I once worked for a company that wasted a lot of time in meetings. It wasn’t that the meetings themselves were a bad idea, it was just that the meetings never seemed to achieve the intended results. Ultimately, the company hired a consultant, who, after observing one of our meetings for about fifteen minutes, told us why our meetings failed. “You don’t listen to each other,” he said. This turned out to be, in a small way, a life-changing experience for many of us. Listening with complete attention is a rare talent. For most people it is a skill that needs to be learned through exercise and regular practice. To help us along in the early stages, the consultant gave us a rubber ball. He then declared that during our meetings, only the person holding the rubber ball could speak. You had to raise your hand to signal that you wanted the ball, but could only raise your hand after the current speaker was done. Hands raised while someone was speaking were ignored. The speaker was also told to wait 2 beats (about two full seconds) after finishing before passing the ball to the next person. Subsequent speakers were expected to follow up on the comments of the prior speaker. Going off-topic was frowned upon. These exercises were designed to stop us from jumping in with our own comments while someone else was still speaking, and to ensure that the meeting participants were, in fact, listening to the speaker, and not thinking ahead to their own responses. Listen first, comment later, was the message.
The consultant also introduced us to the idea of listening as a form of respect for the person speaking. He told us a story about an African official who was offered a job at the United Nations in New York. Although proficient at English, and highly regarded by his superiors and peers, after only a few months on the job in New York, this diplomat asked to be allowed to return home. When asked why, he said that he could not live in a place where he was treated with such contempt and disregard. After further questioning he explained that in his country to walk by a person on the street, or in a hallway without greeting them was an insult. It was as if you were saying, “you are nothing, you are dead to me.” Of course, in New York, this was an everyday occurrence, and the cumulative effect on the African was to send him into a deep depression from which the only escape was to return to place where his worth would be appreciated and confirmed. While not completely analogous, the story was meant to illustrate for us the disrespect that others in our culture feel when we don’t listen to them. By not listening, we are in effect saying, “your ideas are of no importance to me.”
We live in a culture where respect is traditionally shown by paying thoughtful attention to the words of others. Unfortunately, the traditions of our culture are breaking down, and it is now common to hear people interrupting other speakers, and even shouting them down at public meetings. Government officials too, often show disdain for the public by limiting input at meetings or disregarding the feedback they receive from knowledgeable sources. (While it may be tempting to think that I’m referring to a specific government figure here, I’m not. This trend is widespread enough that you can substitute the name of any politician you wish and have a good chance of finding that the shoe does indeed fit.)
By way of bringing this home to Sag Hampton, let me tell you that I recently witnessed an example of how things should be done. I want to send a shout out (as my son would say) to Pat and Michael Trunzo for their willingness to sit patiently through many meetings, quietly listening to what was said, and quite obviously, absorbing much of it. Mike and Pat have attended at least three meetings of the Sag Harbor Citizens Advisory Committee to Southampton Town (CAC) at which we talked at great length about the need for careful planning of future development at the southern gateway to Sag Harbor on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, the need for more affordable housing in the area, and our envirnomental concerns for Ligonee Creek at the southern border of the Village, and for the Long Pond Greenbelt that abuts this area. The Trunzos own undeveloped land in this area. Taking advantage of their presence at our meetings, the CAC has pushed to find out what their intentions were vis a vis developing the parcel they own, and prodded them to consider building green and including affordable housing units, in whatever they ultimately do with the land.
While they didn’t give away much in terms of what their plans are, they obviously heard what we were saying. This came to light at a recent Town Board meeting at which a resolution to authorize a planning study of the gateway area was introduced and passed by the Board. I wasn’t there, but I am told by a pretty reliable source that both Trunzo brothers were in attendance, and that during the public input session Pat Trunzo spoke elegantly in support of the study and its aims. Many, in fact most, landowners, I suspect, would have viewed this study as a threat to their property rights, and railed against it. Instead, we saw two men who took the time to listen to what others in their community had to say, and in the end, validated those community members by acknowledging publicly the value of what had been said.
I don’t have a crystal ball, and so can’t predict what will ultimately happen on the the Turnzos’ land, though now we have reason to hope that it will be developed in a manner considerate of the community’s concerns. At the moment, though, that’s not what’s uppermost in my mind. Right now, I am just grateful to two people who made the effort to really listen.
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Currently listening to: City Hall
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