Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Continuing our series on the Seven Habits.

• Habit One: Be Proactive
• Habit Two: Begin With the End in Mind
• Habit Three: Put First Things First
• Habit Four: Think Win-Win

Habit Five, “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood,” is about empathic communication. 

Covey points out that when people are communicating, they are generally focusing on making the other party understand their point of view. But they aren’t trying to understand the other person.

“‘Seek first to understand’ involves a very deep shift in the paradigm. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They’re either speaking or preparing to speak. They’re filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.”

To be more effective, your initial focus needs to be on understanding the other person. But even when trying to understand what the other person is saying, most people still don’t quite get it, because they are filtering it through their own perspective and experience.

“Because we listen autobiographically, we tend to respond in one of four ways. We evaluate – we either agree or disagree; we probe – we ask questions from our own frame of reference; we advise – we give counsel based on our own experience; or we interpret – we try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on our own motives and behavior.”

Empathic listening is making sure you understand both the content and feelings behind what the other person is saying.

By contrast, empathic listening is making sure you understand both the content and feelings behind what the other person is saying, and showing the other person that you understand it. You do this by listening to what they say, and giving a response that rephrases the content and reflects the feelings.

Covey explains this through an example of a teenager talking to his father about how much he hates school. When the father isn’t practicing empathic listening, he argues with his son about how important school is, how much he’s sacrificed, and what it was like when he was a kid. The kid ends the conversation even more upset, and unable to open up to his father.

Then Covey reruns the conversation with the father practicing empathic listening, rephrasing the content of what the son says while reflecting the feeling. The son says, “Boy dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds.” And the father says, “You’re really frustrated about school.” This leads to the son opening up, explaining that he’s doing poorly in school, and is embarrassed because he feels like that means he’s stupid. He then is able to seek guidance and help from his father.

Once you demonstrate that you understand the other person, it will form a connection, and make them much more likely to listen to you, and understand your point of view.

“Unless you’re influenced by my uniqueness, I’m not going to be influenced by your advice. So if you want to be really effective in the habit of interpersonal communication, you cannot do it with technique alone. You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires openness and trust. And you have to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that create a commerce between hearts.”

Covey emphasizes that this process has to be genuine. Don’t look at this as a strategy or trick. You aren’t simply listening to them so you can get what you want. You are trying to understand them for its own sake, and to form a connection. If you are trying to do this to manipulate people, they will know it and resent it.

“If I sense you’re using some technique, I sense duplicity, manipulation. I wonder why you’re doing it, what your motives are. And I don’t feel safe enough to open myself up to you.”

If you are trying to do this to manipulate people, they will know it and resent it.

Overall, I think this is excellent advice. A lot of it is similar to How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is one of my favorite books. The chapter is only 24 pages long, and you could read it as a standalone.

Let me tell you a quick true story about something that happened to me yesterday: A friend of mine e-mailed a group I’m in for advice. He had recently been promoted to a team-lead at his job, and was struggling. He was good at the work he did, but the interpersonal management was outside his skill set.

There was a particular coworker that he just didn’t get along with. They had a growing conflict that had reached the point of Human Resources needing to intervene. They each had to write up their version of events. When he read the other guy’s write-up, he thought, “Either this guy’s lying, I’m crazy, or there’s some sort of bizarre Rashomon thing going on where we’re seeing the same events in incredibly different ways.”

That’s what happens when you don’t seek first to understand. Whatever initial conflict they had kept snowballing, because each one had the perspective of, “I’m right, he’s wrong, and the fact that he continues to refuse to admit he’s wrong makes this even more outrageous.” Neither one was seeking to understand, so every effort they made to be understood only made things worse.

This, by the way, is why arguments on the Internet are so silly. Because nobody is seeking to understand – they’re just seeking to prove the other side is wrong.

To my friend’s credit, he recognized that he had handled the situation poorly, and was trying to learn how to do better. If you struggle with this sort of thing, you could especially benefit from reading this chapter of Seven Habits. (As well as How to Win Friends and Influence People.)

Note: I’m going on vacation, so this will most likely be my last post until somewhere around November 7.