Sylvia's Journal

We moved to Porto Novo, a little further east, closer to Nigeria. It’s only 30 kilometers but in the pouring rain on a narrow road it took nearly one and a half hours. Everything turns to mud on a day like this. Talking about mud, as we did on Friday, in a figurative way is one thing, the real stuff is something else.

Several of the rooms in our hotel have names rather than numbers. I am in ‘longevity.’ Next to my room is ‘royalty,’ across is ‘sensuality,’ next to that is ‘satisfaction’ and at the end of the hall is ‘enthusiasm.’
The room is comfortable, climatisé, with one star less than the previous hotel, and quite a bit cheaper. I have a tiny refrigerator, the kind that college students have in their dorms. It is not stocked, as my previous refrigerator, with ‘sucreries’ (sodas) and local beer.

A stream of tiny ants has been climbing up the legs of the table that I use as my desk. They found my computer across their path (which is only to the wall at which point I assume they will go down another leg again).

Unperturbed they traversed my keyboard and climbed up the screen, then descended again on the backside of the screen. I hope none of the little fellows fell in between the keys as I imagine they can mess things up. I discouraged them from their chosen path, creating havoc in the ranks. They went elsewhere. I remembered that ants symbolize patience, which goes well with longevity I reckon. I have taken note – it is also a message I get in my coaching training.

I watched the old king of the Belgians abdicate, and then the new king ascend the throne in three languages, multi-tasking while reading the comments from the participants in last week’s workshop. Pomp, pageantry and the practice of the new.

The most cited learning from our participants, the pharmacists in last week’s workshop, and their good intentions for practice related to listening, the kind of listening that makes us better leaders, better followers, better parents, better employees, better citizens, and better kings.

It is the simplest of all leadership practices because we don’t have to teach it – people know how to listen. And it is the most difficult of all leadership practices because we forget about it as we insert our own opinions, thoughts, needs, agendas into conversations as if nothing else counts.

As a coach-in-training I am immersing myself in the discipline of listening. Yesterday I spent hours listening to recorded classes, catching up on content not quite assimilated, tips and techniques missed during earlier midnight teleclasses.

And then, during the required hour of coaching a peer, on Skype, I listen again, leave space, try not to interrupt, not to assume, not to judge the other. You’d think I’d be good at it now, having been on this path since February. But what I am learning is that good listening requires constant vigilance, self-awareness and the ability to kick that pesky ego back to its proper station.

And now I am listening to the new king, making his promises for his new reign. It is a new chapter for him and Belgium. For me it is only a new paragraph as I prepare my move to Porto Novo, a new hotel, a new group to work with this coming week.