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[5 out of 5 stars]
Is it time for a filter change?
July 18, 2009 
By Monty Rainey (New Braunfels, TX), TOP 500 REVIEWER
 
There are plenty of business books available out there to help us better understand the behavior of others. The problem I have found with most of them is that they are written from the perspective of the clinical psycologist, not from the persective of the business leader, rendering them of little or limited value. No so with UNDERSTANDING OTHER PEOPLE: THE FIVE SECRETS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR, by Beverly Flaxington.
 
The book begins by examining the many built in filters we use to view the world. Our filters don't necessarily make us right or wrong, they simply determine our viewpoint. One person may be devastated by the death of Michael Jackson. The next person may view it as, "One less pedophile in the world." One person may view Barack Obama as the Messiah, the next person may view him as the anti-Christ. These are just the filters each person sees things with.
 
Flaxington teaches us that by being aware of our filters, we are more cognizant of the fact that we are not necessarily right or wrong, we're just us. This concept leads us to understanding the principle of "It's all about me." The author cogently explains this simple truth by asking the reader to consider a time when we went out of our way to help someone, supposedly out of our own goodness, only to be offended when the recipient failed to "according to our filters" properly thank us.
 
The book continues in subsequent chapters to explain how these filters create difficulties in relationships, work environments and every day life with those around us. The concept being, by more clearly understanding why we, and those we interact with, react the way we do, we will begin to find ways to work towards what Dr. Stephen Covey calls, "Win-win, or no deal" and "seek first to understand, then to be understood."