How to Coach Yourself and Others From Dependency to Inter Dependency

5. Seek first to understand, Then to be understood This principle is the key to effective personal communication. Communication is the most important skill in life. The ability to communicate well is absolutely critical to your effectiveness. The key to influence people is not in using some technique to listen and understand them, but is your actual conduct, your example. These flow naturally out of your character and show me the person you truly are, not what others say you are or what you may want me to think you are. Unless I’m influenced by your uniqueness, I’m not going to be influenced by your advice. The moment you start using techniques, I sense duplicity, manipulation, I will start wondering what your real motives are and won’t feel safe enough to open myself up to you. EMPATHIC LISTENING Most people do not listen with the intend 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: “Ohh, I know exactly how you feel! I went through the same thing. Let me tell you about MY experience!” All too often we look into our own head and think we see the world. Our conversations become alternating collective monologues, and we never really understand what’s going on inside another human being. When another person speaks, we’re usually “listening” at one of four levels: 1. 2. 3. 4. We may be ignoring what’s being said : not really listening at all We may pretend we’re listening: “yeah, uh-huh, right …” We may practice selective listening, hearing only certain parts of what is being said We may listen attentively, paying attention to the words that are being said. DIAGNOSE BEFORE YOU PRESCRIBE But very few ever reach the fifth and highest level of listening: empathic listening. Empathic listening has little to do with sympathizing, it does not require that we agree with what is being said, but it does require that we put ourselves in the other person’s place, look at things the way they see them, understand their paradigm, deeply and fully understand how they feel, both emotionally and intellectually.

How to Coach Yourself and Others From Dependency to Inter Dependency | Page 18