Empathy is a component skill of emotional intelligence or, as I prefer, emotional competence. We can increase our emotional competence in the same way we can improve other skills by increasing declarative (I know what) and procedural (I know how) knowledge. Once you’ve acquired declarative and procedural knowledge, becoming more emotionally competent is a matter of deliberate practice.
Why is it important to be emotionally competent?
Over time, our language and idioms have twisted the word emotion to the point where, for many people, the word itself has an insulting connotation. However, the truth is that our emotions are the only reason we do anything. Their association with weakness is mostly the fault of the many influential thinkers throughout history who have believed that humans are logical first, emotional second. “If only,” they muse, “we didn’t have these useless emotions getting in the way of our innate brilliance.” Given what we know now about how human beings operate, make decisions, and form opinions, this perspective is wholly comedic, and very confused.
The assorted words we use to describe our emotions all have one thing in common: they describe drive, either negative or positive. They can be motivating or demotivating. They are never neutral.
You cannot turn emotions off. You are always in some state of emotion. It is possible to believe that you are “numb,” but psychologically, this is actually the state of feeling helpless (a very damaging emotion, to be sure.) To feel nothing at all would indicate… well, death. It would indicate death.
Human beings are best described as emotional creatures with some mild thinking ability thrown in. Everything you or anyone else does is emotionally motivated. Given this fact, how important is it to be able to correctly perceive and describe your own emotions, and those of others? Do you know people who seem unaware about how they and others are feeling? Would you say they are more or less helped by this inability? Do people who disregard the emotions of others have an advantage in life, or a disadvantage?
Emotional competence is the ability to:
- Identify what we are feeling (this requires a vocabulary)
- Self-regulate what we are feeling (trigger recognition and impulse control)
- Recognize what others might be feeling (empathy)
- Validate what others might be feeling
- De-escalate highly charged situations
Empathy is the ability to perceive and relate to the thoughts, emotions, or experiences of others. Those with high levels of empathy are skilled at understanding a situation from another person’s perspective and validating that perspective. In the workplace, this simply means that your people are able to establish genuine connections with one another that enhance relationships and thereby performance.
It’s important to remember the difference between sympathy and empathy, as the two are often confused. Sympathy is typically defined by feelings of pity for another person, without really understanding what it is like to be in their situation. Empathy, on the other hand, refers to the capacity or ability to accurately imagine oneself in the situation of another, experiencing the emotions, ideas, or opinions of that person.
Why is learning empathy so difficult?
Learning empathy is a fraught path in Western society. Since at least the industrial revolution, emotion has been characterized as weakness. In North America, our cultural ancestor is the British Empire. Straight face, stiff upper lip, “boys don’t cry,” etc. Men have been encouraged to spend their lives pretending they feel nothing. Women have been sneered at as weak because they supposedly can’t do the same. In reality, there’s absolutely no biological difference between men and women in their emotional perception, expression, or in the range of emotions felt. The differences are socially and culturally imposed – and enforced.
Have you ever felt emotionally misjudged because of your gender? What is it like to know that you are being misinterpreted or judged unfairly for something you have no control over?
In reality, nobody actually enjoys the current state of affairs. Emotional incompetence will impair and eventually destroy every relationship throughout your life. This includes client and co-worker relationships. Consider the goal of these relationships: you both want to be satisfied with the outcome. That is not a metric. It’s a feeling.
It takes courage to practice emotional competence. Why? Because it feels vulnerable (or unsafe.)
Feelings associated with sadness or fear are signs of weakness. The social taboos associated with feeling means that millions of war fighters, first responders, and others who have suffered moral wounds or emotional injuries fail to seek help or communicate, and instead turn to isolating, self-destructive behaviors to escape their dilemma. You may even have rolled your eyes just now at the terms moral wounds or emotional injuries. Yet, it is possible to imagine a scenario in which a very happy, fulfilled person lives with physical disabilities. It is possible to imagine a person whose life is changed in moments, and who must adapt all their plans and hopes for the future to accommodate their new circumstances – and they do it, with equanimity and acceptance, and they are sincerely happy despite it all.
On the other hand, we have all met people who, it seems, are physically healthy, free from financial difficulty, supported by well-intentioned family or close friends, etc., and yet they are deeply emotionally disturbed. Perhaps you even recognize in yourself the potential to be profoundly upset even when things are, objectively, “going well.”
In light of these thought exercises, how can we say that physical injuries are more “real” than emotional ones? How can we dismiss emotional well-being as less important than, for example, financial success?
In every session I have facilitated on empathy or emotional intelligence at least one participant will emphatically state that they’re not going to be talking about feelings with the customer or co-workers. “I’m here to fix the problems causing the feelings.” Can you see the issues raised by this kind of misunderstanding?
Common expressions used to discourage empathy are:
- Suck it up, butter cup!
- Put on your big boy or big girl pants.
- Or from the movie “Full Metal Jacket”
The aversion to talking about feelings or empathy in the workplace are often manifested when we ask, “How does that make you feel?” or, “What do you need?” A typical answer is “I just need people to do what they are supposed to do.” This is a solution, not a feeling. The feeling is probably something like frustration/contempt/dissatisfaction, etc. Without recognizing and effectively communicating, the problem will not be solved.
How to build empathy and emotional competence in the workplace:
- Talk about empathy to signal its importance. Model the way by using feeling language. This is one of the most important responsibilities of leadership.
- Expect strong resistance. If you think role play resistance is bad when learning sales or customer handling skills, just wait until you run workshops on empathy. The fear and discomfort in the air is palpable.
- Teach listening skills. When a leader is a good listener, people feel respected, and trust can grow. Managers should focus on listening to hear the meaning behind what others are saying by paying attention to not only the words being said, but also the feelings and values being shown, through nonverbal cues such as tone, pace of speech, facial expressions, and gestures.
- Encourage genuine perspective taking. Leaders should consistently put themselves in the other person’s place. For managers, this includes taking into account the personal experience or perspective of their employees. It also can be applied to solving problems, managing conflicting, or driving innovation
- Learn validation skills (I AM MAD). The San Antonio Police Department (SAPD), has a world famous Crisis Intervention Training program (CIT), where SAPD officers and others learn empathy skills. While SAPD deals with mental health situations, don’t write-off what they have to offer. These are highly advanced communication skills. You deal with angry and scared customers every day, too. The outcome of a poor interaction is not a person in jail, or injured, but you will lose customers.
