(From Handbook For Humans)
At the bottom of appreciation is understanding. Understanding is so important because it forms the kernel, the very basis for appreciation.
The key concept of really trying to understand other people, as opposed to some technique for getting along better with them, didn’t enter my consciousness until I read Stephen Covey’s landmark synthesis, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, in 1989. Then I got it, and it’s made such a difference. The sections on “understanding” and “listening” here are based on my own experience now, but derive any poetry in their ideas from Dr. Covey’s seminal work.
Let’s mention here, too, the psychologist and humanist Carl Rogers, who apparently discovered in the 1950’s the idea of reflective or empathic listening. This remarkable contributor seems also to have been the first to use encounter groups.
Understanding is so vital because it forms the basis of all other things that we do in relation to other people. Without it, we cannot hope to really practice the golden rule towards others, and our relationships cannot really attain the richness and beauty that we’re capable of.
What’s needed is to really look into someone’s being and see what’s beautiful and right about them. When we give someone that gift, they almost can’t help but respond. Most fundamentally, we understand others by seeking to understand them. We love others by seeking to love them.
“Seek and ye shall find,” Jesus said. When seeking to understand another, what are we really doing?
We’re seeking to comprehend what’s important to them.
If we’re trying to rebuild a relationship with our son or daughter, say, and they’re into the internet right now, it’s not going to do much good to take them to the theater because we’re interested in Shakespeare.
Instead, we can look at them carefully enough to see what’s important to them. We might show them a new website we found, or share creating a family home page with them, or go with them to an internet tradeshow. Again, what we’re really doing, in Stephen Covey’s masterful phrase, is making what’s important to the other person important to us.
I love to give good examples about people I’ve learned from. Once I heard Tony Robbins describe what he did on his wedding anniversary. His wife, he knew, loved anything that was romantic and exotic. So on that day they took a stroll along the beach together at sunset. As they walked they started hearing, from the cliffs above, sounds of drums. They took a path up the cliff to see what was going on. At the top they found a table set for dinner, with a band suddenly playing romantic music, and a waiter ready to take their order!
He made what was important to her important to him.
In order to best understand the details of understanding and appreciation, let’s first look at an interesting metaphor that serves as a very good thermometer in measuring the state of our relationships with others.
© 1997 by James Sloman
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