What is empathy?

Empathy is, according to Dan Newby, resonating with another’s emotion to the degree that the emotion becomes our own. Empathy is the emotion that tells other people we truly do understand the experience they are having. We each have a capacity for empathy, but it will be more available to us in situations where we have had experiences similar to the person we are with. For example, I can empathise with people who have recently lost a parent because I have experienced such a loss myself.

I want to talk about empathy this week. I have clients who want to have more empathy or want their people to have more empathy. It is time to dive a little deeper into empathy. Before we do that, I would like to take a step back.

Empathy is often confused with sympathy, compassion, and even pity. Let’s address this first.

A picture paints a thousand words and, in this instance, credit Susan David, author of Emotional Agility for the picture below. It so eloquently describes the difference.

I follow her on LinkedIn and apologies for the poor quality of the picture. It is a screenshot from Susan David’s LinkedIn page.

A brief description of each emotion is below taken from Dan Newby’s book, The Unopened Gift: A Primer in Emotional Literacy.

Sympathy – allows us to understand the emotions of others because we have experienced something similar. We can understand their experience but are not having the same experience. We can resonate with the emotion of the other person without “taking on” their emotion. The other person feels that we understand, but we can still maintain our emotional independence. This allows conversations that empathy, compassion and pity do not.

Compassion – is the act of ‘being with the other in their pain’. To completely be with someone who is struggling. It does not require any other action. Compassion shows our interconnectedness as humans even if we prefer not to see it. Compassion can get us to think that what is happening to others could happen to us in the future. (Susan David’s ‘action-oriented’, I interpret as being with the person equates to action).

Pity – we recognize the suffering of others but look down on them because we feel superior in some way. ‘You need my help’ is the narrative that goes with pity. Pity can be appropriate in cases where we do have superior capability or resources. Like helping an injured animal. But pity can infer condescension when we think the sufferer is less important than us.

Now that we know the main difference between these emotions let’s get to the practical ways of developing empathy.

For this, let’s go back to science. Neuroscience.

In recent Neuroleaderhsip Institute (NLI) research, empathy has been given a ‘reframe’. Because empathy was/is often associated with soft skills and not seen as a priority for goal and profit-oriented leaders. When, in fact, empathy is directly related to the goals and profits of an organisation.

NLI reframed empathy as quality connections.

When people in an organisation do not connect and follow through on the vision of their leader, it impacts an organisation’s profits. Because connecting, communicating, and collaborating on a vision is what delivers results.  And connecting, communicating, and collaborating require empathy.

But in the past empathy was often defined as “picturing yourself in the others’ shoes” even when you may not have a similar experience which is contrary to the definition of empathy. And trying to do this does not help us. Because the NLI research shows that the harder we try to understand others’ predicaments the less accurate we are.

Because it is nearly impossible to really know what someone else is feeling or thinking.

Instead, it is better for us to do the following to show/build empathy:

1.      Sense – paying attention to the other to ‘read’ any cues from observing them.

2.      Enquire – asking to understand.

Ask questions to gain further clarity without being intrusive or feeling pity.

3.      Extend options – when you have understood their situation better, offer a couple of options that may help them. This does 2 things: you do not offer a way forward (your way) or leave them to figure it out (no change in situation) but give them choice and autonomy to decide for themselves.

Giving choice and autonomy help us empathise and empower.

Empathy is a crucial emotion. One that can be confused with compassion, sympathy, or pity. And, as we get further into the world of AI, what differentiates humans from AI is empathy. And compassion perhaps?

And here’s more on empathy from non other than Simon Sinek! Truly inspirational.

As always, you can reach me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com