Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
It is too easy to only partially listen to what someone is saying and then make assumptions. In exploring the fifth of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Traci and Rob discuss how fully listening and approaching a conversation with the ability to be influenced will open understanding for you and those who talk with you.
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Welcome to the Overly Human podcast, where we discuss all things human in the workplace. Because it's not just business—it’s personal too.
Rob:
We live in a time right now, with everything going on here in 2021, where I feel like most people I run into are desperate to be heard, to be listened to, and more deeply to just be understood.
The thing that I see, the common thread, is that so often we're not listening very long. We're listening to the first couple things people say or what they believe and assuming a lot of the other pieces, writing their story for them, and not actually taking the time to hear them, to understand. And then we have this thing that we do where we act like that and then turn around and complain about not being listened to or understood ourselves.
I think that it's really broken and it's really perpetuating itself. I think it's just increasing, and it makes me sad.
Traci:
I know. I'm sad too, listening to you and realizing that is probably the most broken part of humanity today is this lack of listening that hovers over this deep human desire to be known and understood and have identity and have that identity to be understood. That is what we all as humans long for. I mean, after physical safety and security and all of that, the next thing up the ladder is to be known, and psychologically feel safe, and psychologically feel connected, and to be learning and growing.
But this habit that we're dwelling on today and read Seek First to Understand and Then Be Understood was a hard chapter to read because it's just so needed today. And if the whole world, if every human was living out this habit, it's hard not to believe that everything would be different. That so much would be different. But why is this such a hard habit to execute?
Rob:
I think it has to do with lack of empathy and wanting to be understood. It's the same thing that we desire. That the other person desires is to be understood. We want to be understood. So it becomes a talking over each other contest in most conversations. It's hurry up and wait my turn to respond so that I can feel understood and connected, instead of this ability to carry on a conversation for true connection to give the other person what they're looking for first so that they can reciprocate. I think that that's just a huge piece of all this.
Traci:
Yeah, and it's interesting coming off of the last chapter and talking about win-win. And he talked a lot about scarcity mentality versus abundance mentality and how important it was to have a mentality of abundance, that you can win, I can win, that there's enough for everybody, that there's space for all of our thoughts to be wrestled through. And we're living in a society right now where it's not win-win, it's I want to win. My team needs to win. My tribe needs to win. I personally need to win.
I think that's a lot of what's hindering the execution of this habit. People want to be right and they want to win and they want their people to win or their team to win or their company to win, and that scarcity mentality that there can be only one winner really hinders us taking a breath and saying, "You know what? I want to learn. I want to learn about you. I want to learn about your opinion. I have enough confidence and safety in myself to be okay to not speak and to learn about you."
I think it is interesting that we spend years learning how to read, write, and speak. I see that in my kids now. They're in high school and it's just all about that. But they're not taking one class on learning how to listen. And I'm not sure any of their teachers are really talking to them about... I mean, they're told to be quiet when somebody else is speaking, which is good, right?
But he talks about in this chapter a lot of what the listening skills are, right? Are we listening with an intent to really understand what the person is talking? Or are we not listening to them all? Are we pretending to listen? Are we just listening for certain things to figure out if they're on our side or not, or if we agree with them or not? Are we really listening, as you said, with empathy, with this longing to sort of really understand where they're coming from, to know them more, to understand their values, to learn about their history, to see why they may think the way they think?
Or am I just listening with my own history, with my own framework, through my own lens, and then applying that automatically to everything they're saying and deciding whether they're right or wrong. And if I don't agree with them, I start formulating my comeback before they're even done speaking. Right? That's our knee-jerk reaction.
Rob:
That's a really dangerous thing to do because even if we don't necessarily agree, there is so many clues about how they got there and why their perspective is that that we're missing. And it's not listening with intent and listening in a way to understand isn't that you have to agree with somebody, but it is to understand why they're there.
And more importantly, what emotions and feelings are behind that for them, because most people will not come out and say directly, "I feel this way. I've been made feel this way. This is what happened." But they leave clues and are waiting to be heard enough so that they can be vulnerable. And if we don't stop, listen, and understand, and actually empathize with them, then they'll never get to that vulnerability part and we'll miss what the real problem is.
