By Bruna Martinuzzi
A few weeks ago, I came across a bumper sticker that said: “I am not good at empathy. Will you settle for sarcasm?” The humor in the bumper sticker led me to think of the slight unease or self-conscious discomfort that many people feel when a term such as “empathy” is introduced in a business environment. Notions of “touchy-feely”, spring to mind.
While empathy is a right brain activity, it is far from being a touchy-feely topic. At its core, empathy is the oil that keeps relationships running smoothly. The fact that empathy is an important component of effective relationships was proven neurologically. In an essay by Dr. Daniel Goleman in “The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace: How to Select For, Measure, and Improve Emotional Intelligence in Individuals, Groups, and Organizations”, we learn that medical patients with lesions in the prefrontal-amygdala circuits that support both Self-Management (a component of emotional intelligence) and Empathy, show significant deficits in relationship skills, even though their cognitive abilities remain intact. The full study, conducted by Dr. Antonio Damasio is outlined in his book: “Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.”
Indeed, empathy is valued currency. It allows us to create bonds of trust, it gives us insights into what others may be feeling or thinking; it helps us understand how or why others are reacting to situations, it sharpens our people acumen and informs our decisions.
A formal definition of Empathy is the ability to identify and understand another’s situation, feelings and motives. It’s our capacity to recognize the concerns other people have. The metaphor language for empathy includes “putting yourself in the other person’s shoes” or “seeing things through someone else’s eyes”.
There are numerous studies that link empathy to business results. They include studies that correlate empathy with increased sales, with the performance of best managers of product development teams and with enhanced performance in an increasingly diverse workforce. A few of these studies can be viewed on the site of The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations.
Yes, increasingly, the topic of empathy is encroaching in the business world. We are now even seeing terms such as “empathy marketing” and “empathy selling”. Not long ago, I came across the term “user empathy”, which may or may not refer to user interface.
Along those lines, in his book, A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, Daniel Pink predicts that power will reside with those who have strong right-brain qualities. There are three forces that are causing this change: Abundance, Asia and Automation.
“Abundance” refers to our increasing demand for products or services that are aesthetically pleasing; “Asia” refers to the growing trend of outsourcing; “Automation” is self-explanatory. In order to compete in the new economy market, the author proscribes six areas that are vital to our success.
One of these six areas or “senses”, as he calls them, is Empathy, the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what they are feeling, to understand what makes people tick, to create relationships and to be caring of others - very difficult to outsource or automate and increasingly important to business.
Empathy is also particularly critical to leadership development in our new zeitgeist of young, independent, highly marketable and mobile workers. In a now widely-read Harvard Business Review article entitled “What Makes a Leader?” by Dr. Daniel Goleman (November-December 1998), Goleman isolates three reasons for empathy: the increasing use of teams, (which he refers to as “cauldrons of bubbling emotions”), the rapid pace of globalization (with cross cultural dialogues easily leading to misunderstandings) and the growing need to retain talent.
“Leaders with empathy,” states Goleman, “do more than sympathize with people around them: they use their knowledge to improve their companies in subtle, but important ways.” This doesn’t mean that they agree with everyone’s view or try to please everybody. Rather, they “thoughtfully consider employees’ feelings - along with other factors – in the process of making intelligent decisions.”
Empathy, then, is an ability that is well worth cultivating. It’s a soft, abstract tool in a leader’s toolkit that leads to hard, tangible results. But where does empathy come from? Is it a cognitive or affective process? From my perspective, I believe that we need to use our cognitive ability to understand another person’s thoughts, feelings, reactions, concerns, motives; this means truly making an effort to stop and think for a moment about the other person’s perspective in order to begin to understand where they are coming from. And then we need the emotional capacity to care for that person’s concern.
Caring does not mean that we would always agree with the person, that we would change our position, but it does mean that we would be in tune with what that person is going through so that we can respond in a manner that acknowledges their thoughts, feelings or concerns.
So this leads me to a question that I am sometimes asked: “Can you teach someone to be empathetic?” We all know some people who are naturally and consistently empathetic- these are the people who can easily forge positive connections with others. They are what Keirsey calls, “Idealists”, people who use empathy to engender trust and build bonds, catalysts who are able to create positive communities for the greater good. But even if being empathetic does not come naturally to some of us, I firmly believe that we can develop this capacity.
