Being listened to goes to the heart of our identity. It is a deeply spiritual activity. Listening to others counts.
Nothing so offends and demotivates than feeling we've either been given no chance to say something or, when we have, our opinion has been ignored or dismissed without consideration.
This is true not only for individuals but for governments, corporations, community organisations and certainly the Church as well.
We stop listening at our peril. And listening is more than just hearing the words.
Most women know the frustration of speaking to an apparently attentive husband only to find his mind has been somewhere else for most of the conversation.
A story about Franklin Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States, goes like this.
Roosevelt often endured long receiving lines at the White House.
He complained that no-one really paid any attention to what was said.
One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment.
To each person who came down the line and shook his hand, he murmured: "I murdered my grandmother this morning."
The guests responded with phrases like, "Marvellous! Keep up the good work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir."
It was not till the end of the line, while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were heard.
Nonplussed, the ambassador leaned over and whispered: "I'm sure she had it coming."
Usually, it is harder for the rich and powerful to listen.
Something about power reduces the human capacity for listening.
Again, I suspect the Church is still having to learn this lesson.
What is clear, however, is that the powerful in New Zealand are still making this mistake.
I had great satisfaction in changing my electricity provider from Contact to Mercury the other day.
I don't usually do these things - I'm normally a very loyal customer - but the fiasco around the proposed doubling of directors' fees presented at last year's annual meeting left me feeling sickened by both the arrogance of the size of the increase and its timing against a climate of world recession.
In the wake of this, Contact lost about 40,000 customers to other generators, and their underlying earnings suffered a 50.4% fall in net profit to the year ended June 30.
I'm amazed the board survived, frankly.
However, what amazed me even more was that it was only after I left Contact that I got a call from a representative asking me why I had changed and showing, to be fair, some concern for my views.
And I had a very frank and honest exchange of views with this poor fellow, who I am sure was only doing his job.
I think I would have been amenable even at this late stage to an apology and a good offer to come back to Contact.
I am, after all, in the business both of repentance and confession.
But as I explained my reasons for leaving, he did his best to defend the company and to claim that the media had misreported the whole matter.
According to him, Contact's board was the victim here.
My resolve hardened.
I pointed out that even if this had been the case, Contact did absolutely nothing to assure their customer base of this and a call at this stage was just far too late.
As they say, the divorce was amicable.
Compliance usually has to do with rules imposed by governing bodies, but cultures impose a kind of unspoken set of compliances on their people which are perhaps even more important.
There is a compliance issue here which has nothing to do with government departments or regional bodies.
It has to do with the culture of this nation.
We are suspicious of powerful institutions - whether they be governmental, financial or religious - so we tend to require from them a certain degree of transparency and openness which might not be demanded of smaller groups and institutions.
In this case, the cost of compliance is open communication - listening.
By this I don't mean a plethora of carefully crafted press releases.
The party line doesn't work with my wife, and I don't really think it works well with the public, either.
Press releases, both at home and in the public arena, do nothing to assure people they are being heard.
What I think Kiwis do appreciate is a person or a group of people willing to own up to mistakes and make amends.
People who do this in public or private are almost universally forgiven in this country, if not immediately accepted back into the fold.
Where, however, there is the slightest hint that the mistake is being hidden or denied or otherwise concealed, this immediately reflects on the whole institution and we become extremely unforgiving.
To be fair to Contact, the institution I represent has made this same mistake over and over again.
The Church has not been good at listening, and it has often had difficulty hearing criticism from the community.
At least a part of the reason for this has been our focus on being speakers rather than hearers.
As Albert Guinon once said: "There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves."
Richard Dawson is pastor of St Stephens/Leith Valley Presbyterian Church.