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Traci:
And we miss out on learning. The people I see that have the most difficulty with this are people like us: the entrepreneurs, the owners, the leaders, the people that are kind of at the tip of the arrow and having to solve problems and resolve conflict all day long. They've reached a certain level of success. They're used to operating on a high speed, getting everything done in that New York minute. We tend to have the most problem with this. It's either that we're time-constrained, or we feel like we have to go into every situation ready to solve the problem. But this habit is not about... The goal isn't to resolve conflict, the goal isn't to solve the problem. The goal is just understanding.
So you know my favorite saying, which is be more curious than certain. The reason I use the word curious is because I do think it resonates with entrepreneurs and visionaries more. Because most visionaries are innately curious. They want to learn more. They are kind of trying to imagine what the future might look like.
So they tend to be, especially at young ages, leaders tend to be very curious people. And as we get older, we ask less questions. We're less curious. We have obtained a lot of knowledge and opinions, but we don't realize where the blind spots lie in those, because oftentimes people aren't telling us, especially our staff and our team, for multiple reasons not telling us. So we're just sort of set in this kind of false confidence and we judge out of that, not knowing.
So unless we wake up in the morning and sort of reset our perspective to think and know that we might have some blind spots and maybe we do need to be a bit more curious, and maybe we do need to ask a few more questions, and maybe we need to speak less at meetings and absorb more, it's going to be really hard for us to truly understand 360 situations and people if we don't have that awareness.
Rob:
Yeah, that's absolutely true. And as people, we go through life and accumulate a couple different things. Baggage and wisdom are two of the things that we gather as we go along and do decisions, right? And being able to tell the difference between what your baggage is and what's wisdom that you've actually garnered is the work, right? Because sometimes they look remarkably the same, and your experiences aren't universal and your experiences aren't always applicable to every situation, even if you think they are, but being able to suss out the difference.
And I think you hit on something that is something that I hear a lot from other leaders and other owners is this idea, this common thing of, "My staff doesn't understand. They can't. They don't have my perspective." My general feel on all that is of course they don't, they've never been you. And the cool part is most of us have been them though, right? We're the ones that get jaded a lot of times as leaders and owners because we think we know better, but we don't stop and remember what it was actually like to be in those shoes.
I realize I'm straying a little bit from the definition of empathy is not to be autobiographical about this and not put yourself in somebody else's feet. See, but in some cases, we've actually been there, right And I think we can be proactive, to go back to habit number one, and actually educate our staff about the things that they're missing in some of those pieces, and be opening to hearing about how they feel in their experience with those, right? Because they are different.
This gets back to this idea of if something's broke, it's usually on us, right? That's my general feeling about everything is if something's not the way it should be, then it's probably my responsibility to fix it. I probably caused it in some way, on purpose or not. And if nothing else, it's my job to do something about it. I think that we just miss so much of that by assuming people are ungrateful, they don't understand, but we've not given them any of the tools or any of the pieces around to be understood.
Traci:
Right. And even if... Let's say you don't have the ability to change the situation or tools to give them, or anyway, you've just got to get through the project. Let's just pretend the controllability is not there. It just is what it is. That doesn't mean that your staff still doesn't need the space to vent. Work is hard. Sometimes it's exhausting. Sometimes there's scope creep, and we're overworked, and the client can be difficult because they're under their own pressures, and it's hard. And maybe, maybe just maybe sometimes our team just wants us to hear that they've had a hard day.
So listening with sincerity, right? Literally just sitting there and letting them speak and having an open heart and mind and affirming them where they are is sometimes all they need.
Rob:
That's right.
Traci:
But sometimes as leaders, we're too impatient, we're too in the problem-solving mode, we get frustrated because we can't solve the problem so we start to show our frustration. And then all of a sudden, we're mad at them for venting because we can't solve the problem.
So it's just this weird vicious circle when they don't really even want you to solve the problem. They just want you to know they're in a little bit of pain and know that you care and that you see that they're working hard and that you value them. Because what does this come back to? Right back where we started. What does a human being need for psychological survival? To be understood, affirmed, and appreciated.
