"Seek first to understand, then to be understood."
That’s some very famous advice given by an author who has some truly brilliant tenets in his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People…Steven Covey. However, to what level do you need to understand your people?
Stick with me here….When I say level of understanding, I mean do you need to get to where you truly understand in great detail to the point of fully assimilating a reason for a person’s needs? For instance, referencing yesterday's "Cable Bill" post, what if I had not heard the undertone comment...yet the group still insisted that the $40 change was important. Would I have been flexible if I didn't understand the driver?
Sometimes, leaders have to understand that the driver is what their people want...period...even if they don't understand the why behind it, and it may even conflict with their own logic. That doesn't mean applying no analytics or senior-level judgment to a decision, or giving everyone everything all the time. It means making your "understanding" of something perhaps a bit more uncomfortable and nebulous to your own frame of reference!
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