Being Defensive

What if instead of immediately defending our position when confronted with a conversation we don't like, we listen? What if we hear them out instead? Maybe they're way off base. Maybe what they're saying is unfounded and completely ridiculous. But maybe they're right. More accurately, maybe they're right and we need to parse through the words they're saying to find what they're trying to communicate. 

The problem with being defensive is that we lose the battle and the war. We can't reach solutions when we won't hear the real problem and when we do it enough times people will be hesitant to communicate difficult things to us. Defending our position without listening may only cost us a bad conversation today, but it will have devastating results in the future when people avoid having the conversation with us all together.