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Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

Holding The Space

10 February 2019

Space. The final frontier! To boldly go (that famous split infinitive)! That’s the Star Trek take on it. Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, said ‘space is big, really big.’ I like his simple view. He’s right too. Space is big and yet it’s not empty either. Planets and meteorites and suns and aliens …all whizzing about and going about their business. Space is surprisingly crowded really.

Space is also crowded when two humans meet. There maybe talk. There maybe silence. Whatever there is, we have body language and eye contact and business documents and emotions. All these are in the space and all have value.

What can be easily forgotten is that space is useful. Holding the space means to let the other person talk, or feel, or share, or just be still.

We hold them in the space by making eye contact and by using small signs that we are listening, such as by saying ‘uhuh’ or ‘hmmm’.

These are powerful ways to communicate our attentiveness. However, they are not placeholders that signify we are going to speak.

We are not going to speak. We are quieting the noise in our head. We are focussing on the other person.

We are holding the space. Good things emerge when we do this.

A colleague may feel really listened to. A customer may reveal a new sales opportunity to us. A group may solve their own problem.

Space has value and it’s too tempting to fill it with our own words and our own agenda.

The more space we give to others the more they share and the more regard they have for us.

I would write more, but I will hold the space between us…

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Space is powerful. So, this week have fun holding the space!

Next week: Being Creative