Open Mind for a Different t View

  Recently somebody said to me, in a grateful, good humoured way, “I wouldn’t want your job, you seem like an empathic chap”. Unusually for me, I took that as a compliment, but there are some echoes of other conversations in this which make it slightly disappointing if anything. 

We need more human understanding in our world, not less. As long as we see this as something other, we’re missing an opportunity to learn and push on as a species. As Feynman said “Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.” Communication skills speak to all of these elements. Like many skills which get labelled as “soft skills”, there is a hard edge, practical utility and commercial benefit to be gained from investing the time in the development of empathy. 

Empathy is the skill of understanding, putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes to view the world from their perspective. Where sympathy is a feeling of concern and wanting to see improvement (which is a step up from the condescension implicit in pity, which is feeling sorry for somebody), empathy is trying to know and understand. As I am wont to say, the poison is in the dose, and so, while there are limitations to how much we can ever really see the world through somebody else’s eyes, it is possible to find ourselves crushed by the overwhelm of somebody else’s emotional situation. For those of us at that end of the empathic spectrum, the awareness comes in the form of constructing a wall to prevent us falling over that edge. For many of the rest of us though, it is more a case of building awareness to establish and use better connection. 

With 7.8bn of us on the planet, the odds are pretty good that at some point you are going to have to deal with somebody who isn’t you. I have a limited but absolutely appalling gambling record, but I might be tempted to have a flutter on that one. The problem is that with variables such as family; schooling; life experiences; age; race; gender; sexuality; physical health, and sleep status amongst many, many others influencing our outlook and behaviours, the chances of finding somebody who is exactly like us in a given moment are incredibly small. 

This means that there will be a difference between your thoughts, perceptions and feelings and those of the person you’re in contact with. Connecting with this as a concept is, it would seem, a stretch for some people. There are suggestions that spending more time with people who are appreciably different from ourselves (or, I’d suggest, more time appreciating that the people we are with are different from ourselves) broadens our horizons. While this may mean that you want to change your views and approach it does not compel you to do so. 

Slight digression. In this picture, which of the four lumps is the heaviest?

The one on the left? That tends to be the most common answer. Sometimes I get people poking me in the belly (I know, what happened to social distancing?) and suggesting it is the third from the left.

Truth is, they’re all about the same (give or take a few lockdown pounds), within a couple of percentage points anyway. Actually, the strength coach in me, not to mention the economics student, is wincing at how glib I am being about a couple of percent, but it is close enough for illustrative purposes. 

While they are all there or thereabouts, physically moving them is best done differently for each. One of them rolls; one of them walks; one of them sags when moved (the sandbag, not me), and the other has a stable handle. Empathy is, in human relations, the equivalent of walking up and checking these out. What are they made of? How do they move? Do they have handles? Any good sites for leverage? You might have a rough idea, depending on how often you’ve been presented with these options before, but still, you’re giving it a coat of looking at, before rolling up your sleeves. 

Curiosity, a desire to understand. I’m not sure that the man in a cassock who taught me the words “grant that I may seek to understand rather than to be understood” intended for me to be applying it in this context. One of the key indicators of resilience is problem-solving skills. Sales; negotiations; helping professions; relationships, and, well, life are all also made easier with problem-solving. At the heart of which is understanding the problem that you are trying to solve. To do this quickly, we need to suspend, if only briefly, our assumptions about what we’re looking at. Or, in interactions with others, parking the thought that is in your mind. Stop waiting for the other person to catch their breath so that you can fill that silence with the words on your tongue. Wait for them to finish and then form your answer. 

Your inner monologue is telling you that the person in front of you is coming out with something unbelievably stupid? Be curious, where are they going with this?

The next level for empathy is conveying that understanding. Now that might start to feel a little fluffy for some of you. This is not me trying to convince you to let go of your requirements by the back door. Have you ever had one of those moments where you’ve expressed your view and the person you’re talking to doesn’t break stride, carrying on as if you had not been there? How did that feel? Your mileage may vary but “disrespected” comes up a lot in conversation on this point. You’d be pretty unusual if there was no emotional seismic register. This sort of thing hits all of our primary drivers of autonomy, relatedness and competence. 

A response would make a difference. Preferably not 

“At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.” 

(Billy Madison - not a cinematic great but having witnessed responses not too far removed from this, it brings a wry smile), 

Acknowledging and explaining why you’re not going to do anything with it - “I can see the importance of that issue, but we’re not in a position to deal with the regulatory ramifications of taking that course” doesn’t rule out somebody being upset that you’re not taking their idea forward, but it at least pays them the respect of demonstrating that you’ve considered it. 

Empathy is not about being nice, it isn’t about making people happy. It might have both of those effects but that’s not the objective. It’s fact gathering. 

Going back to the picture. What if we needed to get those four lumps on to a loading platform (yes, there’s one of those in my garden too)? What’s the best or most efficient way of doing that (without a forklift)? Well, firstly, best is subjective, it depends on what you’re trying to achieve. In the case of the bald bloke, how about asking him? We need to get you up there (you may need to explain why that matters to him), how do we do that? You run the chance of making your life easier (especially if he climbs up himself) but you’re connecting and giving him the chance to show the way. Which is also good for increasing the odds of commitment to the solution. But that’s a story for another day.

So, while it is fair to say that being able to see how somebody else may be looking at a situation can be a load to carry, quite often it turns out that the burden has within it the tools you need to complete the job. Or at least bodge it in a way that will buy you time to find somebody with more training and expertise to help out.