Page 133 - stephen covey The seven habits of highly effective people

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart

We interact back and forth and try to visualize the situation in a very real way so that we can train
ourselves to be consistent in modeling and teaching correct principles to our children. Some of our
most helpful role-plays come from redoing a past difficult or stressful scene in which one of us "blew it."
The time you invest to deeply understand the people you love brings tremendous dividends in open
communication. Many of the problems that plague families and marriages simply don't have time to
fester and develop. The communication becomes so open that potential problems can be nipped in the
bud. And there are great reserves of trust in the Emotional Bank Account to handle the problems that
do arise.
In business, you can set up one-on-one time with your employees. Listen to them, understand
them. Set up human resource accounting or Stakeholder Information Systems in your business to get
honest, accurate feedback at every level: from customers, suppliers, and employees. Make the
human element as important as the financial or the technical element. You save tremendous amounts
of time, energy, and money when you tap into the human resources of a business at every level. When
you listen, you learn. And you also give the people who work for you and with you psychological air.
You inspire loyalty that goes well beyond the eight-to-five physical demands of the job.
Seek first to understand. Before the problems come up, before you try to evaluate and prescribe,
before you try to present your own ideas -- seek to understand. It's a powerful habit of effective
interdependence.
When we really, deeply understand each other, we open the door to creative solutions and Third
Alternatives. Our differences are no longer stumbling blocks to communication and progress.
Instead, they become the stepping stones to synergy.

Application Suggestions

1. Select a relationship in which you sense the Emotional Bank Account is in the red. Try to
understand and write down the situation from the other person's point of view. In your next
interaction, listen for understanding, comparing what you are hearing with what you wrote down.
How valid were your assumptions? Did you really understand that individual's perspective.
2. Share the concept of empathy with someone close to you. Tell him or her you want to work on
really listening to others and ask for feedback in a week. How did you do? How did it make that
person feel.
3. The next time you have an opportunity to watch people communicate, cover your ears for a few
minutes and just watch. What emotions are being communicated that may not come across in words
alone.
4. Next time you catch yourself inappropriately using one of the autobiographical responses --
probing, evaluating, advising, or interpreting -- try to turn the situation into a deposit by
acknowledgment and apology. ("I'm sorry, I just realized I'm not really trying to understand. Could
we start again?")
5. Base your next presentation on empathy. Describe the other point of view as well as or better
than its proponents; then seek to have your point understood from their frame of reference.

Habit 6: Synergize TM

Principles of Creative Cooperation