7 Habits | #5: Understand, Then Be Understood
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Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood asks a lot of you as a creator, but it is essential for all successful interactions between you and anyone engaging with your work. Simply put, an effective writer must listen to feedback. Habit 5, when practiced well, will teach you how to distinguish between valuable critique and what can be put aside. If you’re set on putting your work into the world, being able to handle critique is a nonnegotiable skill.
What is an effective writer?
In each of these articles on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Writers, I think it’s valuable to keep reminding ourselves of the goal. What does it mean to be effective? Here’s our working definition: An effective writer knows why they do what they do and understands how their process will get them where they want to go. All of the habits we’ve talked about so far are essential in building your effectiveness. That said, putting Habit 5 into practice will give you a deep understanding of the why and how that drives you because opening yourself up to feedback helps you refine those two core components.
The public habits build on each other
As with the private habits, the public habits support each other. Without the support of Habit 4: Think Win/Win, Habit 5 is impossible to implement. Likewise, none of the public habits can be practiced well without the private habits giving them intent and structure.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
As an author, you’ve spent years learning how to communicate through reading and writing. But there isn’t a whole lot of training for listening. Authors are a bit more inclined to be better at this, but when it comes to getting feedback on your own work? How tempting is it to shut that thing down? You immediately want to explain why the reader didn’t understand. You get frustrated that they didn’t recognize your genius when they saw it. As Stephen Covey says, “It’s hard to listen when you know you’re right.”
Listening to feedback vs. using feedback
I argue an effective writer must learn to listen to all critique, regardless of where it’s coming from. The key here is not that you must use all critique. The point of Habit 5 is that you understand the perspective of the person giving it to you. When you do that, you open the door to creative solutions and other alternatives. Remember the win/win mindset from Habit 4.
How to understand
Readers, like all people, are full of vast experiences—what happened this morning, what books they’ve read, what conversations they had last year, and so on. When they come to your book, they are bringing all of that with them, and this means they are bringing their own perspective to the words on the page. What might seem clear and obvious to you might be like a whole other language to a reader. Understanding begins when you’re able to recognize that a reader sees differently than you do and that perspective is valuable to you. Let’s look at specific ways to put this into practice.
1. Listen
Listening, though it should largely be done with your mouth closed, can involve some question asking. You can also ask questions of yourself to slow your own thoughts and be present as a critique partner, friend, or editor responds to your work. To start, ask yourself this:
What led this person to give me this critique or advice?
Are there specific elements of the writing that stood out to them? Do they feel it’s getting in the way of their experience of reading? As you listen, pay attention to the words the person is using. Try not to work on a counterargument in your head as you might miss crucial information.
2. Understand
After you’ve listened, consider what you’ve heard. At this step, however, consider the other person in the context of their feedback. Ask yourself these questions:
Where is this person coming from? What values or experience might they be using to give me this feedback?
Put another way, does the person giving you critique think about writing the same way you do, what it’s for or what it can do? On an even more basic level, have they written a book, and if so, is it in your same genre? Do they have knowledge or experience you don’t? Even if the person giving you feedback is not a reader, much less a writer, you might still gain insight from their perspective.
3. Reflect
Next, take time to reflect on the feedback itself. If you’ve done the work of the other habits, this step will be easier for you. The question you should ask now is this:
Does this feedback resonate with my values and goals?
If you know why you do what you do and how what you do will get you where you want to go (per our definition above), you’ll be able to sense whether the critique you’re receiving can help you. For example, if someone thinks your friendship story should be a romance but you’re adamant about writing a book that demonstrates the power of platonic relationships, that feedback will not support your goal.
How to be understood
Only after you’ve gone through the steps above can you begin the task of being understood. As you can see, this will take some time, and this is good! Slowing down will allow you to respond thoughtfully and graciously to all kinds of feedback instead of becoming defensive. The important part is that now you are responding to the specific and whole person in front of you. This means that you can ask better questions, address any gaps in knowledge or experience (on their side or yours), and collaborate.
Start a conversation
When you respond to feedback, it can be helpful to summarize what you’re hearing the other person say. If they agree with your summary, then you can be sure you’re reacting to their idea directly. If you’ve misunderstood what they’ve told you, you’re giving them an opportunity to explain again, which results in feedback that’s more helpful to you. This can also open a good conversation between you, and you can begin to explain the decisions and choices behind what you put on the page.
Incorporating feedback
Once you have considered the questions above, you can evaluate the critique you’ve gotten and decide whether or not to implement it. Again, you should listen to all feedback, but you don’t have to use it. Not everyone is your ideal reader, but they all offer you a different perspective, a new lens through which to see your writing. As a result, your own perception of your work will expand.
Habit 4 makes you flexible
The good news is that you have many opportunities to put this habit into practice. If you’re serious about growing in your craft, you should regularly be putting your work in front of others. As you do, you’ll inevitably find that your ideas don’t always translate for everyone. On the other hand, you might find that you had strengths you weren’t aware of. Critique groups, beta readers, well-meaning family members—all these readers can give you fresh eyes on your work (even if those eyes don’t like what they see). Regularly return to your private habits, and you’ll have no trouble weathering feedback of all kinds.
If you’re interested in additional practices that can help you navigate feedback, check out How to Deal with Critique: 4 Truths and 4 Tips for Writers.
Habit 4 and editors
As writers ourselves, your two editors here at Ground Crew are keenly aware of how tough (if not physically painful) it can be to feel like a reader has misunderstood what you’ve written. Because of this, we do our best to provide feedback that’s not only practical and balanced with positives and strengths but it’s also something you’re actually excited to use in your manuscript. We’re not here to make your book into what we think it should be and not even what trends say it should be. It’s our mission to provide support that aligns with your visions and values.
Thanks to Felipe Belluco on Unsplash for the photo in this post!
