Is it more important to hear or to be heard?  Think it through.  If you really want to be heard which means also understood and accepted – then you better also know your audience.  Know their dreams and their delusions.  That requires listening.  Listening here means more than taking in noise.  To have a harmonious workplace, we must “listen for the purpose of understanding”.  We will be able to target and craft our messages when we know our listeners.  Just blurting out orders and demands and edicts and opinions to others will land of “deaf ears”.  We must first listen — which involves questionning, reading, studying, probing and digging into others’ ideas, motives, life experiences, needs, etc.  This is what I mean by listening.  Not just the physics of pitch and tone and air waves – but also the physics of transformed neurons in the brain – understanding.  Again,  listen for the purpose of understanding.  If we do that, wow, will our workplaces be more harmonious.  Take the time to listen.