Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to

Be Understood TM

• Principles of Empathic Communication

• We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix
things up with good advice. But we often fail
to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply
understand the problem first.
 Character and Communication
• You have to build the skills of empathic
listening on a base of character that inspires
openness and trust.
• Communication is the most important skill in
life.
• We’ve spent years learning how to read and
write, years learning how to speak. But what
about listening?
 Empathic Listening
• When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with
intent to understand.
• Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another
person's frame of reference.
• Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is a form of
agreement, a form of judgment.
• Empathic listening is also risky. It takes a great deal of
security to go into a deep listening experience because
you open yourself up to be influenced. You become
vulnerable.
 Diagnose Before You Prescribe
• Seek first to understand, or diagnose before
you prescribe, is a correct principle
manifesting many areas of life.
• If you don't have confidence in the diagnosis,
you won't have confidence in the prescription.
 Four Autobiographical Responses
• We evaluate -- we 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; or we interpret
• we try to figure people out, to explain their
motives, their behavior, based on our own
motives and behavior.
 Understanding and Perception
• Our perceptions can be vastly different.
• Greeks had a magnificent philosophy which is
embodied in three sequentially arranged
words: ethos, pathos, and logos.
• Ethos is your personal credibility
• Pathos is the empathic side -- it's the feeling
• Logos is the reasoning.
 One-on-One
• The more deeply you understand other
people, the more you will appreciate them,
the more reverent you will feel about them.
• Don't push; be patient; be respectful.
• When we really, deeply understand each
other, we open the door to creative solutions
 Habit 6: Synergize TM
• Synergy is everywhere in nature.
• Synergy is the highest activity in all life -- the true
test and manifestation of all the other habits put
together.
• What is synergy? Simply defined, it means that
the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
• The creative process is also the most terrifying
part because you don't know exactly what's going
to happen or where it is going to lead.
 Synergistic Communication
• When you communicate synergistically, you
are simply opening your mind and heart and
expressions to new possibilities, new
alternatives, new options.
• Almost all creative endeavors are somewhat
unpredictable. They often seem ambiguous,
hit-or-miss, trial and error.
 Synergy in the Classroom
• The spirit of trust and safety prompted many
to become extremely open.
• Rather than present what they prepared, they
fed on each other's insights and ideas and
started to create a whole new scenario as to
what that class could mean.
 Synergy in Business
• The release of creative energy was incredible. Excitement
replaced boredom.
• People became very open to each other's influence and
generated new insights and options.
• Once people have experienced real synergy, they are
never quite the same again.
• "We seek not to imitate the masters, rather we seek what
they sought," we seek not to imitate past creative
synergistic experiences, rather we seek new ones around
new and different and sometimes higher purposes.
 Synergy and Communication
• Synergy is exciting. Creativity is exciting. It's
phenomenal what openness and communication
can produce. The possibilities of truly significant
gain, of significant improvement are so real that
it's worth the risk such openness entails.
• "If a person of your intelligence and competence
and commitment disagrees with me, then there
must be something to your disagreement that I
don't understand, and I need to understand it.
Fishing for the A Third Alternative
• If both party see the situation differently
problem may arise.
• Third Alternative, a solution that is mutually
beneficial and is better than what either of them
originally proposed.
• Listen empathically and seek first to understand,
can create a comprehensive picture of the
values and the concerns that need to be taken
into account in making a decision.
 Negative Synergy
• How much negative energy is typically expended
when people try to solve problems or make
decisions in an interdependent reality? How much
time is spent in confessing other people's sins,
politicking, rivalry, interpersonal conflict,
protecting one's backside, masterminding, and
second guessing? It's like trying to drive down the
road with one foot on the gas and the other foot
on the brake.
• The essence of synergy is to value the differences.
 Valuing the Differences
• Valuing the differences is the essence of
synergy -- the mental, the emotional, the
psychological differences between people.
• You see the young lady; I see the old woman.
We're both looking at the same picture, and
both of us are right. We see the same black
lines, the same white spaces. But we interpret
them differently because we've been
conditioned to interpret them differently.
 Force Field Analysis
• Sociologist Kurt Lewin developed a "Force Field
Analysis" model in which he described any current
level of performance or being as a state of
equilibrium between the driving forces that
encourage upward movement and the restraining
forces that discourage it.
• The resulting up and down, yo-yo effect causes you
to feel, after several attempts, that people are "just
the way they are" and that "it's too difficult to
change."
• But when you introduce synergy, you use the
motive of Habit 4, the skill of Habit 5, and the
interaction of Habit 6 to work directly on the
restraining forces. You unfreeze them, loosen
them up, and create new insights that actually
transform those restraining forces into driving
ones.
 All Nature is Synergistic
• Ecology is a word which basically describes the
synergism in nature -- everything is related to
everything else.
• It's in the relationship that creative powers are
maximized, just as the real power in these
Seven Habits is in their relationship to each
other, not just in the individual habits
themselves.
• Value the difference in other people
• When someone disagrees with you, you can
say, "Good! You see it differently." You don't
have to agree with them; you can simply
affirm them. And you can seek to understand.