The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

PRINCIPLES OF EMPATHIC COMMUNICATION

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.

PASCAL

Suppose you’ve been having trouble with your eyes and you decide to go to an optometrist for

help. After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you.

“Put these on,” he says. “I’ve worn this pair of glasses for ten years now and they’ve really

helped me. I have an extra pair at home; you can wear these.”

So you put them on, but it only makes the problem worse.

“This is terrible!” you exclaim. “I can’t see a thing!”

“Well, what’s wrong?” he asks. “They work great for me. Try harder.”

“I am trying,” you insist. “Everything is a blur.”

“Well, what’s the matter with you? Think positively.”

“Okay. I positively can’t see a thing.”

“Boy, are you ungrateful!” he chides. “And after all I’ve done to help you!”

What are the chances you’d go back to that optometrist the next time you needed help? Not

very good, I would imagine. You don’t have much confidence in someone who doesn’t diagnose

before he or she prescribes.

But how often do we diagnose before we prescribe in communication?

***

“Come on, honey, tell me how you feel. I know it’s hard, but I’ll try to understand.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mom. You’d think it was stupid.”

“Of course I wouldn’t! You can tell me. Honey, no one cares for you as much as I do. I’m

only interested in your welfare. What’s making you so unhappy?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Come on, honey. What is it?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I just don’t like school anymore.”

“What?” you respond incredulously. “What do you mean you don’t like school? And after all

the sacrifices we’ve made for your education! Education is the foundation of your future. If

you’d apply yourself like your older sister does, you’d do better and then you’d like school. Time

and time again, we’ve told you to settle down. You’ve got the ability, but you just don’t apply

yourself. Try harder. Get a positive attitude about it.”

Pause.

“Now go ahead. Tell me how you feel.”

***

We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take

the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.

If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in

the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be

understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.

CHARACTER AND COMMUNICATION

Right now, you’re reading a book I’ve written. Reading and writing are both forms of

communication. So are speaking and listening. In fact, those are the four basic types of

communication. And think of all the hours you spend doing at least one of those four things. The

ability to do them well is absolutely critical to your effectiveness.

Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours

communicating. But consider this: You’ve spent years learning how to read and write, years

learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training or education have you had that

enables you to listen so that you really, deeply understand another human being from that

individual’s own frame of reference?

Comparatively few people have had any training in listening at all. And, for the most part,

their training has been in the Personality Ethic of technique, truncated from the character base

and the relationship base absolutely vital to authentic understanding of another person.

If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me—your spouse, your child, your

neighbor, your boss, your coworker, your friend—you first need to understand me. And you

can’t do that with technique alone. If I sense you’re using some technique, I sense duplicity,

manipulation. I wonder why you’re doing it, what your motives are. And I don’t feel safe enough

to open myself up to you.

The real key to your influence with me is your example, your actual conduct. Your example

flows naturally out of your character, or the kind of person you truly are—not what others say

you are or what you may want me to think you are. It is evident in how I actually experience you.

Your character is constantly radiating, communicating. From it, in the long run, I come to

instinctively trust or distrust you and your efforts with me.

If your life runs hot and cold, if you’re both caustic and kind, and, above all, if your private

performance doesn’t square with your public performance, it’s very hard for me to open up with

you. Then, as much as I may want and even need to receive your love and influence, I don’t feel

safe enough to expose my opinions and experiences and my tender feelings. Who knows what

will happen?

But unless I open up with you, unless you understand me and my unique situation and

feelings, you won’t know how to advise or counsel me. What you say is good and fine, but it

doesn’t quite pertain to me.

You may say you care about and appreciate me. I desperately want to believe that. But how

can you appreciate me when you don’t even understand me? All I have are your words, and I

can’t trust words.

I’m too angry and defensive—perhaps too guilty and afraid—to be influenced, even though

inside I know I need what you could tell me.

Unless you’re influenced by my uniqueness, I’m not going to be influenced by your advice.

So if you want to be really effective in the habit of interpersonal communication, you cannot do

it with technique alone. You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character

that inspires openness and trust. And you have to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that create

a commerce between hearts.