So you don't have to solve any problems in that, right? To understand somebody, affirm them and appreciate them, you don't have to do anything but listen and then affirm them. You don't have to solve a single thing. And you will have met a massive human need with your team. So sometimes we just need to take a break and just stop trying to be the leader that solves everything and just be the leader that's willing to sit in the crap with them.
Rob:
Just be a human with them, right?
Traci:
Just be a human. Yeah.
Rob:
Right. What's the old quote that, “People don't quit companies, they quit managers.” Right?
That gets back to the whole thing we were talking about last week of this emotional bank account and making deposits, right? There's very few deposits that can be made that are as large as sitting and listening and just stopping and saying, "Wow, that's really tough. I'm sorry you're going through that. Is there anything I can do to help?"
Traci:
Yeah, exactly. Because people, they leave jobs because the company's messed up. The processes are bad, whatever. The company's going down. Multiple reasons. But they leave managers because they don't feel heard. They leave managers because they don't think they care. They leave managers because they're not supporting them and taking up their causes and fighting for them. So that is separate and distinct of processes and clients and all of that, right?
So if you're leaving a manager, if you're quitting and you have exit interviews... Or if any of your employees leave, I always say take your exit interviews after you've had a chunk of people leave, and highlight the common themes and then tie them to what's missing from management and from the company.
Rob:
Yeah. There's all kinds of good clues in there, right?
Traci:
All kinds of good clues. Yeah.
Rob:
And those are the things that, unfortunately, sometimes that's the best time to get feedback is when that power dynamic that has existed up until that point is no longer in play, right? Is what is that person really feeling and all of that.
I think that those are those moments where we can make things better not for the person who's leaving, but for everybody else on the team, right? That's something that I think that I stress a lot too, to our team and our leaders is when somebody decides their season is over, for whatever reason, our job is to rally and figure out how we're going to take care of everybody that's still in the ship with us, right? To use these moments to learn something to do better for all of these wonderful people that are still with us, right?
Not that we don't want the alumni leaving, the people who are moving on to a new season, for whatever reason, to be super successful and to treat them well. And we've talked a lot about in the past on this podcast about having things end well and all of that, right? Those are all super important. But the lessons we take are for the people that are going to continue on because you better believe that they are talking to each other and whatever they said in that exit survey that is as raw as it was, you better believe they've said at least that, if not something else, to the rest of the team.
Traci:
Yeah. That's why we now do stay interviews, right? We should be asking the same questions we ask at exit interviews to the people that are still working for us to make sure we're meeting their needs, to make sure they're heard, to make sure that they know even if we can't solve the problem, we feel their pain. We feel their pain. And to your point, we've been there. Many of us have been there and have had to go through that.
And sometimes that might not help them. Like with my teenager, I find that teenagers, I find that I'm often saying, "I was a teenager once." You know what? They don't really care. They don't care that I was once a teenager. They just want me to hear that sometimes they've had a bad day and sometimes it sucks. And sometimes they just want to cry. And sometimes they don't want me to solve or talk about how I've been there, but they just want me to sit there and listen to them, and affirm them, and hear them, and really reflect what they're saying. Reflect the feeling back and to let them and show them that I have heard what they've said before I enter into any other posture with them.
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Rob:
And so many times that's, if we're looking to provide advice or guidance, the only way to be able to open up somebody from a technique perspective. And it's not just technique, but talking with people is to be able to make sure they understand they've been heard and that their feelings are being accounted for. That usually makes somebody more receptive to hearing, "Here's what happened to me," or, "Here's what I would do," or, "Here's a way to think about it." Right? Because I believe that most people know what the solutions they're looking for when they're venting. They know what they have in mind already. What they're looking for is permission to express those things and permission to be okay with that, right?
And if you're just getting started with this line of stuff, one of the things I think you can absolutely do is when you get to that point where you think it's time to give advice or to give perspective is to ask permission to give it. Is to sit and look at the other person and be like, "Hey, would you like to hear what I think? Would you like some advice?" Right? Give them the ability to say yes or no, right?
