Empathy as a Second Language.
I am sitting in on a class, where adults and children are learning another language. Some to better understand their peers. Some to better understand and appreciate their heritage. Some to better understand those whom they have nothing in common, in an attempt to discover that they indeed have everything in common.
It got me thinking that there was a massive hole in our management training. We are ignoring others "languages." Not working to understand better and appreciate what makes our direct reports tick, what makes them unique, what they care about - not the things, about which WE care.
The word empathy was inspired by the German aesthetic term Einfühlung, meaning "feeling into." We can witness other people's emotions. We cannot feel them as they do, but we can be present.
With that thought leading the way, shouldn't empathy be the first language for Managers and leaders?
We get nowhere in another country filled with native speakers without at least trying to understand the written and spoken language they share. Not to mention, we find ourselves lost without those who work hard to understand and learn OUR language.
Why should our corporate or business environments be any different? Why don't we spend time with our heads buried in "empathy" phrasebooks? Show our employees and direct reports we care and that we are trying to understand them rather than asking to be recognized.
Translated into empathetic terms for the sake article is a principal of the seven habits -
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood."
It makes sense in this context as it does in negotiating a win-win, and finding your way through a country foreign to you.
What can we do about it?
Take some time today to evaluate your interactions with your direct reports, your downline, your loved ones.
Be honest with yourself in your self-evaluation. Ask yourself if you tried your best to understand another's position before you worked hard to have yours recognized.
Start learning the language of others who are close to you and do your best to use it every time you need to find your way.
We are not all hard-wired for languages, but we all have the capacity to learn and improve our empathy skills.
It is the most useful second language, and it will take you further in this world.