EXERCISE 8.4

Empathy

Do as the Empathic Do

Purpose

To promote more meaningful connections with key people in your life.

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60 minutes

Working with a coach, each individual discusses the value of focused listening and how to understand another person’s reality. The client will choose a specific relationship in which he or she wants to strengthen his or her connection using empathy, create a reminder card, and practice the new behaviors.

Outcomes

• Increased ability to hear what others are saying and understand what they really mean
• Enhanced capacity to respond effectively

Audience

• Individual working with a coach

Facilitator Competencies

Moderate

Materials

• Do as the Empathic Do Handout
• 3 x 5 cards
• Pens

Time Matrix

Activity	Estimated Time
Value of listening discussion	20 minutes
Practice paraphrasing the meaning	15 minutes
Practice reflecting the feeling	20 minutes
Create practice card	5 minutes
Total	60 minutes

Instructions

1. Give the client the Do as the Empathic Do Handout, which contains a case study.

2. Ask the client to read the case study; then ask these questions:

• Have you every experienced or observed a similar situation?
• Does the case study solution seem actionable? Does it seem as if it could be implemented?
• Do you think something that simple could make a difference? If so, how? If not, why not?

3. Now have the client focus on his or her situation. Ask the client to select one or more of the relationships in his or her life in which he or she wants a more meaningful connection.

4. Discuss what is lacking in that relationship currently and ask the client how the other person(s) might perceive it.

5. Ask the client to review his or her current schedule and behavior patterns and decide when in the day it will be most efficient to engage with this person(s) and give him or her the time and attention that focused listening requires.

6. To help your client learn the powerful value that paraphrasing gives to communications, compose some model statements to practice paraphrasing until he or she feels comfortable. Suggest that your client use the following types of introductions as a way to help get the hang of it: “So you’re telling me. . . .” “What I hear is that you want (need). . . .” “Okay, it sounds like. . . .”

7. Have your client practice suggesting how others feel about what’s happening, using patterns like, “And that leaves you feeling pretty. . . . “Wow, you must feel . . . about that.” “And so naturally you feel kind of. . . . ” Reassure the client that if someone doesn’t feel the specific way suggested, the person will usually correct the suggestion by describing his or her actual feeling more accurately.

8. Tell the client that if he or she needs help remembering, make a card on which the new behaviors are described clearly and briefly, including who specifically the client will be practicing with and the times he or she has committed to use the new behaviors.

DO AS THE EMPATHIC DO HANDOUT

Case Study Points

• Executive manager has great leadership skills and believes she really cares about her employees.
• Employees think she is a talented manager, but they are troubled by her seeming lack of interest in them. It’s beginning to affect morale.
• She is a very task-focused person and she spends her commute to work thinking about the things that need to be done that day. Since the only thing on her mind when she gets to work is getting those things done, when she arrives at work she makes a beeline to her office. She doesn’t take the time to check in or touch base with her staff. She often forgets to even say hello.
• The manager becomes aware of the impact of her behavior on her employees when she receives the results of a 360-degree assessment. Subsequent discussions with her staff help her understand how they feel and how they would prefer to be treated.
• She and her coach devise a simple strategy for her to connect with her people to let them know she values them. They created a pocket card with the following reminders:
  • Stop to greet people, make eye contact, and call them by name.
  • Ask what they’re working on and how its going. Stop and listen to the response!
  • Ask if there are any problems I can help with.
  • Paraphrase what I’ve heard and “guess” about how they’re feeling—”Sounds like you’re feeling skeptical about this.” (Having a long list of feeling words will be helpful. Merely saying “You feel sad, mad, or glad” every day will quickly wear extremely thin.)
• She reads the card two or three times a day and rehearses the behaviors mentally at these times:
  • In her office parking lot before getting out of the car
  • Right after she gets back from lunch
  • Toward the end of the day when she will occasionally make a brief round for “Good-byes”
• Taking the time to be other-directed helped her connect with her employees and positively impacted morale.