Or even start those conversations. Sometimes I do this with some of my direct reports. It's like, "Hey, is this one of those conversations where you're looking for me to provide solutions, or for me to just listen? Because I'm good either way. Let me know what you're looking for today." Right? And I think we can learn what those things are and pick up on those clues, but if you're bad at this, you can just ask. I've never gotten in trouble for just being like, "Hey, what are you looking for today? I want to be here for you in a way of what you're looking for." Right?
Traci:
Yeah. I think one other thing I'll add, and if you haven't read the book Think Again by Adam Grant, I highly, highly recommend it. It's really, really good. And it's really, really good in today's context of what's going on, not just in the workplace but out in the world, which I know trickles into the workplace often.
But know your triggers, because all of this sounds like it's not that hard to implement in an everyday sort of whatever meeting. But when it's really hard is when you're triggered. When it's really hard is when you're a creative director and somebody is about to give you feedback on a project, or when you've worked really hard on something and the client doesn't like any of it. And you start to feel yourself being triggered. Or you have a very strong belief about something politically or socially, and something is said. And the first sentence out of the person's mouth triggers you.
And instead of having the patience and the mindset to let the person have a second sentence, we start speaking. We start speaking right away. Like, "But I did this because of this. And you're not seeing this. And I chose this because of that. And what about the..." We're all guilty of this. I'm guilty of this. It's really hard when we're triggered.
This is why we're so divided, right? Is because we have decided that some of these things are tied to our identity. So we want to have an identity, right? So at work, it could be that we want to be known as a really great designer or a really great developer, really great leader, really great manager, director. So we hear certain piece of feedback and we get triggered. Or we affiliate with a certain tribe and that tribe is attacked or a belief of that tribe is attacked and we get triggered. Why? Because it's completely tied, probably not properly, to our identity, right.
So I encourage everyone to think about when they have the hardest time executing this skill. When do they shut down? When can't they listen any longer? When do they start speaking immediately? That is when you really need to start practicing the skill. Is understanding the trigger, being able to say, "Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I think that I'm closing myself off. I'm not asking any questions. I have no idea where this person is coming from. We might have more in common than we think. Their feedback might be helpful. Maybe there's something I did miss. Even though they're very junior than me and I'm very senior, maybe they saw something in the project or see something I missed." Can I be open? Can I be open to rethinking to learning something new, or to just simply allow them to say their piece in its entirety and hear them with sincerity, hear them with authenticity, and then move forward?
Rob:
Yeah, and it's that whole piece of understanding, right? Trying to put yourself in a place where you see the world as they see it, and understanding of maybe they were triggered in that moment. Where are they at? Right? What are they bringing to it?
I think that what you're talking about is this basic thing of it's all of these habits have to be practiced and they have to be something that we implement. And implementing them and practicing them when times are most stressful or that you are in a triggered place means that you're doing it under the most difficult circumstances, usually. And you're better off that building these habits and building this as a way of being in times that aren't stressful. Putting yourselves in this place and knowing where you're at, right?
This is that whole thing about emotions that you and I keep talking about is humans are emotional critters, right? We are. We're impacted by our emotions. Emotions are part of the human experience that we have, and they absolutely color things for us. They color our experiences. They color everything. If we try to separate ourselves from our emotions and go to that logical brain place, then we are just ignoring their influence on us and we'll be subject even more to it and not even be aware to it, right?
The only way to move forward is to understand how emotions are impacting us in that moment so that we can then suss out, "Okay, what part of this is going on?" Right? Our emotions are signals to ourselves about how we're feeling, why we're feeling, and what work we still have to do.
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Traci:
Right. And believing wholeheartedly, this is again where the abundance mentality comes, believing wholeheartedly that giving somebody the time and space to speak and for us to listen is not advocating any sort of opportunity for you to win.
He says this in the second part of Seek First to Understand, and Then Be Understood, right? So having faith that giving somebody the space to speak and then for you to understand them doesn't automatically mean that they're going to be the only winner. They get to win. I have to sit here and listen to them. So they're the winner and I'm the loser. No. He still wants us to have a win-win situation, right? So he wants us to have the patience to listen and to truly understand, and then to allow ourselves to also be understood. To put ourselves out there. To say what we're feeling and thinking. Because the ultimate goal is win-win, right?
