How will you know when you’re done seeking to understand, and move on to be understood?
Here’s the rub: when you’ve really understood, you’d have had to build good rapport with the other person to do that. And when you’re in rapport with someone, you’ll know.
It’s helpful to think of a conversation like a dance that flows in cycles, instead of a linear movement that can be divided up into segments and chunks. There’s no real first part where you seek first to understand, then a second part which you work to be understood, then the final part where you both summarize and conclude.
Instead, if you think about it as flow, there’ll be times when this cycle of seeking to understand and seeking to be understood will be moving in and out of each other. While you might be spending more time in one than the other at times, sometimes you’ll be dipping into the other and coming back out again, sometimes in sharp, jerky movements, sometimes in smooth, graceful movements.
Respect the process, go with the flow. Lead with the principle, compassion and good intentions, and let the tools flow from there.
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