credits: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/photography/2020/07/03/here-are-15-weeks-best-photos/
As a kid, recess is always the best part of the day. And when we were lucky enough to have the long ropes out for double-dutch, I was all in.
I was never great at the fancy footwork, but I did get pretty good at the timing. I could stand on the side, watching those ropes whip around, waiting for that perfect moment when I could jump in, land a few solid jumps, and sometimes, if I was really lucky, hop back out again without getting tangled up.
The irony: That’s a lot like how most of us “listen.”
Think about your last conversation — maybe with a colleague, a friend, a sibling or even your significant other. Were you truly listening, or were you just standing on the sidelines, watching their lips move, waiting for that perfect opening to jump in?
The Illusion of Listening: Why We Don’t Really Hear Each Other
We like to think we’re great listeners. But if we’re honest, most of the time, we’re not really listening — we’re waiting to talk.
And the biggest challenge?
When both people are doing the same thing.
That’s when knots form in the ropes, and with every attempt to untangle them, those knots grow bigger and more frustrating.
At that point, it’s more like tug-of-war than jump rope — and it can start to feel impossible to get those ropes smooth and usable again.
Bringing Communication Home: How to Improve Communication in Your Relationship
I love when I get to focus my work on helping people with communication in their personal lives, not just their work.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of conducting a communication workshop for married couples through the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. One of the tools I used was the “Listening to Understand” worksheet from Chapter 8 in my book, Speaking to Influence: Mastering Your Leadership Voice.
It’s a simple, one-sheet protocol to follow when you need to have a difficult conversation.
While it’s not a magic wand that guarantees a perfect solution to every issue, it does provide (and require) specific tools and frameworks to increase empathy and respect.
What it does guarantee – if people trust the process and follow the steps – is that both people will get a chance to share what they need to share — uninterrupted — and that both will leave the conversation with the gift of feeling genuinely heard and understood.
That’s when the knots start to loosen, and progress can finally be made.
It’s no longer about “winning” the argument. It’s about paving the communication road, making forward movement together possible, and allowing creative solutions to emerge, whether six minutes or six months down the road.
A Personal Proof Point: How it Strengthened My Marriage
I actually created the worksheet a decade ago to use with my husband so we could work through some of our biggest “knots.” We’d gotten to a point where it felt like we were having the same arguments over and over, and nothing was changing.
As my husband tells the story:
“The first time Laura brought me a worksheet that she wanted us to use for a conversation, I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard… until it worked.”
It’s not that we’ve never had an argument since then, but that was the tool that helped us stop talking at each other and started listening to each other when emotions and adrenaline would otherwise have created more knots in our rope.
Take a Leap of Faith: A Simple Tool to Resolve Conflicts
If you’re tired of getting tangled up in the same conversations, I invite you to take a little leap of faith:
Try the “Listening to Understand” worksheet with someone you’ve been butting heads with. And let me know how it works for you!
As one participant put it this weekend: “The worksheet was like the guardrails on a bridge: it provided a sense of direction and safety, so we could get across together.”
It’s time to stop standing on the sidelines, waiting to jump in. It’s time to focus on getting your conversations back in rhythm…
And leave the double-dutch to the kids on the playground.
