I was watching The Apprentice (a replay) the other night. This habit is about wanting to experience something new from the other person, wanting to discover a new way of seeing the world, wanting to truly stand in the other’s shoes and feel their unique pain and their unique joy. "Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood" is Habit #5 from the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People from Steven Covey.
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We take pride in working with our clients to help them to develop their businesses, giving them tailored sales, marketing and technical training and advice.įor information on face-to-face training sessions for your team, sales tips, articles and videos, visit the Academy home page: many times have you start talking or giving your opinions before the other persons finish their talks? How many times have you start to tell people your points when you should in fact listen and understand what others are trying to tell you? You’re reading an article from the Borg & Overström Academy programme.īorg & Overström are a manufacturer and trade-only supplier of top quality, beautiful water systems. Start your speech by talking about them, and how you understand their problems. Next time you have to speak to an audience (even if it’s only one other person) make it empathic. Next time you’re watching people have a conversation, have a good look at what emotions are showing up that aren’t expressed in the words themselves.Įmpathy is effectively ‘walking a mile in someone else’s shoes’. There’s often a huge imbalance between what someone actually says, and what they really mean. Most people are hugely expressive when talking and it’s easy to miss the hidden meaning. Here’s a couple of steps to get you started: Once you’ve mastered the art of listening empathically, you stand a far greater chance of being understood and thus building an effective relationship. In other words, we don’t just seek to understand their exact words but also the hidden meaning, or their emotions behind what they are saying. This requires ‘empathic listening…that inspires openness and trust’. He says that we should ‘listen with the intent to understand’.
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Then you can expect to be understood.Ĭovey isn’t saying that you should interrogate or grill a customer apprentice-style. And the only way to do that is to ask questions so that you can understand the situation. The moral of this story is: don’t try to prescribe a solution before you’ve diagnosed the problem. If the salesman asked questions to fully understand the prospect, he’d have been able to tailor his pitch to the customer to sell him an alternative option for wooden floors. The prospect, understandably, makes a hasty exit. He hasn’t given the prospect a chance to speak and if he had he’d have realised that they have wood floor all through the house, so a conventional carpet cleaner would have been no use.
#SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND FULL#
He meets a prospect and begins his sales pitch at full velocity. Picture the classic negatively stereotyped carpet cleaner salesman.
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Use them in that proportion.”Įmpathic listening and understanding is an important skill it doesn’t necessarily come naturally, so you’ll need to concentrate and control yourself to master it. It goes back to the favourite adage of sales trainers – “You have two ears and one mouth. Habit five is based on the simple fact that you can’t expect to have a reasonable, informed conversation, transaction or relationship until you have fully understood the other party. “Seeking to understand requires consideration seeking to be understood takes courage.”
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The fifth Habit of highly effective salespeople: Seek first to understand, then to be understood!