Stephen Covey
Stephen Covey
Stephen Richards Coveywas an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSelf-Help Author
Date of Birth24 October 1932
CitySalt Lake City, UT
CountryUnited States of America
When trust is high, the dividend you receive is like a performance multiplier, elevating and improving every dimension of your organization and your life.... In a company, high trust materially improves communication, collaboration, execution, innovation, strategy, engagement, partnering, and relationships with all stakeholders.
Empathic listening is so powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with. Instead of projecting your own autobiography and assuming thoughts, feelings, motives and interpretation, you're dealing with the reality inside another person's head and heart. You're listening to understand. You're focused on receiving the deep communication of another human soul.
Effective communication is built on the cement of trust. And trust is based on trustworthiness, not politics.
Communication is the most important single activity of man.
We must seek to understand the intent of communication without prejudging or rejecting the content... Communication, after all, is not so much a matter of intellect as it is of trust and acceptance of others, of their ideas and feelings, acceptance of the fact that they're different, and that from their point of view, they are right.
Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours communicating. But consider this: You've spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak. But what about listening?
Employees are given the chance to help shape their company by participating in a company-wide communications program making suggestions on waste reduction, environmental improvement, customer satisfaction, quality improvement, and safety issues.
When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.
When we listen with the intent to understand others, rather than with the intent to reply, we begin true communication and relationship building. Opportunities to then speak openly and to be understood come much more naturally and easily.
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. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.
Only as we keep an open communication with our deep inner life will we have the wisdom to make effective choices.
...people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well.
In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.
Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.