If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” – Stephen R. Covey
Years ago, when I was living and working in Boulder, two of my favorite scientist-friend-colleagues coauthored a series of great papers. Their happy place was a shared office with a blackboard where they could discuss their calculations and the implications for hours. They would sometimes go on like this for days. One, you see, was Greek, the other Italian, and they were communicating in English. Before they could be sure that they truly understood each other and were in full agreement about an equation or a piece of text, they had to state and restate their arguments again and again.
They sought to understand, then be understood. The product was always magnificent.
As today’s quote suggests, of the Habits 4-6, it is #5 that Stephen Covey himself thought was the big one. Thirteen years ago, his website amplified on the subject in this way:
Communication is the most important skill in life. You spend years learning how to read and write, and years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training have you had that enables you to listen so you really, deeply understand another human being? Probably none, right?
If you’re like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you’re listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. So why does this happen? Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. And consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before he/she finishes communicating. Do any of the following sound familiar?
“Oh, I know just how you feel. I felt the same way.” “I had that same thing happen to me.” “Let me tell you what I did in a similar situation.”
Because you so often listen autobiographically, you tend to respond in one of four ways:
| Evaluating: | You judge and then either agree or disagree. |
| Probing: | You ask questions from your own frame of reference. |
| Advising: | You give counsel, advice, and solutions to problems. |
| Interpreting: | You analyze others’ motives and behaviors based on your own experiences. |
You might be saying, “Hey, now wait a minute. I’m just trying to relate to the person by drawing on my own experiences. Is that so bad?” In some situations, autobiographical responses may be appropriate, such as when another person specifically asks for help from your point of view or when there is already a very high level of trust in the relationship.
But even with that last bit of sugar-coating, Mr. Covey is indeed saying that is “so bad.” He encourages us to listen with more empathy – to understand and share the feelings of the other person, to see things from their point of view. That requires listening wholeheartedly versus half-listening while formulating what we will say next. When it finally is time to say something (much later in most conversations than any of us tend to think – as Mr. Covey notes, we’re generally guilty of prematurely jumping in), we might make that something a question or two, looking for points of clarification. Often, when we speak a common language it’s too easy to jump to the conclusion that we know exactly what the speaker is saying, and the thought process that lies behind it.[1]
Let’s jump ahead to the year 2025. We see habit #5 observed mostly in the breach. And we see it on the big-screen – the largest of national political issues, multiple issues. the great polarization and disunity tearing at our basic social fabric.
In the previous LOTRW post, I referred you to a sobering essay by April Lawson. Perhaps you’ve read her article already. If you haven’t, I again encourage you to do so. By way of motivation, here is another set of excerpts:
…A variety of organizations have sprung up in more recent years to forge a kind of depolarization field, most of them sincere and well intentioned. But there is a bias in the soil: a Blue bias. (Blue = leans liberal; Red = leans conservative.) The vast majority of leaders, funders, and participants in the bridging field are Blue, and this imbalance dictates the approach taken to depolarization…
… The virtue of Blues is that they are very open (at least at the beginning), and they’re always the first to reach out a hand and say they want to learn about the other side. The vice, however, hidden to themselves most of all, is in the fact that many Blues assume that if Reds could just be taught what is true, they would be enlightened into Blueness…
…If you are a Blue, you may be thinking, “but wait—we want to celebrate differences! We love diversity, that’s what we’re all about.” And I commend your intention. But what I’ve found, over and over again, is that Blue organizations say they love diversity, but not when it comes to viewpoint diversity. Oh sure, they can handle your standard libertarian who works in IT, but when it comes to real difference—like being a Trump supporter because you genuinely love Trump and think he’s one of the great Americans of our generation—somehow the celebratory fanfare dims.
The reasoning Blues will offer is typically that they want to celebrate difference as long as everyone is tolerant. The problem is that many powerful forms of religious, political, and philosophical belief make claims that are in direct conflict with the idea that all ways of being are equally valid. Blue insistence on “tolerance” functions as a fence to keep those beliefs and their adherents out. In simpler terms, when Blues say they want to “celebrate difference,” Reds often hear the caveat: that some are “approved differences” and others, like their political persuasion, are not…
… To my mind, this is one of the most profound causes of our present polarization: the ethic of tolerance, which goes in the guise of a neutral standard, denudes public argument of its profound spiritual dimensions and thereby guts the richness of pluralism…
…Our differences are our glory, and we need to examine what it would look like to really celebrate them—to face them boldly, and respond with the trusting inquiry that leads to love.
Whew! A lot to wrap our heads around! The stakes are high, and the difficulties commensurately great. A closing thought. Perhaps one arena where we come closest to getting this right is the marriage, or a lifelong partnership, or family relationship where the starting point is we are unified, united – we’re one. Nothing can tear us apart; we will work it out. Now what was that disagreement we were having again? Where do we start?
Maybe habit #6 – synergize – provides some hints. More soon.
[1] Logicians in the crowd might smell a problem here: what if both parties enter a conversation with this point of view? Do they sit there, silent, waiting for the other to speak first? And for how long? My answer is: you’re bright. You’ll work it out. The Old Testament speaks to this. In the book of Job, when Job is suffering, his three friends gather at his side. When they see his condition, they rend their own garments and sit on the ground with him for seven days in silence. Finally Job speaks. So far so good! But after that beginning, things go downhill. It’s not long before Job’s friends start probing, evaluating (negatively), and offering chapter-after-chapter dollops of useless advice.