Blog 1 Braydon Crofts

My sentence from chapter 3 is, “There are many listening situations where we might check out or harden ourselves or give someone too much slack-situations where we would benefit from engaging in compassionate critical listening.” I feel that there are so many situations where people are talking to us, in which case they may not be a part of our in group, where we don’t see them as important as someone who is in our in group. I think if we really try to listen and focus on what the other person is saying this can really help make a difference in a person’s life and help break barriers and prejudices in cultures.

 I see this a lot at work. I work at a call center. I get calls from people from many parts of the world that live in the United States and have all sorts of accents that can be difficult to understand. Sure, it can be very easy to tune them out because it is difficult to understand what they may be saying. When a person calls in and you actively listen to their concerns, it can be very rewarding and make a difference in someone’s life on a positive note.   

We have many different departments at the call center, in which they are different teams with a manager. Many of the call agents become good friends with their colleagues in that team and with those in that department. When another agent from another department get transferred to that department and to a team it can be very difficult for them to transition. Their new team members may not listen to them or think they are better than this person because of the department they came from. Instead of this behavior if they would actively listen to the new agent would be more comfortable and could help develop and improve the team.

These are a couple examples I have seen in the place I work of where people could engage in compassionate critical listening. I think regardless of the race or background we come from if we can all be inclusive with others and not harden ourselves or check our of the conversation we can learn from those in which we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn from otherwise.