Seek First to Understand

Habit 5: Seek First to Under­stand, Then to be Understood

Habit 5, Seek First to Under­stand, Then to be Under­stood, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of Habit 4, Think Win/Win.  It is the idea that to truly think win/win, one must start with lis­ten­ing.  Thus the idea that one should seek first to under­stand, then to be under­stood.  We all view the world in dif­fer­ent ways.  We have dif­fer­ent val­ues, dif­fer­ent needs, and dif­fer­ent par­a­digms.  Things that mat­ters a great deal to me, may not mat­ter much to you at all, and vice versa.   Unless you under­stand where another per­son is truly com­ing from, it can be very dif­fi­cult if not impos­si­ble to get to a win/win solution.

So how does one truly under­stand?  Covey describes the process of empathic lis­ten­ing as fun­da­men­tal to cul­ti­vat­ing this habit.  It is lis­ten­ing with the inten­tion of truly try­ing to deeply under­stand why another per­son feels the way they do.  It is not try­ing to con­vince them they feel oth­er­wise, or sim­ply regur­gi­tat­ing their words back to them with­out giv­ing thought to the deeper mean­ing they convey.

Covey uses a great story to illus­trate this idea.  In short, what if you went to the eye doc­tor and instead of giv­ing you an eye exam, he just handed you his glasses and said “eh, this should help a lit­tle.”  That would make no sense, and you would prob­a­bly find a new eye doc­tor pretty quickly.  Habit 5 is about diag­nos­ing the prob­lem first, then pre­scrib­ing a solution.

Ulti­mately, to effec­tively use Habit 5, a per­son must use empathic lis­ten­ing in their inter­ac­tions with oth­ers.  Done well this process involves “rephras­ing the con­tent and reflect­ing the feel­ing” that some­one else is con­vey­ing.  This may take sev­eral attempts to get cor­rect, but it is essen­tial in mov­ing for­ward to prop­erly diag­nose a prob­lem.   Sure this takes time, but by truly lis­ten­ing with­out plac­ing judge­ment, you can build the trust nec­es­sary to move closer to a solution.

Once you have gained an under­stand­ing of another’s per­spec­tive, the sec­ond half of Habit 5, to be under­stood, comes into play.  This is accom­plished through eth­i­cal thought, emo­tional intel­li­gence, and log­i­cal rea­son­ing.  Express­ing your con­cerns in a way that is respect­ful of the other per­son, in line with your prin­ci­ples, atten­tive to your feel­ings, and ratio­nal with regard to meet­ing your needs.

So how does this apply to social media?

Pete Black­shaw has a great quote in his book A Sat­is­fied Cus­tomer Tells Three Friends, An Angry Cus­tomer Tells 3,000 — “Lis­ten­ing Dri­ves Cred­i­bil­ity.”   The book is about the power of pos­tivite cus­tomer rela­tion­ships in an inter­con­nected world.   It exam­ines the empow­ered cus­tomer and the impact that upset­ting just one per­son who chooses to use the social web to con­vey their prob­lem can have on a business.

Social media makes it pos­si­ble to lis­ten to what peo­ple are say­ing.  You can lis­ten to what they say­ing to you directly through com­ments and direct inter­ac­tions.  You can lis­ten to what they are say­ing to one another through social net­works, forums, and rss feeds.  You can lis­ten to thought lead­ers, cus­tomers, com­peti­tors, and cit­i­zens to deter­mine what they need.   As Covey states “Sat­is­fied needs do not motivate.”

By using social media to engage peo­ple in con­ver­sa­tion, you can begin to develop bet­ter solu­tions to their prob­lems.  You can address their true needs.  This might be hap­pen by thought­fully respond­ing to a com­plaint on a blog post.  It could be done through a cus­tomer forum, through a Face­book group, or through a Twit­ter account.  Regard­less, the first step is to truly lis­ten.  To uncover deeper truth.  To seek this out with an open mind.  Social media enables you to do this on a broad scale, at lit­tle or no cost other than the time you invest in this activity.

Once you iden­tify a need, be that an expressed com­plaint about your ser­vice or a wish for some­thing new to solve a prob­lem, you can use ethics, emo­tion, and logic to address this need.  It may be that you retain a cus­tomer with this approach.  It may be that you avoid a pub­lic rela­tions night­mare by lis­ten­ing empath­i­cally.  You may even find that your next “big idea” is gen­er­ated by sim­ply lis­ten­ing to what peo­ple are say­ing online.   If you Seek First to Under­stand, and Then to be Under­stood, you can apply your time and activ­ity in social media towards build­ing trust, address­ing needs, and cre­at­ing solu­tions that can sus­tain your busi­ness into the future.