Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey (36 page)

I had an acquaintance who was very frustrated because his boss was locked into what he felt was an unproductive leadership style.

"Why doesn't he do anything?" he asked me. "I've talked to him about it, he's aware of it, but he does nothing."

"Well, why don't you make an effective presentation?" I asked.

"I did," was the reply.

"How do you define 'effective'? Who do they send back to school when the salesman doesn't sell --

the buyer? Effective means it works; it means P/PC. Did you create the change you wanted? Did you build the relationship in the process? What were the results of your presentation?"

"I told you, he didn't do anything. He wouldn't listen."

"Then make an effective presentation. You've got to empathize with his head. You've got to get into his frame of mind. You're got to make your point simply and visually and describe the alternative he is in favor of better than he can himself. That will take some homework. Are you willing to do that?"

"Why do I have to go through all that?" he asked

"In other words, you want him to change his whole leadership style and you're not willing to change your method of presentation?"

"I guess so," he replied.

"Well, then," I said, "just smile about it and learn to live with it."

"I can't live with it," he said. "It compromises my integrity."

"Okay, then get to work on an effective presentation. That's in your Circle of Influence."

In the end, he wouldn't do it. The investment seemed too great.

Another acquaintance, a university professor, was willing to pay the price. He approached me one day and said, "Stephen, I can't get to first base in getting the funding I need for my research because my research is really not in the mainstream of this department's interests."

After discussing his situation at some length, I suggested that he develop an effective presentation using ethos, pathos, and logos. "I know you're sincere and the research you want to do would bring great benefits. Describe the alternative they are in favor of better than they can themselves. Show that you understand them in depth. Then carefully explain the logic behind your request."

"Well, I'll try," he said.

"Do you want to practice with me?" I asked. He was willing, and so we dress rehearsed his approach.

When he went in to make his presentation, he started by saying, "Now let me see if I first understand what your objectives are, and what your concerns are about this presentation and my recommendation."

He took the time to do it slowly, gradually. In the middle of his presentation, demonstrating his depth of understanding and respect for their point of view, a senior professor turned to another professor, nodded, turned back to him and said, "You've got your money."

When you can present your own ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most important, contextually -- in the context of a deep understanding of their paradigms and concerns -- you significantly increase the credibility of your ideas.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart
You're not wrapped up in your "own thing," delivering grandiose rhetoric from a soapbox. You really understand. What you're presenting may even be different from what you had originally thought because in your effort to understand, you learned.

Habit 5 lifts you to greater accuracy, greater integrity, in your presentations. And people know that. They know you're presenting the ideas which you genuinely believe, taking all known facts and perceptions into consideration, that will benefit everyone.

One-on-One

Habit 5 is powerful because it is right in the middle of your Circle of Influence. Many factors in interdependent situations are in your Circle of Concern -- problems, disagreements, circumstances, other people's behavior. And if you focus your energies out there, you deplete them with little positive results.

But you can always seek first to understand. That's something that's within your control. And as you do that, as you focus on your Circle of Influence, you really, deeply understand other people. You have accurate information to work with, you get to the heart of matters quickly, you build Emotional Bank Accounts, and you give people the psychological air they need so you can work together effectively.

It's the Inside-Out approach. And as you do it, watch what happens to your Circle of Influence.

Because you really listen, you become influenceable. And being influenceable is the key to influencing others. Your circle begins to expand. You increase your ability to influence many of the things in your Circle of Concern.

And watch what happens to you. The more deeply you understand other people, the more you will appreciate them, the more reverent you will feel about them. To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.

Habit 5 is something you can practice right now. The next time you communicate with anyone, you can put aside your own autobiography and genuinely seek to understand. Even when people don't want to open up about their problems, you can be empathic. You can sense their hearts, you can sense the hurt, and you can respond, "You seem down today." They may say nothing. That's all right.

You've shown understanding and respect.

Don't push; be patient; be respectful. People don't have to open up verbally before you can empathize. You can empathize all the time with their behavior. You can be discerning, sensitive, and aware and you can live outside your autobiography when that is needed.

And if you're highly proactive, you can create opportunities to do preventive work. You don't have to wait until your son or daughter has a problem with school or you have your next business negotiation to seek first to understand.

Spend time with your children now, one-on-one. Listen to them; understand them. Look at your home, at school life, at the challenges and the problems they're facing, through their eyes. Build the Emotional Bank Account. Give them air.

Go out with your spouse on a regular basis. Have dinner or do something together you both enjoy.

Listen to each other; seek to understand. See life through each other's eyes.

My daily time with Sandra is something I wouldn't trade for anything. As well as seeking to understand each other, we often take time to actually practice empathic listening skills to help us in communicating with our children.

We often share our different perceptions of the situation, and we role-play more effective approaches to difficult interpersonal family problems.

I may act as if I am a son or daughter requesting a special privilege even though I haven't fulfilled a basic family responsibility, and Sandra plays herself

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.

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

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart
I take as my guide the hope of a saint

in crucial things, unity --

in important things, diversity --

in all things, generosity

-- Inaugural Address of President George Bus

* *

When Sir Winston Churchill was called to head up the war effort for Great Britain, he remarked that all his life had prepared him for this hour. In a similar sense, the exercise of all of the other habits prepares us for the habit of synergy.

When properly understood, synergy is the highest activity in all life -- the true test and manifestation of all the other habits put together.

The highest forms of synergy focus the four unique human endowments, the motive of win-win, and the skills of empathic communication on the toughest challenges we face in life. What results is almost miraculous. We create new alternatives -- something that wasn't there before.

Synergy is the essence of Principle-Centered Leadership. It is the essence of principle-centered parenting. It catalyzes, unifies, and unleashes the greatest powers within people. All the habits we have covered prepare us to create the miracle of synergy.

What is synergy? Simply defined, it means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It means that the relationship which the parts have to each other is a part in and of itself. It is not only a part, but the most catalytic, the most empowering, the most unifying, and the most exciting part.

The creative process is also the most terrifying part because you don't know exactly what's going to happen or where it is going to lead. You don't know what new dangers and challenges you'll find. It takes an enormous amount of internal security to begin with the spirit of adventure, the spirit of discovery, the spirit of creativity. Without doubt, you have to leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown wilderness. You become a trailblazer, a pathfinder. You open new possibilities, new territories, new continents, so that others can follow.

Synergy is everywhere in nature. If you plant two plants close together, the roots commingle and improve the quality of the soil so that both plants will grow better than if they were separated. If you put two pieces of wood together, they will hold much more than the total of the weight held by each separately. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three or more.

The challenge is to apply the principles of creative cooperation, which we learn from nature, in our social interactions. Family life provides many opportunities to observe synergy and to practice it.

The very way that man and a woman bring a child into the world is synergistic. The essence of synergy is to value differences -- to respect them, to build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses.

We obviously value the physical differences between men and women, husbands and wives. But what about the social, mental, and emotional differences? Could these differences not also be sources of creating new exciting forms of life -- creating an environment that is truly fulfilling for each person, that nurtures the self-esteem and self-worth to each, that creates opportunities for each to mature into independence and then gradually into interdependence? Could synergy not create a new script for the next generation -- one that is more geared to service and contribution, and is less protective, less adversarial, less selfish; one that is more open, more giving, and is less defensive, protective, and political; one that is more loving, more caring, and is less possessive and judgmental?