So we're not saying, "Just go out there and be a doormat. Just go out there and listen to everybody and just walk away." That's not what we're looking for here. We're looking for true, authentic human relationship where each side is valued, listened to, understood. And the other person is more likely to listen to you and to understand you and to hear where you're coming from if they feel like you've heard them. And you're more likely to have a win-win.
Rob:
Yeah, and I think the other thing that really struck me, and I think that it is so important, is to do this authentically, to listen, to understand first you have to leave yourself open to be influenced for your mind to be changed, right?
Traci:
Yes.
Rob:
If you are really listening to understand somebody else, you are going to learn things in that conversation, either about them, the situation, or something you haven't considered yet. And if you're doing it in a way that actually sees them and hears them, then there's a big possibility that your mind may be changed or at least you are open to be influenced by it.
That right there, as I think is what the nut of all this, right? Is if you are really looking to understand somebody else, then you may walk away with radically different ideas or thoughts or opinions about the situation, about the person, or about what the next right step is.
Traci:
Yeah. And even if you don't change your opinion, that's okay, but you'll still have more information. You'll still have learned something and maybe stretched yourself a little bit. So let go of the fear. It's okay. You have nothing to lose. You have a choice to hold on to your opinion or not hold on to your opinion. You have a choice to change your mind, not change your mind.
But just let go of the fear that listening to someone is going to give them control, and you're going to lose control, and everything's going to unwind, and it's not going to be good. That is completely fear-based. It's completely what's keeping us divided. It is what causes conflict in the workplace. Just let go of the fear. Let go of that mentality and really be curious about the people around you, and their opinions, and your own opinions.
Be curious about your own beliefs. Is what I believed when I'm 30 really what I should still be thinking about at 50? Just be curious and wrestle with your own standings, and opinions, and the ways you've led, the way you look at projects. We should always be reevaluating. It doesn't mean we have to change our mind or change the way we operate at work, but it means that we're constantly keeping our finger on the pulse of where we need to grow and where we're doing okay.
Rob:
Yeah. We could either choose to live in a world where people don't change and everybody is finite, which means that things are just constantly going to get worse, or we can choose to live in a world where we feel like growth is possible, that we ourselves can change our opinions, and the things we identified with before may not be the things we identify or understand going into the future. For me, living in that second-world paradigm is the only one that has any hope in it.
Traci:
Yeah. That's true. That is very true.
Rob:
So the choice is easy for me.
Traci:
Yeah. Choose hope.
Rob:
Choose hope. Not a great business plan, but a great way to look at the world through humans.
Traci:
Yes.
Rob:
All right, Traci, what are your takeaways this week?
Traci:
Well, I'm really taking away this whole being influenceable is the key to influencing others. I think that's a great quote.
I think my to-do for myself and for people is when you come out of a meeting or a day when you log off or you go home, ask yourself, "What's the percentage of time I spent talking versus listening? If I had to put a percentage on it in a meeting or in an entire day, how much did I spend talking and how much did I spend listening?"
And then the other question I'd ask is, "What new did I learn today? What did I learn that was new today?" If you say nothing, when you're driving home or you are sitting at the dinner table, then that probably means you didn't ask many questions. I mean, even if you just learned a coworker loves rock climbing, that's something new. That means you probably asked a question or you sat long enough to listen to what they did this weekend, or whatever. But ask if you learned anything new. Every single day.
Rob:
I like that. My big takeaways is one, I'm reminded of one of my favorite things to say in a conversation. This is something that my good friend, Jen Dary, taught me, which is just to simply say, "That's interesting. Say more about that." Right? Give people room, they keep talking. Because oftentimes, they'll whittle their way down to what more is the core, right? It's usually not in the first couple sentences there is... Or the other one is, "Well, how did that make you feel?" Right? Ask the direct question.
It's just reminded me of this worldview that I have is that I always have to allow for the possibility of what I think I'm completely sure of to be wrong. Right? And if I walk through life like that, it does put me in a curious mindset. It allows me to be open to influence, open to listening, opening to understanding, and opening to being a better human tomorrow.
Traci:
I like it.
Rob:
All right. Thanks, Traci.
Traci:
Thank you.
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