Listening at the Door - Reflective Listening Earns Trust and Votes

Join John Sabin and Ken Stanley for a hands-on Zoom session on reflective listening, the skill behind the best conversations at the door. As canvassing shifts from talking to listening, this is one of the most useful skills a canvasser can build, and you can make real progress in about an hour. We'll start with quick introductions, then practice in a supportive, low-pressure setting, taking turns sharing and reflecting back what we hear. We'll close with a conversation about how we can all keep growing as canvassers. This workshop is designed for experienced canvassers. John Sabin is an expert in motivational interviewing, the listening-centered approach Elizabeth Chur draws on in The Joy of Talking Politics to Strangers, and he brings years of experience from his work with Citizens' Climate Lobby. Ken Stanley has been knocking doors since his first campaign at 16 in 1974, trained with Marshall Ganz, and has had well over a thousand conversations at the door, many recorded and reviewed with Swing Left's Script Iteration Team. If you haven't heard of it, Swing Left is a national network that helps people find high-impact ways to support Democratic candidates. We focus on the most flippable races as an important step toward the progressive change needed to create a more inclusive and equitable government and society.