LEARNING TO LISTEN WITH “GOSSIP”
By Jim Davis

You’ve probably played the “gossip game” before. It’s simple. You just line up a bunch of people and give the first one in the line a message to pass to the next one. That person whispers the message to the next one, and so on, until the last person is reached. Then you ask that one to tell what the message was. Usually by then it is completely different from the way it started out. Even when everyone is trying their best to keep it the same.

I did a little experiment a couple of years ago with a group of middle school students. We were teaching the kids to be peer mediators so they could help other school kids work out their disputes at school. While we were talking to them about how to listen more effectively I came up with an idea. We played the “gossip game.” Twice. And the second time really got their attention.

They played the game the first time through and got the expected results. Then, we tried it again with a little twist. This time, instead of just turning and passing on the message to the next kid, we added a step. Each student was instructed to whisper the message back to the sender first. Only when that person said “OK, you’ve got it,” would the message get passed on to the next person. That time, a more complicated message got all the way to the end completely intact. Simply because people were listening more effectively. And, it only took a couple of minutes more.

There’s a lot more to “total communication,” of course. For example, you can “listen” with your eyes as well as your ears while you are talking to someone. Watch the expression on the other person’s face. If they seem puzzled they probably have a question. When in doubt, ask. When someone tells you something important, repeat it back by saying something like, “Let me be sure I got this right,” and then tell them what you understood them to say.

Many disagreements, hurt feelings, and bad decisions come about simply because of problems with communication. You can make many conflicts of this kind go away simply by learning to “communicate totally.” And it starts with learning to really listen.