My Take on “Seek First to Understand, Then to be understood”

I beathed a sigh of relief that the meetings have come to an end. Now I will continue with my readings on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and add on new thoughts to support my quest to be successful in working with other people. The habit I am referring to is Habit 5 on Public Victory: "Seek First to Understand, Then to be understood" focuses on communication skills which I come to believe based on my interactions with teachers during my leadership journey.  

   

Communication, which includes reading, writing, speaking and listening are important skills in life. Although, there is formal education on reading, writing and speaking, there seemed to be lack of proper training in listening skill – that will enable listening for deeper understanding based on the other person’s own point of view. Seek first to understand refers to listening with the intent to understand and not to reply. Hence, to be an effective communicator, first seek to understand the person’s viewpoints – really understanding what is going on inside that person before getting the person to understand you.  There are 4 levels of “listening” including pretend listening (not really listening to you), selective listening (listen to only certain parts of the conversation), attentive listening (listen paying attention and focusing on words you say) and empathy listening (listen with the intent to understand you). Empathy listening involves fully, deeply understanding of a person, emotionally and intellectually. Such empathy listening involves listening with our ears, and also listening with our eyes and heart – listening for feeling, for meaning. Next to physical needs, the greatest need of human being is psychological survival – to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.

So, what does that mean to me? To develop on my listening awareness to become an empathic listener, I invited people to rate my own listening skills. Below is a summary of the ratings of the various people on my listening skills.

The results of average 3.63 showed that most found me having both traits of an attentive and empathic listener. Most see that I focus my listening not just with the intent to reply, but with some intention also to understand. I myself believe that I do carefully listen for word being said by the other person, but at times decisions were based on and compared against my own life experience. This is especially so when the communicated scenario sounds familiar to me or when I am able to relate to the situation or when I feel strongly for or against something!

But is trying to relate to the other by drawing on one’s experience bad? Well, the reading made me realized that even with very sincere desires, true listening must mean that you forget about yourself but truly step inside the other person, so concentrating all your energy on being with the other person when listening is essential.

Now that I am more familiar with my listening level, I will constantly remind myself not to draw on my own experience and come to a premature decision whenever I am having conversations with others. Instead, I want to focus my attention on being with the other person to understand. In this way, I hope to better my communication with the person at the right time with the right intent.