Habit 5 – Seek 1st to Understand, Then to be Understood
One of the great maxims of the modern age, this is Covey's habit of communication, and it's extremely powerful. Covey helps to explain this in his simple analogy “diagnose before you prescribe”, which is simple, effective, and essential for developing and maintaining positive relationships in all aspects.
Habit 5 is about communication and listening to the customer—in this case operations, employees, and management.
What do they mean when they say no? In presentations, I’ve often used the story of a supervisor who refused to let a maintenance department have a piece of equipment for as long as they asked.
What did the supervisor really mean when he said they couldn’t have the equipment for eight hours? Did he mean that if maintenance had the equipment for eight hours he wouldn’t make his production for the month? Did he mean he didn’t believe the equipment wouldn’t be down longer? Maybe he felt that if it was down eight hours he’d have to go over his overtime targets for the month. But, did he mean he’d rather have the job done partially or incorrectly? It’s possible that any or all of the first three may be true, but it’s highly unlikely that he’d want the job done partially or incorrectly only to have it fail again later, especially if that meant he wouldn’t make his targets under any possible recovery plan. Until we know what exactly his concerns are, how do we know how to find the win-win in that situation?
In dealing with any party, a highly effective maintenance organization should seek to find out what the concerns of the party are before formulating a response.
“If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me, you first need to understand me” – Steven Covey
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