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November 14 CAN'T BELIEVE THAT MY DAD IS LETTING ME TO WRITE AN ESSAY FOR HIS FRIEND... I'M MAD... BUT THE ESSAY IS OKAY~Seek First to Understand and Then to Be Understood.
– The Habit of Empathetic Communication
“Seeking first to understand, diagnosing before you prescribe, is hard...but it's the mark of all true professionals”
--Stephen Covey
Often, people like to give out advices before having empathetically understood a person and their situation, and as a result, these advices usually are rejected. In a working group, however, understanding by others is what everyone most desires for. The book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Coney suggested in the 5th habit to “understand and then to be understood”. This chapter of the book advices that both to understand and be understood is extremely important in a working society.
For every judgment and advice, instead of giving your own opinion, listen to other’s concerns is professed to increase the chance of establishing a better working communication. Covey explained this in his simple analogy “diagnose before you prescribe”. For example, a doctor will always first checks the patient to see what’s wrong, then he ask questions for his own reference, at last he gives the prescription base on his knowledge and past experiences. This process of understanding and advising does not only apply to doctors, but as a metaphor, applies to all other fields of professions and daily life. Hence when other people complains about a problem, do not interfere their speech in the middle, let them finish and try to rephrase their story to make sure you truly understood, and then try to analyze and give advice. This way will best help the relationship in between and the advice will most likely to be accepted.
Another important principle of understanding is the way you listen. According to Covey, when another person is speaking, we usually "listen" at one of four levels: ignoring, pretending, selective listening, or attentive listening. We should be using the fifth, highest form of listening - empathic listening. Empathic listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves the mutual understanding and trust in between. Especially when you genuinely want to get connected. Learn how to listen empathically will help you to accurately interpret the speaker’s message, and therefore it would be easier for you to provide an appropriate respond.
Only understanding others is not enough to create a symphonious community. In fact, the next step is to be understood. From what’s previously discussed about; it takes thoughts to understand others, and here, it takes courage to be understood. According to a public survey, ‘death’ is people’s second fear in life; ‘speaking in public’ is at the top of the rank. Clearly, many people are afraid of talking in public, and especially when giving out a personal opinion. But spreading one’s opinion is essential for them to be understood by others. In many times, the outcome of this fear is why people don’t get to be recognized. So while working in a group, be outgoing and talkative. After you understand your audience, they would be glad to take a chance and understand you, too. So try to stand in their shoes and think what they want to learn about you. And never be afraid of speaking out your own conceptions.
Base on my own personal experiences, both understanding others and allow myself to be understand is not an easy step at first. It was hard for me, as well as many other people, to stay calm and listen while others claim their problems. We always have an assumption of what happened even before recognizing the story, because we’d likely to connect the problem to an own experience. But most times things are different, and people have different perspectives towards every situation. After many conversations with friends, noticing the 5th habit while I listen, I learned that it is essential to allow the speaker to finish their speech, because as I follow down the story, my viewpoint also changes. I too, was once afraid of speaking in public; it made me feel anxious and nervous. Speaking of my own opinion to my colleagues was also hard because I was afraid that I might have a wrong view. But after countless number of practice in public, and getting to know my colleagues, speaking became much easier. As I speak more often and more confident; I found that people start to comprehend me through my words and expressions. I’m glad that I have practiced this principle and allow me to be better connected with others.
By definition, a habit is an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. In a long term of period, practice will make these principles into habits. After mastering the process of understanding others and to be understood, a fare working society will automatically be established. To spread this idea of interdependent communication to other people will help to avoid certain misunderstandings, errors and confusions within the group, and insist the collaboration within family and society. TrackbacksThe trackback URL for this entry is: http://mingocr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!FF69C6412D9F6A36!508.trak Weblogs that reference this entry
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