human beings but as threats, we polarize. And the first, most forceful disconnector is interruption.
‘What more do you think, or feel, or want to say?’ Until they really, really were finished, as in they had no response at all.
As ‘thinker’ we decide to care more about where our own thinking will go than we do about what people will think of it, or of us. As ‘listener’, we decide to care more about where the thinker will go next with their thinking than we do about imposing ours.
If I speak now, can I be sure that the upside from the gain of my already thought thoughts will be greater than the downside from the loss of your as yet unthought thoughts?
Can I be sure that what I as the listener am about to say will be of more value than what you are about to think?
What do you think? I won’t interrupt.
One, we have to get it, really get it, that one person’s generative attention produces another person’s new thinking. Don’t rush that. Two, a person’s generative attention loses its power the very second it wavers. Attention like this has to be continuous.
He said that the reason for this dependable quality of thinking is that generative attention, uncorrupted and sustained, calms the brain’s amygdala, the emotional ‘control centre’ of the brain, producing hormones like serotonin and oxytocin. These hormones then ‘bathe’ the cortex, the cognitive ‘control centre’ of the brain, allowing a perfect interplay between these ‘approach’ hormones and cognition. And because the listener’s attention doesn’t waver, and we know it won’t, the amygdala stays calm, and thought-disturbing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline stay at bay.
I think that if we want to produce the best thinking in human beings, including ourselves, we must, as we listen, decide reiteratively to see this higher order of ‘good’ in the person in front of us.
There are at least ten conditions–the ‘components of a thinking environment’ I mentioned, conditions we are providing when we give attention and don’t speak. These ‘components’ are:
The very next time you find yourself deferring to someone else’s thinking, stop. Then ask yourself: What do I think here?
But if instead we use the language of experience–‘I discovered that … In my experience, I have found that …’–or the language of information–‘the law says that … research is showing that … so far the facts here are that …’–or even, ‘if I were in your situation, I would …’, the person engages readily, accepting bits, rejecting bits, questioning bits. They keep thinking for themselves. They keep their own mind. They have not been required to become us.
So the next time someone asks for your advice, ask them to think about the issue first as far as they can, and if they still want your thinking, give them your ideas in the language of information or experience.
So how much can you focus, how much more present can you be today, how much longer can you listen, how much further can you think before you check and scroll? How much can you see before you look? How much can you love before you leave?
Consider afresh that polarization is a phenomenon not of disagreement, but of disconnection. I can disagree with you even about things sacred to us both, but our disagreements do not polarize us. It is when we disconnect from each other as human beings that we polarize. Once we disconnect and polarization begins (when we suddenly judge the other to be irretrievably wrong and ourselves to be unassailably right), we disconnect further, and we polarize more.
And so to stop it, we have simply (although, of course, not easily) to eliminate the cause: we agree not to interrupt. If we can do that, we will not polarize. We will disagree. Even deeply. We may fight. Even fiercely. But we will not disconnect. And if we don’t disconnect, we will keep thinking.
About halfway through the thirty-six minutes, they agreed not to nod so much, noting that when we nod almost all of the time, we seem to rush each other, and rushing makes us tense and slows down our thinking. So they stopped nodding and let their calm faces and eyes communicate respect and interest.
I am not like you. I am just like you. This resolvable contradiction, when internalized, allows us to nurture our own identities and simultaneously enter the identity of someone else by letting go of identity altogether. As we have seen, it is in the nature of paradox to produce another one. Our brains love them.
Instead of describing ourselves in nouns or adjectives–‘I am a liberal’, ‘I am a conservative’–we would use verbs to say what we mean: ‘I want a smaller pay gap between the top and the bottom’ or ‘I want small government’.
The guideline for me in whether to interrupt or not is whether the interruption will gain more for clear, independent thinking than will the intact dignity of the person after they have completed their thought.
But fifteen minutes a day of a ‘thinking pair’ will. Guaranteed. Fifteen minutes every day. Three minutes to say hello and get settled. Five minutes to think. Five minutes to listen. Two minutes to appreciate a quality in each other and say goodbye. Done.
The objective is to think for yourself as far as you possibly can, inside the promise of no interruption, for five whole minutes about a topic or issue of your choice.
The first turn starts. The thinking partner asks this question (or one so nearly like it, it might as well be this one): What do you want to think about, and what are your thoughts?
Ask the question that will generate more independent waves. I know of only one that does it magnificently: What more do you think?
Also not so good is: ‘What else do you think …?’ ‘What else’ asks for difference. ‘What more’ allows for expansion.
When we are listening to ignite people’s thinking, we need to lay aside curiosity and replace it with interest. They are fascinatingly different things. Curiosity is subtly self-focused. Interest is subtly other-focused. So as we listen, curiosity can be curtailing. Interest is freeing.
So two-thirds of all thinking sessions will get to the splendid, productive outcomes the thinker wants from the session while the partner gives uncorrupted, generative attention; and only occasionally, because only when the thinker says they are finished for the moment, does the partner ask, ‘What more …?’
And so we can bypass the usual question about blocks (‘ What is stopping you?’) and head right for the key block by asking: What might you be assuming that is stopping you?
We need to keep in mind the singular purpose of a thinking session: to generate one person’s independent thinking as far as possible in the time agreed.
What more do you think, or feel, or want to say?
Just to be sure, given that you did generate more waves just now, what more do you think, or feel, or want to say?
We still have some time. What more, if anything, would you like to accomplish with the rest of our session?
For example: I want to know how to become a person who is relaxed and not worried at the drop of a hat, or on guard all of the time. Yes, that’s what I want. All of that.
Can you possibly put that in fewer words, still holding all of the meaning, so that I can memorize it?
For example: I want to become a relaxed person.
What might you be assuming that is stopping you from becoming a relaxed person?
What else might you be assuming that is stopping you from becoming a relaxed person?
What are you assuming that is most stopping you from becoming a relaxed person?
For example: I am assuming that some people might think I am not as dynamic as I was.
Do you think it is true that some people might think you are not as dynamic as you were?
An untrue assumption hides inside a true one.
It is true that some people might think you are not as dynamic as you were. What are you assuming that causes that to stop you from becoming a relaxed person?
For example: I am assuming that what people think of me matters more than what I think.
Do you think it is true that what people think of you is more important than what you think?
Given that it is not true that what people think of you is more important than what you think, what do you think is true and liberating instead?
For example: What is true and liberating is that true dynamism comes from ease.
If you knew that true dynamism comes from ease, how would you become a relaxed person?
If you knew that true dynamism comes from ease, how else would you become a relaxed person?
You want to become a relaxed person. You think the assumption is true that what people think of you is more important than what you think. What could you credibly assume instead in order to become a relaxed person?
Your partner’s input is always available to you, but the conditions for your mind to reach and pivot and glissade for itself to territory new, challenging, uniquely yours, are vital and need protecting, even from your own pull to submit to another’s view before you have developed your own.
So the promise of no interruption is now the culture of all our meetings. And that takes many forms. For example: We now give careful thought to the agenda ahead of time, knowing we want it to generate, not interrupt, people’s best thinking. So we take each agenda topic. We figure out the question inside the topic which is what we really need to be addressing. Ahead of time people receive the agenda in the form of questions. They get to the meeting already thinking. Questions make you think, instantly. Phrases put you to sleep.
All of us, in every profession, are told that we add value mostly by offering our thinking. No one said much about adding value by offering our attention. No one said that our primary job was to ignite independent minds all around us. Fill them, yes. Direct them, yes. Focus them, yes. Unleash them, not so much.