Habit 5: Seek First to Understand and Then Be Understood

People want to be understood. You want to be understood, don’t you? You know how frustrating it can be when people don’t understand you, no matter how hard you try, over and over again.

Habit 5 is about this phenomenon: Seek first to understand and then to be understood. And as with all of the habits, this one not about learning a new trick or a set of techniques. The habits are about changing paradigms, about changing the beliefs you have about the topics of the habits. This habit is about communication, effective interaction between people.

What’s your intention?Why do you listen to people? If you’re like most people in most conversations, you primarily listen to give a response! And while your listening, you’re preparing for a response already. Now how can you listen effectively, when you’re thinking how to formulate the sentence that’s about to leave you lips? Covey sums up four typicallistening responses:

Ignoring: not listening at allPretending: not listening at all, but with mindless responses (“Uh-hum”, “Yeah, that’s really interesting”)Selective listening: not listening to everything, but hearing what you want to hearAttentive listening: really listening to the words

Do any of the following sound familiar?

"Oh, I know just how you feel. I felt the same way." "I had that same thing happen to me." "Let me tell you what I did in a similar situation."

Because you so often listen autobiographically, you tend to respond in one of four ways:Evaluating: You judge and then either agree or disagree.Probing: You ask questions from your own frame of reference.Advising: You give counsel, advice, and solutions to problems.Interpreting: You analyze others' motives and behaviors based on your own experiences.

You might be saying, "Hey, now wait a minute. I'm just trying to relate to the person by drawing on my own experiences. Is that so bad?" In some situations, autobiographical responses may be appropriate, such as when another person specifically asks for help from your point of view or when there is already a very high level of trust in the relationship.

Effective listening is about really wanting to listen, wanting to

understand the other. To achieve this you have to go beyond the

words.

Full scale listeningTo really understand people you have to use empathic listening. It’s not just hearing what they’re saying. Empathic listening is a full body activity. In communication the words are only a small part of the total communication. It’s what we refer to as verbal communication. But there’s also a non-verbal part to communicating. It’s even an essential part for effective communication.

In real life people do this by expressing emotion by gestures, frowns, smiles etc. On the internet this wasn’t possible, so emoticons were created to substitute for the lack of non-verbal language. In real life we also use the tone of our voice, the loudness of it, the pitch etc. This is already harder on the internet, but a lot of people seem to know HOW TO SCREAM, don’t they? Add some colors, and you get the picture of the mood they’re in.

Empathic listening is about all these aspects of communication at the same time. Does the body language show the same thing as the words that are being spoken, do they express the same feeling? If not, what does that mean, how can you respond?

Logic versus emotionIn conversation not all parts are filled with emotions. There are two parts of a conversation, the logical part and the emotional part. Some parts of a conversation are simply logical, and you can respond to that part by asking questions and giving advice and so on. However, when the responses become emotional, empathic listening is the better option.

The empathic listening responses are:• mimic content - just repeat what was

just said• rephrase content - repeat, but in your

own words• reflect feeling - express what you think

the other feels• rephrase content and reflect feeling -

combine the latter two

Most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. And consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before he/she finishes communicating.

Now to be understood…That was a rather long part about how to understand the other. How about being understood? That’s important as well of course. However, it’s the understanding part where most people have to train their skills.

Read the chapter for next day…