Habit 5 – Seek to understand, before being understood
Sometimes we get really frustrated when talking to people because it seems “they just don’t get it”. Surprisingly, we can help people understand us better when we listen to them first!
You might say, how is that possible? For people to understand us, they need to listen to us. Yes, I know, it sounds backwards, but surprisingly it isn’t. When I learned this concept in the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” I found it extremely confusing but as I learned more and practiced this, amazing things started to happen.
Confession of a reformed listener
Let’s be honest, I sucked at listening, and still struggle to do it well.
I really discovered this at a job performance review about 20 years ago. My manager at the time said that the folks I led liked working with me, but felt I didn’t listen to them. I told myself, oh no, of course I listen to them, I just didn’t agree with some of the things they said or suggested. I thought that was the reason.
The next day I mentioned this to my girlfriend at the time, and she said, yeah you don’t really listen. I was shocked. Two sources told me the same thing, there must be some truth to it.
Analytical brain to the rescue
My analytical mind (my dominant side) started trying to understand what they meant. So I got a self help book about listening. The book discussed what listening skills are. It talked about when someone says something to you, face them, look at them, and rephrase back to them in your own words what they said.
The purpose of this was to have the other person know that you are really listening and paying attention. This helped a little with other’s perception to show them that I was paying attention but also came across as not genuine. I didn’t understand why it came across as not genuine until recently.
Its all about intent
I learned later that the skills I learned in that first book were superficial. It talked about the behavior that was expected when someone listens, but not the why! If, deep inside, I was not interested in someone or what they are saying, or I was distracted with something else, no amount of artificial listening skills would help. What’s inside my head, my intent, would be plainly visible to folks who were talking to me.
Listening with intent to reply
The majority of us listen with intent to reply. I.e. we listen, and while someone talks we are processing what they say through our own experiences, judging, and thinking what we are going to say back.
Have you ever listened to someone telling you about a problem they have, and have this overwhelming urge to say “oh I know what you mean, I had a similar experience”?
Listening with intent to understand
The first step is to really focus on our intent. In order to listen well, our intent (i.e. goal) should be to truly and deeply understand someone. I.e. not to respond, not to judge, not to give advice, not to try to solve a problem. When this is really what we have inside, the skills that we use to understand will come across in a positive way.
I have to say, I found this a hard thing to do. Being an engineer, my brain is used to recognizing and solving problems. I’m used to processing things through my own frame of reference (my experiences). To just listen, that would be hard for me!
Emphatic Listening
Once we have the intent to understand, then building some skills can help us a lot. Emphatic listening is about listening for emotion as well as content. Below is a list of levels of listening with the last one being the ultimate goal.
- When a person talks to you, rephrase what they said to you. e.g. John: “I really hate math, it’s so much work”. Reply: “You really hate math, it’s so much work”. You are not using your brain at all, but at least you are listening for the words.
- Rephrase in your own words about the content (i.e. use the analytical part of your brain). Reply: “Math takes a lot of effort”. This is a little better as you are processing something and trying to understand the “what”.
- Listen to the emotion (i.e. use the right side of your brain). Reply: “You’re feeling bad”
- Put them together. Reply: “Your feeling bad about math”. Now we have content and emotion, we’ve processed it and understand it, and let the other person know that we did.
The above is emphatic listening. Listening for content and emotion and letting the other person know what you heard for both of those areas. Sounds simple, but it’s really challenging if you are not used to it.
When to give advice
Giving advice when another person is emotional does not work. If you have kids and have tried to do that, you know it’s a disaster. I think this is true with most people. The only time advice or feedback is received, is when the other person is calm and wants it. This is typically when the person feels they have been heard. Part of being heard, validates the other persons feelings, lets them get out what they want to say, and allows them to process those feelings/thoughts. If you understand them, and show that, they feel that.
The book calls this “Psychological Air”. The analogy is that if the air got sucked out of the room all of sudden, you’d be thinking about survival, and nothing else. Once there is air, then you are open to other things. You give people “Psychological Air” when you listen to them and they feel understood. When someone has “Psychological Air” they will be open to hearing what you have to say. They will often ask for advice or be open to it.
The book recommends switching to Emphatic listening, from giving advice, when you sense emotional response.
Why does this help others understand YOU?
Have you ever talked to someone to try to give advice, and the other person jumps to “you just don’t understand” and then explains themselves again? Even if you had useful information to tell them, they are not listening because they think you just don’t understand them. They may be right, or not, but they are not listening.
When you truly listen to another person, when you seek to understand, you get a lot of information, emotion, context AND you build a connection. That person knows you understand where they are coming from, what their concerns are, what things they feel are important, what irritates them. They are in fact, influencing you because you really listened to them.
When they feel this way, they start to really listen to you because they know you understand and they don’t have to repeat themselves as a response. You are starting to influence them.
My own success
I’ve been practicing this Habit and, as I mentioned, its a hard one for me. I’ve used it a lot with my Son when he’s been frustrated with some overwhelming thing. I’ve watched how his emotions would reduce as I was truly seeking to understand him and let him know that and not giving advice until he asked or was open to it. I’ve also noticed how, not surprisingly, that I am learning and understanding more from him and other people I talk to in this way.
As I mentioned, I have a long way to go but I can see how this habit is starting to become my habit and how I am truly learning to understand before being understood.
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