It is no secret that I am a fan of Steven Covey's book 'The 7 habits of highly effective people'. I find there is a lot of very useful stuff in there. One of the things that really struck me, is his description of the importance of listening in order to understand - truly understand - someone else, both emotionally and intellectually. This also has been described elsewhere as affective and cognitive empathy.

Covey uses the analogy 'diagnose before you prescribe', and as a doctor that really makes sense to me. We've learned to take a history, then examine, come up with differential diagnoses, conduct further testing as necessary, before lastly prescribing and treating. Jumping to conclusions too quickly can have disastrous effects in medicine, and the same goes for communication. If we assume we know what the other person really means, when actually we don't, at best we run the risk of leaving the person feeling misunderstood. And worse, possibly create an opening for further misunderstandings and mistakes. Lastly, it is a missed opportunity to truly connect, and perhaps a missed opportunity to come up with a 'prescription' that both parties can live with, metaphorically speaking.

So, I dare you to imagine what could happen if we all spoke a little less, and listened a little more intently, and with a little more heart...