Seek first to understand, then to be understood

emotional intelligence , book-notes , how igor ticks
≡

Imagine going to the eye doctor. After hearing your complaint he takes off his glasses and hands them to you. “Put these on,” he says. “I’ve worn this pair of glasses for ten years now and they’ve really helped me. I have an extra pair at home; you can wear these.” So you put them on, but it only makes the problem worse. “This is terrible!” you exclaim. “I can’t see a thing!” “Well, what’s wrong?” he asks. “They work great for me. Try harder.” “I am trying,” you insist. “Everything is a blur.” “Well, what’s the matter with you? Think positively.” “Okay. I positively can’t see a thing.” “Boy, are you ungrateful!” he chides. “And after all I’ve done to help you!”

These are my insights based on the 7 habits Chapter 5.

This has a lot of similarity to compassion and being curious. From that post:

Lead with curiosity, not judgment. This applies to yourself and to others. Think of a grandmother - a grandmother is full of love and compassion for her grandchildren. She loves them without conditions, no strings attached.She takes care of her grandchildren without needing anything in return. She cares selflessly and she has only the children’s best interest in mind. As she loves her grandchildren, she won’t allow self-destructive behavior and will step in when necessary. But she will always do this with the utmost care and love.

CHARACTER AND COMMUNICATION

Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours communicating. But consider this: You’ve spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training or education have you had that enables you to listen so that you really, deeply understand another human being from that individual’s own frame of reference?

The normal way we listen - from our own frame of refenece.

By default, we assume everyone is like us, and our frame of reference, is there frame of reference. As a result our default approach to listening is some of the following

  • We judge— 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;
  • We interpret— we try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on our own motives and behavior.

A better way, empathic listening.

The stages of empathetic listening:

  • Mimicking - Simplest, just repeat it back verbatim, without trying to understand.
  • Rephrasing the content - Testing my understanding, I heard you say, is that right. NOTE It’s very important not to tell them the content, but instead ask if you understood it.
  • Reflect the feeling - When I hear you say that, that must be scary?
  • Rephrase content and reflect feeling - Am I hearing you say ‘this happened’, and boy that must make you really mad.

Understanding and perception

Then seek to be understood

Be Proactive, Have 1:1s and Dates

You don’t need to wait for a problem to have empathatec listening, instead you can be proactive and setup time to talk now. Having standing dates or 1:1’s to ensure everything is working well before you have a problem.

You need space to build these relationship, family dates and 1:1 prompts are critical to make it happen.

Understand before you coach

After you’ve been listening empathetically, you’re often asked for advice, for that look at coaching:

Coaching is like midwifery. A midwife can not give birth to the baby, she facilitates the birth. Similarly, a coach can not give a solution, she must give birth to the insight from within the coachee. Coaching is asking questions, guiding, and facilitating understanding, and this post collects my studies on the topic.

Books