An overview of Habit Five from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Let all beings be happy; Let all beings be peaceful; Let all beings be blissful

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, then to be understood

Key to Effective interpersonal communication

Character and Communication?

To interact effectively with anyone, you first need to understand them. This can’t be done with technique alone. The real key for you to be influential is your actual conduct- the kind of person you truly are. In the long run, your character radiates a feeling of trust or distrust with those you interact. To improve your effectiveness in interpersonal communication, you have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires openness and trust.?

Empathic listening?

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 are filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.?

Empathic Listening

Empathic listening is listening with an intent to understand. Empathic listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.?

Empathy vs Sympathy

• Empathy is deep understanding-emotionally and intellectually.
• Sympathy is a form of approval.?

With empathic listening, you listen with your ears, eyes and with your heart. You listen for feelings and for meaning. You’re focused on receiving the deep communication of another human soul. Empathic listening is a tremendous deposit in the emotional bank account. Empathic listening promotes good judgement by understanding first. By judging first, a person will never fully understand.?

Four Autobiographical responses

1. Evaluate: Agree or disagree?
2. Probe: Ask questions from our frame of reference?
3. Advise: We counsel based on our own experience?
4. Interpret: We try to figure people out?

For empathic listening, you rephrase the content and reflect the feeling.?

Empathic listening promotes open and deep communication. A discerning empathic listener can read what’s happening down deep fast, and can show such acceptance, such understanding, that other people feel safe to open up layer after layer until they get to the soft inner core where the problem really lies.?

When we really, deeply understand each other, we open the door to creative solutions. Our differences are no longer stumbling blocks to communication and progress. Instead, they become the stepping-stones to synergy.?

Hope you found it useful!

Krishan