Understanding who you serve is always a very important problem, and it only gets harder the more people that you serve. We try to pay a lot of attention to this by a combination of very rigorous quantitative and qualitative feedback. But if you’re serving 1.2 billion people, it’s very hard.

Closeness makes sharing possible for authorities with our people, particularly the most vulnerable. Listening allows us to discover how people live, want and expect; and not exactly just what we like to hear. Service is the guiding principle of every project and social, political or economic program.

Listening is self-empowerment via the empowerment of others.

Another thing is to listen to the voice of the youth, understand their problems and partner with institutions that we can work with in identifying and addressing youth challenges at the right time.

If you intend to create something that people will observe and listen to, you've got to listen to them first.

When people realize they’re being listened to, they tell you things.

Sometimes understanding other people’s problems is the key to finding opportunities.

We're in the service industry. The better we understand the people we're trying to serve, the better their care will be.

You don’t really understand people until you hear their life story. If you know their stories, you grasp their history, their hurts, their hopes and aspirations. You put yourself in their shoes. And just by virtue of listening and remembering what’s important to them, you communicate that you care and desire to add value.

Listen if you want to be heard

When people realize they’re being listened to, they tell you things.” — Richard Ford

Getting to know a diverse group of people leads to a better understanding of yourself.

To listen to the other is the beginning of possibility.

I would say that in order to reach the people you must feel as if you are part of the people. You must know what the people want, what they need, and what they feel. You must do a little self-analysis, study the university's statistics, and ask how many workers, how many peasants, how many men who make their living by their sweat eight hours a day are here in this university.