In his "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", Stephen Covey listed "Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood" as Habit #5.
A few lines from his book;
"Seek first to be understand involves a very deep shift in paradigm. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives."
"Emphatic listening is, in and of itself, a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account. It's deeply therapeutic and healing because it gives a person "psychological air". If all the air were suddenly sucked out of the room you're in right now, what would happen to your interest in this book? You wouldn't care about the book; You wouldn't care about anything except getting air. Survival would be your only motivation."
"When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air"
Are you giving someone else "psychological air" today?
Or are you sucking out their psychological air?
Can you hear the inner cry of these people?
"Listen.Please.Just listen."
"Shut up.I don't need you to tell me what you think. I don't want to know. Can you please listen?"
"LISTEN!"
Are these cries reaching you?
2 comments:
you know, this thing just suddenly strikes me. today.
i need to learn how to be more patient when dealing with people. ive been 'speaking' too much, not giving a chance for people to speak. im never a good listener.
need to make patience one of my virtues. havent got any yet. sigh.
LISTEN. SIGH.
really man. its hard. i really need to learn that.
C H A
Aren't we just all great minds? CHA nice to meet you.
Had to read a book for Bus 004, and 10 pages on Listening is all I got out of it. Even used it for my election last night.
It got me thinking quite a bit. "We listen with the intent to talk back." Damn, how true is that!! We are always quick to retort, adding our needless two cents. Even if we are not retorting, we are rating others' comments internally. We are not listening for the purpose of just listening to others. Sigh~~~
Note to self: listening beats talking always...
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