People with poor social skills often forget they're talking to another person. Communicating is often a functional process.
Here are some scenarios, with the function in italics.
"Oh man, I'm tired."
"Why don't you sleep more?"
providing a solution
"I think we should go with plan B."
"That's a stupid idea."
describing an observation
"I like this band."
"They're okay."
correcting a misstatement
"I want to be a psychologist."
"I hate psychologists."
mentioning personal opinion
This kind of communication is really unpleasant to be around. It's also not a great way to make friends.
By practicing empathy, you avoid simple functional responses. You start to move beyond simply responding to the content of someone's speech, and into responding to the person. This is similar to Martin Buber's I-Thou vs. I-It model of relationships. By doing this, you feel like you're speaking to the person and not at them. You treat others like a human being, and as a result, authentic bonds begin to form.
How do I practice empathy? I look at people's tone, their body language, and the flow of words, and try to imagine what they're feeling. Once I have that in my mind, then I know I can speak confidently.
Initially, I had to exercise myself to get in the habit. I even read The Definitive Book of Body Language so that I could pick up cues properly.
I discovered that other people successfully went through this transformation as well. A middle-aged friend of mine told me how he reformed himself. He's really into computers, and said that growing up, he was very anti-social. He said that comments he made would rub people the wrong way, and that he was really unpleasant to be around. This made it difficult for him to form relationships and limited his career possibilities. But then he made a conscious effort to read body language. If you pay attention to how he operates, you can see that he's deeply processing your tone, feelings, and overall demeanor. Now he's a (friendly) manager, married, and is going to be a dad soon.
Some are born naturally empathetic, and others learn to develop it over time. People with autistic spectrum disorders, like Asperger's, have a poverty of empathy. But I believe it can be trained.
Empathy doesn't have to be a serious, self-conscious process either. For me, my method eventually evolved into a red flag-style mechanism. My intuition seems to perk up when a social interaction enters risky territory, and I double-check to make sure I've engaged my empathy. Or sometimes, my intuition will perk up when I'm drifting off into a functional mode of communication, and I make sure I bring the other person into focus.
When I was younger, I didn't have any habitual empathy. I remember hurting people's feelings with my so-called "abrasiveness." To me, I was just telling the truth. I was chided repeatedly, "Phil, why don't you think before you speak?"
So I practiced rehearsing my words in my head before saying them. But what I found is that my conversations flowed unnaturally. The whole process made me too self-conscious. And so I abandoned the practice, and compensated with being cautious all the time. I cite this for giving me a post-adolescent onset of social anxiety.
The simple rule of keeping empathy ever-present, has made me both socially confident and more socially effective.
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Roger von Oech said on February 12, 2009 9:08 PM
Comment: "Oh man, I'm tired."Response: "I feel so sorry for you. Do you want a backrub? That would make you feel better."-------------------------Perhaps that's too much empathy!Anyway, provocative post, Phil. I'll share it with Wendy.Are you familiar with the Enneagram? I'm an 8, and so I can always use a little more compassion when dealing with others.Your comments about your interactions in your younger years are informative. I think my mental circuity (your metaphor, as described in your sidebar introduction) would fry if I did that too much.On the other hand: ideas are great if you don't have to implement them. But if you do, you need other people to help. Thus, effective communication is an important tool for implementing one's ideas.
Philosophistry said on February 12, 2009 9:18 PM
"Oh man, I'm tired.""Why don't you sleep more?"providing a solutionThis example is me responding to one of my crushes in 6th grade. She thought I was cute, which isn't how I wanted her to think of me.Nowadays, this is my response:"Oh man, I'm tired.""Oh yeah?"showing interest
Philosophistry said on February 12, 2009 9:49 PM
By cute, I mean, she thought my comment was, "aaw, how cute"
Wendy von Oech said on February 14, 2009 12:31 PM
I especially appreciate your reflections on the heart as a place of awareness. You tap into your heart to make decisions (meaning of life posts) and also expand your heart to hold the feelings of others. I also like the name of your Blog, "Self-Programming." You are intentionally putting these ideas into your mind, heart and being to be expressed in your life. Can you write a post on what you might be deleting? As I get older, I find that much of my journey now is getting rid of habits, ideas, beliefs, fears that no longer serve me. Thanks also for your co-creating with Roger!
Philosophistry said on February 14, 2009 12:45 PM
Thanks for the comments Wendy! Hmm, yes, I think I have some material and ideas on the deleting aspect. There's a lot of ingrained beliefs that we develop that provide a scaffold for desired behavior. Something I alluded to in this post, for example, is how I compensated for being unable to measure my words with being cautious and socially anxious. That served me well back then, but I've found it to be more of a burden now that I've gained some maturity.
SarahQB said on February 17, 2009 11:55 PM
Interesting post. I think sometimes that I've moved from overly empathetic to more abrasive. Have you thought about how gender plays a role? Especially in professional settings?
Philosophistry said on February 18, 2009 12:13 AM
Hmm, I haven't given much thought to the gender-side of the issue, but I vaguely remember reading an article that women in business over-compensate for their perceived softness by being extra tough. This matches my anecdotal observation in corporate settings.I've given a lot of thought to the role of power, though. I find that the higher-ups in management tend to be less empathetic and more commanding in general.Also, in a relationship where one person is more dominant (whether female or male) than the other one, the weaker one will be more empathetic.This can simply be explained that when you have power, you don't need to be empathetic to get what you want.However, even if you're very bossy, being empathetic will still make it easier to command. Empathy can be used for both good and bad. By virtue of my principle, I want to make the case that the act of empathy itself is good.It also depends on the role you're in. Surgeons have low empathy because their patients are usually asleep by the time they operate. They can therefore eschew bedside manner and bark orders at the nurses, who constantly think surgeons are jerks.I forget where I read it, but apparently one of the strongest correlators of whether a doctor's patients will recuperate better will be the quality of the doctor's bedside manner.