[gentoo-amd64] Re: Re: Re: file type not allowed in /usr/lib

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Matt Randolph posted <42F7E516.2030103@erols.com>, excerpted below,  on
Mon, 08 Aug 2005 19:04:54 -0400:

> Simon Stelling wrote:
> 
>> First, I didn't really want to offend you, although I have to admit that
>> a few statements were rather harsh. I didn't feel offended, and I know
>> you didn't want to say my answer was incompetent. However, if I *were*
>> the questioner, I'd feel offended, since I don't need everything
>> explained twice, and if I don't get it, I ask further questions.
>> Generally explaining it a second time somehow implies that I didn't get
>> it the first time, but perhaps that's just me.
> 
> 
> Google "Active Listening."  Basically, active listening means that you
> repeat everything another person says but you put it in your own words.
> This shows the other person that you're actually paying attention, and it
> helps to reveal any miscommunication the instant it occurs.  It's a
> management technique and a tool used in conflict resolution/avoidance. I'm
> NOT saying that's what happened here, but your words suggest to me that
> you _might_ be unprepared if someone used active listening on you.

Hmm...  I've seen "active listening" described before, and even
participated in exercises where we were supposed to /do/ it.  However,
that always seemed frustratingly artificial, to me, and I had difficulty
moving it out of the book/classroom/exercise and into the real world, in
part because the idea seemed natural on the one hand, but, I'm guessing
because of the artificial emphasis on the single technique, something that
really doesn't happen in the real world, entirely artificial in all the
examples and exercises.

Thus, it's very instructive to see someone bring it up in a "real world"
(OK, Gentoo list <g>) situation I was involved in, in post-analysis, so I
wasn't trying to focus on it at the time, only later.

You are correct, it wasn't /exactly/ what was happening here, because it
was a three-party exchange with a fairly large known audience in the form
of the rest of the list, but are also correct in pointing out the
parallels, as, looking back in post-analysis myself, I can see that I was
instinctively using some of the same principles.  While not direct active
listening because it was my own separate response, I did repeat and
acknowledge some of the same concepts, with the implicit understanding
that not only was I reinforcing them as I earlier claimed, but that,
should I get something wrong, I'd be called out on it.  

Actually, it's a bit more than that, because at the same time, there's
also the check on the effectiveness of my delivery, that I wouldn't
necessarily get, if I wasn't paralleling someone else.  Every once in
awhile, something happens to make me aware that the received message from
one of my posts isn't quite what I intended.  In this case, that's
rather an understatement of what happened <g>.  However, in any case,
while the experience isn't usually all that pleasant (another
understatement <g>), the result is a better awareness of how my
communications are received, ultimately resulting in changes to what I
send.  It may not be pleasant, but the end result, therefore, is, I
believe/hope, better and more effective communication from my end.

Anyway... what's really interesting to me about your comment, is how I was
doing this and wasn't really aware of it, nor could I have been, because I
had never been able to successfully translate the book/classroom knowledge
of "active listening" into something approaching reality.  Thus, your
comment provoked a personal Ah-ha! "lightbulb goes on" type moment, for
me.  I was finally able to make that real-world connection, and hopefully,
can now benefit from it, as the consequences of that linking sink in.

I don't know if the above really makes sense to anyone else or not, but
what it all means is that I got something unexpected out of your comment,
that should be of help to me in the future.  So... THANKS! =8^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


-- 
gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list