“Seek first to understand, then to be understood”
Mood: --sTd--
Listening to: Yusuf Islam
Covey talks about the importance of speaking and listening as forms of communication. Especially with the listening, here, he didn’t mean a regular listening, instead, an empathic listening. It is listening with the intention to understand rather than to reply. In most cases, when a person talks to you, a logic step would be for you to reply. However in this habit, Covey emphasized the need of understanding others (the need to diagnose before prescribe) before he or she could response – to reply, to repeat or simply to listen.
What is interesing is the way Covey divided listening into four levels, which I sometimes use, unconsciously, depending on the situation and the type of story that is being told. Empathic listening goes beyond a mere technique. It is neither active nor reflective listening. It is the ability to seek to understand what the person is saying by understanding his paradigm and to understand his feeling.
A new term introduced by Covey in a discussion of this habit is the ‘psychological air’ which was a bit similar with the Emotional Bank Account. That is, the way of communicating your interest and understands to the person doing the talking, non-verbally. And so, it gives him the feeling that you are with him and that it signals him to continue with his talks. There is also the advantage of understanding others first, that is, to eventually create a win/win situation, as the example given by Covey, when the manager had to negotiate with the large national banking institution. Because his strategy was listening what the other party had to say first, then later explained his perspective, it creates a nice environment where no one fight for air to speak.
“Seek first to understand” is the first part of the discussion in this habit. The second part is “To be understood.” Whereas the first part deals with the ability to listen in order to understand, this second part deals with the ability to be heard in order to be understood. In order to do so, Covey suggested that a person should have something that could attract or create the benefit for those who listen. Furthermore, he suggested us to be an influence able person in order to influence back.
