Empathic Business Communication

The term empathy defines the ability to identify with or understand another’s situation or feelings – which helps to recognize and relate to another’s perspective. At first thought, some might assume that empathy doesn’t have a place in business. Unending to-do lists, tasks and projects tend to overshadow the emotional well-being and personal needs of employees and employers alike. However, integrating empathy in business has many benefits, both internally and for customers and clients.

The most important factors in communication, business or otherwise, are obviously talking and listening. So, how often do we pause and think about how well we are using our listening and communication skills? Let’s look at some details.

Listening may seem straight forward and like it is the easier half of the communication scenario. This is not always true. There are multiple levels of listening that we all experience.

(1) Ignoring – the lowest possible level of listening. The absence of paying attention. We do this to others, as well as ourselves.
(2) Pretending to Listen – A small step up from ignoring. A missed opportunity to connect and make another person feel seen and heard.
(3) Selective Listening – We hear only the parts that we want to hear. We pick up on the parts that reconfirm our own existing bias.
(4) Attentive Listening – Giving full attention but only paying respect to the intellectual. We miss the subtle levels of body language and tone. Our mind is bust thinking about how we will respond once there is a pause.
(5) Empathic Listening – The highest level of listening. We listen with our whole self. Goes beyond just listening to words to a place where we feel there is not much difference than the person speaking and us. A pure connection.

In a healthy communication scenario, we always want to strive for empathic listening. Now let’s think about responses. First of all, most people don’t want pity, we want to be intellectually, emotionally and energetically understood. Sympathy divides and empathy connects because sympathy creates a hierarchy between the speaker and the listener. Empathy is about pure connection and relating to the speaker, without pity. Unfortunately, many of us have learned and practiced some certain autobiographical responses (old ways of listening) that kill the spirit of empathy. Let’s have a look:

(1) Advising – Jumping in to fix someone’s problem. By doing this, you’re making it about you at that point and talking away someone’s ability to find their own solution, which is more empowering for them.
(2) Evaluating – Passing a judgement on what the speaker is sharing with us. Comparing their experience(s) with our own, which devalues and discounts the speaker’s experience.
(3) Probing – You ask the speaker many questions to get more information. The speaker may just shut down and go into a shell.
(4) Interpreting – We start jumping to conclusions, which can make the speaker feel misunderstood. We try to put the speaker in a box of what we assume they’re experiencing.
(5) The Empathic Response – We show the speaker that we truly understand them. We reflect back two key things, (1) that we intellectually understand what they’re talking about and (2) we empathetically understand the emotion that goes along with that intellectual content.

An empathic response is what we strive for. This may be as simple as “I understand how that scenario could be very difficult for you and that it may cause you a lot of stress.” Your goal is to make someone feel heard, in a judgement free environment. Along with this empathic response, ensure that your body language is also communicating your engagement. Keep your feet and body faced in the speaker’s direction. Try not to shake your leg, fiddle with your hands, scribble on paper or make any other distracting motions of movements. Maintain eye contact and a soft face. Keep your full engagement with the speaker.

Now that you have some information on both empathic listening and responding, what are some ways that you can integrate empathic communication in your day-to-day business scenarios? Let’s look at some tips:

• Connect. For empathy to be successful in business, is must be prominent. Having genuine connections within your company is integral to forming bonds with clients and customers. It is apparent to clients when employees are happy with their work environment and when they are not. Make employee satisfaction a priority.
• Understand Personality Types. Not everyone communicates in the same way. Some people may feel more comfortable opening up in one-on-one settings and others may thrive in groups. Your employees and clients are likely a mix between introverts and extroverts. Having a variety of options/methods for clients to reach out and give feedback will make the customer feel valued and like they have personalized options. The same goes for employees. Make sure you create space for a range of personality types to thrive, so that your business is inclusive.
• Ask for Feedback. In order to increase transparency, you can ask for feedback from both customers and employees. This ensures that everyone is heard. You can achieve this through questionnaires, surveys or regular check-ins with employees and customers. When receiving less than positive feedback, avoid a defensive response. You want to learn from the perspective of others.
• Respect. This one is simple. Treat everyone with equal level of respect. Whether they are a janitor, an intern, an exec, a client or a employee. See everyone as human and treat them accordingly.

Empathy belongs in all aspects of life and definitely has a place in business. Improve your business communication by incorporating empathy.