7.2 The listening process
Habit five in Covey's 'Seven habits for highly effective people' is:
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Covey suggests that 'seek first to understand' can be difficult as most people seek first to be understood.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak...
When another person speaks, we're usually 'listening' at one of four levels. We may be ignoring another person, or not really listening at all. We may practise pretending . 'Yeah. Uh-huh. Right'. We may practice selective listening , hearing only certain parts of the conversation... Or we may even practice attentive listening , paying attention and focusing energy on the words that are being said. But very few of us ever practise the fifth level, the highest form of listening, empathic listening ...listening with intent to understand. (Covey 1997, pp.239-240)
Seeking first to understand and attentive and empathic listening require a high level of concentration and commitment to the communication process.
Read through Reading 7.2.Consider also all the cognitive components of listening in Figure 4.2, page 77 of the textbook. The process of effective listening, therefore, requires active participation and an ability to use an appropriate listening approach in the communication interaction in order to understand the other person's message before seeking to be understood.
The next section works through the four listening approaches suggested in your textbook.
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