Courage: Some old ideas are as good as new

Barriers and Gateways to Communication: Lack of Courage

Listening with understanding means taking a very real risk. If you really understand another person in this way, if you are willing to enter his private world and see the way life appears to him, without any attempt to make evaluative judgments, you run the risk of being changed yourself. You might see things his way; you might find that he has influenced your attitudes or your personality.

Most of us are afraid to take that risk. So instead we cannot listen; we find ourselves compelled to evaluate because listening seems too dangerous.

~ Carl R. Rogers and F. J. Roethlisberger (HBR Jul/Aug 1952)