This week I've been asked the question what my strengths were. One of those I've mentioned - from the top of my head - was being able to stay objective and calm longer than other people I know or work with (although if you saw me driving in the car, you would probably not share that opinion about me).
Staying objective and calm to me has nothing to do with a higher level of tolerance or inner peace, but more with distilling precisely that information which the broadcaster wants to spread. In my experience people rarely put into words exactly what they mean, because they tend to leave pauses in their sentences, stall to search their vocabularies, think about things again, speed up, slow down and so on. Whatever people want to share, is rarely what they say word for word.
Problem is, the audience doesn't take enough time to distill the deeper meaning from whatever is said. Therefore they fall into misinterpretations and in addition they fill-in whatever gaps exist with whatever they think is meant and stop there. The end result is that the audience gets angry because whatever was actually meant, did not match what they think was meant.
Objectivity and calmness comes from being able to accept that whatever is said, is not completely literally the message conveyed. People are fallible, people don't know, people lie. Accepting this fact allows you to be cautious and to truly think about the message. Eventually you get the closest to the original meaning of the messenger.
I'm not saying I'm a good listener. I'm actually quite dreadful at it. Listening is just as fallible as speaking. But I pick up on key words, ask the right questions to confirm any information gaps I may have, and I maintain a healthy neutral stance.
I can predict people's intentions quite well this way, and therefore never really complain. How can you complain if you are right?
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