The Wisdom and Teachings of Stephen R. Covey

Stephen R. Covey

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781471125973
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Stephen R Covey passed away in July 2012, leaving behind a legacy unmatched in his writings about leadership, time management, effectiveness and success, even love and family. The Wisdom and Teachings of Stephen R Coveyis a compilation of his most profound, inspiring teachings and sayings. Among the topics covered in this book are time management, success, leadership - including principle-centered leadership - all of the 7 Habits, love, and family.

THE
PRINCIPLE
OF
EMPATHY

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, you are 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 need 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?⁷

As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.⁷

At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn’t believe in yourself.⁷

Being influenceable is the key to influencing others.⁷

Don’t be seduced by your own autobiography.²¹

Empathic listening is listening with intent to understand. I mean seeking first to understand, to really understand. Empathic listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.⁷

Empathy enlarges your own thinking. When your spouse or your co-worker or your friend really opens up to you and becomes transparent to you, he injects his views into yours. His truths now belong to you as well.⁵

Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is a form of agreement. Empathy is not agreeing with someone; it is fully, deeply understanding that person, emotionally as well as intellectually.⁷

Fear is a knot of the heart, and to untie these knots is a matter of sincere, genuine, honest, affirming relationship. It is not so much a matter of intellectual understanding at all!⁴

I have made it a regular practice to interview my children. The basic ground rule in this “interview” is that I only listen and try to understand. It is not a time for moralizing, preaching, teaching, or disciplining—there are other times for that—this is a time to merely listen and understand and empathize. Sometimes I want terribly to move in and advise, teach, judge, or sympathize, but I have inwardly determined that during these special visits I will only attempt to understand.⁴

If all the air were suddenly sucked out of the room you’re in right now, what would happen to you? You wouldn’t care about anything except getting air. Survival would be your only motivation. But now that you have air, it doesn’t motivate you. This is one of the greatest insights in the field of human motivations: Satisfied needs do not motivate. It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival—to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated. When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air.⁷

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.⁷

If you prize the relationship you have with the other party in a negotiation, you’ll listen to him actively, reflectively, and empathically. You won’t listen superficially, just waiting for a chance t...