Listen now and try to understand (Job 34:16)
Obedience to the very first word of the Rule, “listen”, is essential in today’s workplace. Studies by varieties of experts have come to the same conclusion: one of the main causes of dysfunction in the workplace is poor communication. At least 50% of the business of communication is the listening part. Yet how seldom we really listen to each other!
Many of us go to the meetings that seem to be an inevitable part of work life with some or all of these attitudes in our hearts:
• This meeting will be another waste of time, and probably boring as well.
• They will find some way of making me do all the work.
• Others will get the credit that should be mine; I will get the blame that others deserve.
• I could be spending this time in so many better ways.
• There is probably more bad news coming. Will my job be the next one eliminated?
These thoughts and feelings inhibit our ability to listen. We don’t really attend to what the meeting conveners or our fellow-workers are saying; we’re too busy thinking up clever responses and/or excuses, and planning what we’re going to do the minute we get out of here. Yet, both at work and at home, whenever we complain that we have not been kept informed of plans and events, we frequently get the response: “But I did tell you!” The other person then goes on to describe the exact meeting, time, location and circumstances when the information was given, to which we can only say, “I don’t recall that.”
During the coming weeks, especially in these times of stress and tension, make a special effort to listen carefully as you go about your work. Observe the facial expressions and body language of your companions. As you listen, you will notice the signs that tell you that your boss is worried too, and your obnoxious fellow-worker is having marital difficulties, while that lazy so-and-so who never does a fair share of the work is battling a terminal and debilitating disease.
Listening, really paying attention, will surely lead you to prayer and to the God who speaks to you through and in all the seemingly adverse circumstances of the workplace. That is why the Holy Spirit says, “Today you must listen to his voice” (Heb 3:7). Angie Forde, Oblate Novice
