Campusalam

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Once you are skilled at active listening and its more sophisticated cousin reflective reframing, you can begin to use it in more complex ways.

Take a situation where two people have hijacked a group discussion with their mutual hostility, the emotional temperature is rising, and the situation threatens to get out of control.

Do what the newsreaders do when they invite two people into their studio live. They usually don’t let two people converse directly; they speak in between them. In a hot situation, step in and act as chairperson or moderator. Speak between each participant and do your reflective reframing: summarise, but take the emotional heat out, remove any exaggeration and certainly any personal attacks.

You may not think you need to summarise something that has just been said in a discussion group, because everyone can hear it. But that is not the point. By doing this, you are doing two crucial things: calming the atmosphere, and re-directing the discussion onto points of substance, not personal attacks.

Jaffar: And then you get all these so-called ‘Moderate Muslims’ like Hassan here who are basically acting like collaborators and traitors, only too happy to run off to the police or the MI5 or whatever, turning against their own brothers and sisters. Everyone who co-operates with the kuffar against the Muslims is no better than a kaffir themselves and what they deserve is death. You’re ALWAYS –

Facilitator: Okay, so what you’re saying Jaffar is that it is more important for Muslims to support one another than to co-operate with the authorities? Have I got that right?

Jaffar: [nods and is about to go on when Hassan bursts in]

Hassan: So you think it is fine for Muslims to blow each other up like they are in Iraq and we should just give that our support! Even if your community is actually attacking my community in Iraq or Pakistan we’re just supposed to support you and let you carry on doing it! You’re the sort of Muslim that’s giving all the rest of us a bad name and creating this atmosphere of suspicion and hostility for all of us. SOME of us are actually AGAINST violence here!

Facilitator: So, Hassan, you feel that the view that Muslims should support each other first and foremost breaks down when it actually comes to acts of violence, not least because then Muslims are also the victims of violence perpetrated by those Muslims.

Hassan: (strongly) EXACTLY! Whereas Jaffar here —

Facilitator: And presumably you’d like to find ways of actually preventing acts of violence, whoever commits them.

Hassan: (in a slightly calmer voice). Yeah. That’s right.

Facilitator: So we’ve heard views from Jaffar and Hassan, but what do other people think? Where do you draw the line in supporting fellow Muslims? Is it when it comes to potential violence, or what? Ghazala, what’s your view?

Jaffar and Hassan feel that they have been understood and taken seriously. In fact the Facilitator here has made their opinions sound much more reasonable than they did. Hearing their views aired in a way that sounds sensible and dignified makes them feel their esteem is enhanced in the eyes of the group. It’s like a subtle form of praise. It reduces their anger because they don’t feel so disrespected.

But at the same time, the Facilitator was pulling the conversation away from personal attacks and on to actual relevant opinions that can be discussed; and actually turned their fight into a philosophical question at the end. That provides an entry point for other people to get back into the conversation. It also invites their thinking brains back into action.

The Facilitator also had another good move at the end which helps to calm the whole scene down. She acknowledged Jaffar’s and Hassan’s contributions – which sounds like praise but is also a way of taking the microphone away from them without either of them losing face. Then she gave the ‘microphone’ to someone else she trusted to carry on the good work of turning things back in a constructive direction. Meanwhile Jaffar and Hassan get a chance to calm themselves down while others speak more reasonably.

As you can see, by playing the role of Moderator you can smoothly bring things back under control, calming the combatants and redirecting the flow of discussion to others. Once you become experienced at this, you can also use this as an opportunity to invisibly move the discussion onto a more positive topic, and that will calm everyone down, including the innocent bystanders. And by reflectively summarising what people say ‘with a twist’ you can begin to add a new perspective to your summary to loosen up the rigidity of an emotional utterance.