Ever try to tell someone something important, only to have them tell you that it’s no big deal because they went through the same thing (even if it’s not really the same and they don’t really understand what you’re saying)? Habit 5, Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood, gives us some ideas on how to avoid being the person who doesn’t understand, and projects our own experiences onto someone else, whether or not that is helpful.
In Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, the author describes empathic communication in the chapter on Habit 5. No, it’s not becoming Counselor Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation and being able to read people’s emotions using telepathy. What it is, though, is first and foremost striving to understand what the other person is communicating, from that person’s point of view.
This means we have to stop talking and listen.
It also means we have to stop preparing to talk and listen.
Preparing to talk? Monitor how you interact with other people. If we’re not intentionally listening, we’re probably either talking or preparing to talk. If we’re always preparing to reply, we’re not able to listen well enough to understand what or why the other person is communicating.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits
Levels of Listening
Covey presents different levels of listening:
- Ignoring
- Pretending
- Selective Listening
- Attentive Listening
- Empathic Listening
Covey makes a point to differentiate between empathic listening and active listening. He states that active listening is basically “mimicking what the other person says”. Personally, I find active listening to be a credible communication technique when I’m trying to get clarity or agreement, with the intent to understand, not simply mimic to make the other person feel like I’m listening. I feel Covey used the term active listening in the sense that you can use this skill to manipulate or control the conversation in some way. It’s also possible that the connotation of the term active listening has changed slightly since the book was penned.
Empathic Listening
Empathic listening involves seeking first to understand what is being communicated from the other person’s frame of reference. It’s seeking to understand the why behind what is being communicated. Covey states that empathy is not the same as sympathy. Sympathy, he says is a form of agreement, whereas empathy is not agreement, it is understanding the person, “emotionally as well as intellectually”.
Why Bother
Back to our opening statement, how much more connected do you feel to someone if they take the time to understand what you are really saying and why you are really saying it? How much more satisfying are our relationships, professional and personal, when we feel the other person “gets us” and is willing to spend time understanding us? We want to be empathic listeners so we can be the person who takes the time to understand the other person we’re communicating with. We want to cultivate relationships built on trust, and empathic listening is one component that helps us do that. When we have solid, trustful connections, we can accomplish great things together.
Covey puts it this way: “When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving.”
Then to Be Understood
Seeking to understand requires consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage.
Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits
Covey taps into the philosophy of the early Greeks, ethos, pathos, and logos. Covey states that ethos has to do with your personal credibility, your character. It is the trust you’ve built up with others. Pathos is the feeling, the empathic side. And logos is the logic.
When we present or communicate, we likely focus on logos – the facts and figures. Covey suggests that in order to seek to be understood we have to employ all three – ethos, pathos, and logos. In seeking to be understood, it helps to have built up integrity and trust with the person or people you are communicating to (ethos). Then, understanding and communicating any concerns from the other person’s point of view will diffuse tensions and increase trust (pathos). And then finally employ the logic and reasoning in the presentation (logos).
For me, practicing the habit of seeking first to understand, then to be understood, was a game-changer. It takes practice to not listen with the intent to reply, and rather to listen with the intent to understand. And, I still mess it up sometimes, but much less frequently than I used to. As a result, people that I coach regularly tell me that I’m a good listener, and that they feel listened to. That means so much to me because I know by practicing this habit I am adding value. At a minimum I’m providing ‘psychological air’, as Covey puts it.
tl;dr
Habit 5, Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood, is at its heart about listening with the intent to understand instead of listening with the intent to reply. When we intentionally strive to understand the frame of reference of the other person, we set ourselves up to then be understood.
engineer your life
- To start, pay attention to what you’re thinking when someone is communicating to you. Are you trying to really understand what they are saying or are you thinking about your response before they finish what they are saying? Either way, self-awareness will be key if you are interested in growing in the area of empathic listening.
- Read Habit 5 in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen Covey. There are lots of examples in the chapter that will illustrate the benefits and methods of seeking first to understand, then to be understood.