Here are a few practical tips you might like to consider:
1. Listen – truly listen to people. Listen with your ears, eyes and heart. Pay attention to others’ body language, to their tone of voice, to the hidden emotions behind what they are saying to you, to contextual aspects.
2. Don’t interrupt people. Don’t dismiss their concerns offhand. Don’t rush to give advice. Don’t change the subject. Allow people their moment.
3. Increase your ability to understand others’ non-verbal communication because often people don’t communicate openly what they think or feel. To that end, consider Dr. Paul Ekman’s Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life. Ekman, professor of psychology at the University Of California Medical School, has spent over 40 years studying emotion and facial expression.
4. Practice the 93% rule. We know from the famous study by Professor Emeriti, Albert Mehrabian of UCLA, that words – the things we say - account for only 7% of the total message that people receive. The other 93% of the message that we communicate when we speak is contained in our tone of voice and body language. It’s important, then, to spend some time to understand how we come across when we communicate with others. A simple thing like frowning or a raised eyebrow when someone is explaining their point of view can disconnect us from the speaker and make us appear as though we lack understanding.
5. Use people’s names. Remember the names of people’s spouse and children so that you can refer to them by name.
6. Be fully present when you are with people. Don’t check your email, look at your watch or take phone calls when a direct report drops into your office to talk to you. Put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel if your boss did that to you?
7. Smile at people.
8. Encourage people, particularly the quiet ones, when they speak up in meetings. A simple thing like an attentive nod can boost people’s confidence.
9. As Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner say: “Encourage the Heart”. Pay attention to what people are doing and catch them doing the right things. Give genuine recognition.
10. When you give praise, spend a little effort to make your genuine words memorable for your constituents. “You are an asset to this team because….”; “This was pure genius”; “I would have missed this if you hadn’t picked it up.”
11. Show people that you care by taking a personal interest in them. Show genuine curiosity about their lives. Ask them questions about their hobbies, their challenges, their families, their aspirations.
12. Spend time with the people who work for you. Get out from behind your desk and walk around and meet them in their turf. We have often been told not to rely solely on email as our form of communication. To that end, read The Human Moment at Work, by Edward M. Hallowell. This is a Harvard Business Review article, January 1, 1999, mentioned in Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner’s The Leadership Challenge: How to Get Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations.
13. When you visit one of your subordinates’ office, don’t stand while you talk to them. Sit down for a moment so that you are both at the same level while you are talking.
14. Have your finger on the pulse of your department or organization. Learn how to read the mood of a group.
15. Be sensitive to diversity. Make an effort to understand constituents of different cultures.
16. Read a good book on emotional intelligence. Better still, attend a workshop on EQ. Consider hiring a coach.
17. As much as you can, hire people who are empathetic.
Empathy is an emotional muscle that becomes stronger the more we use it. Try some of these suggestions and watch the reactions of those you work with. I believe you will notice positive results.
Years ago, I had come across a saying that went something like this: the measure of a man [or woman], is how they treat someone who is of absolutely no use to them. Empathy should not be selective. It should be a daily habit. If I were to create a bumper sticker, I would say: Empathy: Don’t Leave Home Without It!
Copyright © 2006 by Bruna Martinuzzi. All Rights Reserved.
About the author:
Bruna Martinuzzi is the President and Founder of Clarion Enterprises Ltd., a company specializing in emotional intelligence, leadership and presentation skills training and
coaching. With over 25 years of corporate experience, most of them in senior management positions, Bruna brings hands-on, real world experience to her interventions and helps individuals achieve clarity of focus.
Bruna speaks six languages and holds a Bachelor of Arts (1982) and a Master of Arts (1986) from The University of British Columbia. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Izaak Killam Pre-doctoral Fellowship for three years in a row, the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada Award and the British Columbia Workplace Excellence Award for Unusual Innovation (1992).
She has also completed advanced certifications in a variety of areas, including Emotional Competence consultancy through HayMcBer in Boston, and EQ Certification through Six Seconds EQ International Network, Licensed Facilitator for The Coaching Clinic for Leaders and Manager, Presentation Skills Instructor and Myers-Briggs Qualified Consultant. She is also a Certified Facilitator for The Leadership Challenge™ and The Leader’s Voice™ programs, through Bluepoint Leadership Development, formerly known as The Tom Peters Company. Bruna's work was featured in The Personnel Journal, HR Online, Human Resources Management (Prentice Hall) and Business Ethics Journal.