Empathy: Our social radar
Empathy takes many forms. One is the astute awareness of a company of the needs of clients. But, management theorists believe that, it can also be seen in the company that has a realistic, accurate sense of its own people, its customers and clients, its competitors and market, and other stakeholders, from unions to shareholders. Being able to see reality from their perspective, to sense how they are reacting to the company’s actions, offers a powerful set of readings for effective management. A Swiss private bank executive cited by Daniel Goleman posits it this way, “My job is something like a family priest or doctor. You cannot be in private banking without using your emotional intelligence, especially empathy. You have to sense what your client hopes for, fears – even if he cannot express it in words.”
Empathy begins inside
Sensing what others feel without their saying so captures the essence of empathy, others rarely tell us in words what they feel; instead they tell us in their tone of voice, facial expression, and other non-verbal ways. The ability to sense these subtle communications builds on more basic competencies, particularly self-awareness and self-control. Without the ability to sense our own feelings, or keep them from swamping us, we will be hopelessly out of touch with the mood of others. Being able to pick on emotional clues is particularly important in situations where people have to conceal their true feelings, unfortunately, a fact of life in the business world.
Being emotionally tone deaf leads to social awkwardness, whether from misconstruing feelings or through a mechanical, out-of-tune bluntness or indifference that destroys rapport. One form this lack of empathy can take is responding to other people as stereotypes rather than as the unique individuals they are.
At the very least, empathy requires being able to read another’s emotions at a higher level, it entails sensing and responding to a person’s unspoken concerns or feelings. At the highest levels, empathy is understanding the issues or concerns that lie behind another’s feelings. “Highly attuned rapport demands we put aside our own emotional agendas for the time being so that we can clearly receive the other person’s signals. When we are caught up in our own strong emotions, we are off on a different physiological vector, impervious to the more subtle cues that allow rapport.”
Self-awareness
Richard Boyatzis opines that the prerequisite for empathy is self-awareness, recognizing the visceral signals of feelings in one’s own body. Among counsellors, for instance, the most effective and emphatic were best in tune in to their body’s own signals for emotions, an essential for any job were empathy matters, from teaching to sales and management.
Because of differences in how well we have learned the basic skills of social awareness, there are corresponding differences among us in workplace competencies that build on empathy. Empathy represents the foundation skill for all the social competencies important for work. These include: understanding others, leveraging diversity, and political awareness.
Understanding others
Understanding others is sensing other’s feelings and perspectives, and taking an active interest in their concerns. People with this competence are attentive to emotional cues and listen well; show sensitivity and understanding others’ perspectives; and help out based on understanding other people’s needs and feelings. Empathy is essential as an emotional guidance system, piloting us in getting along at work. Beyond mere survival, empathy is critical for superior performance whenever the job focus is on people. Whenever an artful reading of a person’s feeling matters, from sales and consulting to psychotherapy and medicine, as well as leadership of every kind, empathy is crucial to excellence.
Empathic medicine
Howard Friedman and Robert DiMatteo in “Empathic Physicians” say medicine is a field newly awakened to the benefits of empathy, in part for some compelling reasons. In a day of heightened competition for patient loyalty, those physicians who are better at recognizing emotions in their patients are more successful in treating them their less sensitive colleagues. In another study by Beckman and Frankel in 1984 observed that physicians need to sense the anxiety and discomfort of their patients so they can treat them effectively, but the study found how rarely they listen. Patients usually had an average of four questions in mind to ask, but during the visits they are able to ask just one or two. Once a patient started speaking the first interruptions by the physician occurred, on average, within 18 seconds.
Physicians who do not listen get sued more – at least in the United States. Yet another study unearthed that among primary-care physicians, those who had never had a malpractice suit were shown to be far better communicators than their lawsuit-prone colleagues. They took time to tell their patients what to expect from a treatment, to laugh and joke, to ask the patients’ opinion and check their understanding, and to encourage the patients to talk. And the time needed for a doctor to successfully empathic? Just three minutes.
The art of listening
A finely tuned ear is at the heart of empathy. Listening well is essential for workplace success. Those who cannot and do not listen come across as indifferent or uncaring, which in turn makes others less communicative, listening is an art. The first step is giving the sense that one is open to listening in the first place. Managers with an “open door” policy, who appear approachable or go out of their way to hear what people have to say embody this competence and people who seem easy to talk to are those who get to hear more. Listening well and deeply means going beyond what is said by asking questions, restating in one’s own words what you hear to be sure you understand. This is “active” listening.
Pseudo empathy
Psychologists believe that empathy, however, can be used as a tool for manipulation. “This manifests frequently as pseudo empathy, a social pose that disintegrates quickly if recognised.” Homo sapiens have natural safeguards against such artificial empathy – the capacity to sense when empathy is not sincere. Researchers who have assessed manipulative people find that those who are most motivated by an urge to use people for their own gain tend to be poorest at empathy. By contrast, those who are trusting- who believe that people are basically good – tend to be more highly attuned to feeling.
Empathy avoidance
It is not enough to have the potential to empathise – we have to care. But some people who seem to lack empathy may actually be doing so strategically and intentionally; they may avoid caring in order to hold a hard line to resist the urge to help. In the right measure, Prof. Goleman believes, this is not necessarily a bad thing at the workplace.
Managers who go overboard in focusing on relationships or catering to people’s emotional needs at the expense of the organisational requirements perform poorly. There may be some wisdom in tempering empathy, particularly when it comes to allocating tight resources in an organization. When we identify too strongly with someone else’s need we are more prone to go to the extremes in helping them even if that decision harms the collective good.
By the same token, the head alone, without the heart can make decisions that will backfire – as has been the case of many companies that downsized then found themselves distrusted by the dispirited employees left. And some managers tune out the feelings of those they work with simply to avoid having to take those feelings into account a tactic that can make them seem imperious or even cold.
Eventually, understanding someone’s point of view or perspective – knowing why they feel as they do – does not inevitably mean embracing it. Particularly in business dealings, understanding how someone feels need not lead to giving in, but to more skillful negotiation and management. As a result, tough decisions may generate less resentment and lasting ill will.