Simonds Media

The first 45 seconds of this video display a remarkable combination of presentation ingenuity and audience participation.

By recording the audience clapping to their demonstrated rhythm they are able to play the clapping back at appropriate times during the song. If you’re not up to speed on your evangelical worship music, this is the sort you only find in very organized establishments. The religious nature of the song doesn’t interest me though. I’m fascinated by the artists’ ability to get the audience involved without giving up control over the quality of the final product.

I’m not seeing that sort of balance displayed in many areas today.

The gentleman in the photo above looks like he’d be a good mentor. “Here’s how you get perfectly windswept hair as you set up your shot while wearing a most excellent pair of socks.” He seems to say.

What does that have to do with mentorship?

Let’s say you are the person taking the above photo. The camera rests in your grasp with comforting weight. The sailboats in the distance are nearly ready for their race. You have just minutes to take a great photo but you can’t seem to get it.

Ever wonder why so many of the things you work so hard to do for your partner, family, and customers seem to go unnoticed and unappreciated?

People, by definition, are unable to show gratitude for things they don’t care about.

Consider the example of the hardworking parent and seemingly apathetic teenager: The parent has a list of things she works very hard to provide for her child. Let’s call these things “care points.” For the parent, care points are things like a house to live in, food to eat, transportation, and access to education. The teenager has a very different set of care points. In many cases, the teen cares most about status, social interactions, and a murky pool of worries that plague youth today. Neither parent nor teen is being intentionally unappreciative. They simply care about very different things.

It follows logic that such a disconnect would result in a parent who feels like she’s expending energy into a black hole while the teenager feels ignored.

What’s the fix? Make a point to recognize the disconnect between care points and find other ways to connect in a satisfying way.

For the parent, learning to actively listen to the teenager can do a lot to move the relationship in a positive direction.

For the teen, avoiding statements like, “This house is a hell hole!” and completing household chores promptly can do a lot to alleviate seemingly draconian parenting techniques.

For the business, you’d do well to stop reacting to your competition and focus instead on meeting your customers’ needs in ways they truly care about.

Or you could continue providing your partners, families, and customers with things only you care about and gripe about how ungrateful they are for all your work.

Your choice.

Do you have a talent for recognizing the different contexts that inform conversations taking place in your community?

For example, consider the results of asking a group of 5 people to each share their personal all-time low in life. You might ask, “What is the worst thing to ever happen to you?” It’s likely that the resulting answers will be very different. If each individual is self-aware and honest, you’ll discover a spectrum from obviously harsh physical circumstances to wholly psychological events.

The child who watched her parents die, the rape victim, and the parent who drove drunk and killed a child have stories that are obviously horrible. But what of the woman who says her most horrific memory is that of not receiving a pony for her 13th birthday? What of the man who is still furious that his parents didn’t allow him to attend the school of his choice?

In light of the first three stories, it’s easy to discount the last two as being of lesser importance. That is a big mistake if you have any interest in really understanding where all five people are coming from. Why? Because we each think within a context that is limited to a sliding scale of our personal experiences and those of the people we completely trust.

(I include the experiences of those we trust so long as that trust is complete. Otherwise, the lack of full sensory experience creates yet another disconnect.)

We may give lip service to understanding others and say that we grasp how difficult something must be for them or why they feel a certain way, but the reality is less coherent.

When somebody responds to your words in an unexpected way, remember that they bring a unique set of experiences and habits to the table. Instead of writing them off for being a prude, histrionic, or stupid, why not ask them to explain a bit of the context that informs their reactions?

Active listening and the agile pursuit of understanding are essential to fostering a community that digs beneath the surface clutter of cheerful mindlessness and yearns to think, to discuss, and–most importantly–to act.

image: child