Habit #5 Seek First to Understand, Then be Understood The key to communication and having power and influence with people can be summed up in one sentence: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

The deepest need of the Human Heart is to be understood 4 Primary Forms of Communication : *Reading *Writing *Speaking *Listening

5 Poor listening skills Spacing out: –When someone is talking to us but we ignore them because our mind is wandering off somewhere else. Pretend Listening: –More common. We still aren’t paying attention to the other person, but at least we pretend we are by making comments at key junctures like Yeah, Uh-huh, Cool and Sounds Great.

Listening skills cont. Selective Listening: –We pay attention only to the parts of the conversation that interest us. Word listening: –Occurs when we actually pay attention to what someone is saying, but we listen only to the words, not to the body language, the feelings, or the true meaning behind the words.

Listening skills cont. Self-centered listening: –Happens when we see everything from our own point of view. Instead of standing in another’s shoes we want them to stand in ours.

Listening from our point of view We reply in one of three ways. In doing this we make the other person close up. We Judge, we advise and we probe –Judge: while listening to the other person we are making judgments (in the back of our minds) about what they are saying. If we are judging then we aren’t listening. They don’t want to be judged they want to be heard.

Advising Advising: we give advice based one of our experiences. –ex: When I was your age speech Probing: occurs when you try to dig up emotions before people are ready to share them. –Ex: Parents try to do this a lot when they want to know what is going on in your life.

Genuine Listening First listen with your Eyes Then listen with your heart Next listen with your ears –Listening with your ears isn’t enough, only 7% of communication is contained in the words we use. Body language is the greatest with 53% being how we say words, or the tone and the feeling reflected in our voice is 40%. –Think of an you have gotten…

Second, stand in their shoes You must try to see the world as they see it and try to feel as they feel. Third, Practice mirroring: Think like a mirror. What does a mirror do? It doesn’t judge or give advice. It reflects. Disclaimer: If you use mirroring but you don’t really desire to understand others then they will see right through it and feel hurt.

Mirroring Phrases As I get it, you felt that So, as I see it I can see that you’re feeling You feel that So, what you’re saying is »Now we are going to do some Listening in Action –Group up at your tables and have one person talk about a problem they are having. The other person try to mirror them in conversation then switch.

Communication with parents It’s sometimes hard to talk to your parents. You think they don’t understand you or where you are coming from. Try listening to what they are telling you like you were listening to a good friend. They might just know what they are talking about.

Then Seek to Be Understood The first part of Habit 5 is Seek first to understand takes consideration but the 2 nd part of Habit 5 is then seek to be understood which requires courage. –Giving Feedback This takes courage and it is a very important part of seeking to be understood. –Ex: telling someone that their fly is open or they have food in their teeth. When doing this make sure you deliver tenderly.

2 points to keep in mind when giving feedback 1. Ask yourself the question “Will this feedback really help this person or am I doing it just to suit myself and fix them? 2. Send “I” messages instead of “you” messages. You messages are more threatening and sound as if you are labeling them.