Listen to me! Sometimes I just want to scream it! Why won’t you just listen to me?!  Don’t you hate feeling unheard?

Feeling unheard makes us feel unimportant or unappreciated. How many times have you heard of communication problems between two people and realized they could have been avoided if they had only listened to each other?  Here’s an example of a scenario that happens far too often.

“My wife simply does not listen to me ever!” the exasperated man hung his head as he spoke. “She is so bull-headed and wrong about so many things.” He continued, “But once she makes up her mind, I can’t change it and I’m just tired of trying.”

His plea for help sounded like an endless loop tape that plays in so many marriage struggles so I offered a solution that I heard from a Dr. Gary Smalley seminar many years ago. It’s called LUV talk and it is spelled L.U.V. which stands for Listen, Understand and Validate.

The first step is to listen with a goal of hearing what the other person is saying. It doesn’t matter if their perspective or thoughts are right or wrong – the idea is just to listen. In business, when I’m dealing with a tough customer, I tell them I’m going to listen and take notes at the same time. One of the biggest problems of all relationships is that people simply want to be heard.

After listening, I try to make sure I understood what they said – without making judgements. In my business example, I read the notes back to the customer just to make sure we both know that I fully understand the problem. This helps me so the customer doesn’t feel like they have to repeat themselves, and now the customer knows they have indeed been heard correctly. In a marriage or friendship, this might be as simple as saying, “let me tell you what I heard you say, so I can make sure I understood you.”

The next step is to validate what they said – again, without making judgements. This simply means trying to reiterate, but from their point of view and with their concerns.

Now comes the magic part! Once people know they’ve been heard, and their point of view is acknowledged, then they are usually open to discussing alternatives. This is a recipe for great conversations and long, strong relationships.

And which would you rather be: would you rather be right, or be in right relationships?