I have written two blog posts (Book Brew 33 and Book Brew 66….too bad this one isn’t #99 for a cool pattern—though I suppose 76 is still a neat number... if you squint.) on the topic of empathic listening and effective communication, so you would think I have said all there is to say on the subject. Yet, as I finished Blue Ocean Strategy and read part of Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I came across some additional insights that I felt needed to be added.
Giving Psychological Air
It turns out that we all have the need to be seen, heard, validated, understood, appreciated, valued.
Mauborgne and Kim write, “If individuals are not treated as though their knowledge is valued, they will feel intellectual indignation and will not share their ideas and expertise; rather, they will hoard their best thinking and creative ideas, preventing new insights from seeing the light of day.”
Covey explains that “satisfied needs do not motivate. It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival - to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.”
Listening to Understand, Not to Respond
As I point out in Book Brew 33, when we are engaged in conversation with another person about an issue they are having, we tend to want to jump in with our own advice before truly listening to them and understanding them. We don’t seek to understand first. Like a doctor prescribing treatment before even attempting to diagnose the ailment. Communicating like this is a good way to prevent the other person from opening up to and trusting you.
Covey describes listening with empathy as giving the other person psychological air. “And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving.” Basically, step into the other person’s world, see the situation through their eyes and experience, don’t project your own thoughts, feelings, emotions, or experiences onto them or their situation, and then, once you understand them, you can begin the process of offering up advice (that is if the person is seeking advice-sometimes we just need someone to listen).
Empathic Listening in Business
In business, recognizing your staff and business partners’ knowledge, expertise, talents, and ideas helps them feel more secure and comfortable with being vulnerable by sharing those pieces of themselves with others in the business, ultimately leading to better service for your clients and more profitable business for you.
There have been a few places I have worked in the past where the staff’s knowledge/opinions/ideas/talents were not valued by “higher ups”, creating a lot of tension throughout the team and, in one case, led to over 80% of us resigning. Months before our mass exodus, the leadership would have significantly benefited from implementing some empathic communication
The Consequences of Ignoring Empathic Communication
At one place, we went through round after round of layoffs where the leadership was very close-lipped with staff on what was happening. It created such an environment of distrust that no one felt they could trust anyone else.
Thrown Under The Bus
My boss, who felt her position was in jeopardy, started throwing me and her other staff under the bus when things didn’t go as planned - the trust we all had in her before this behavior was never regained.
As Covey would say, she overdrew our Emotional Bank Accounts and could never redeposit enough afterward to make up for it.
The Emotional Bank Account
“An Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that’s been built up in a relationship. It’s the feeling of safeness you have with another human being. If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve. Your trust toward me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to. I can even make mistakes and that trust level, the emotional reserve, will compensate for it.
What If We Had Chosen Empathy?
It would be interesting to go back in time and have the leadership be open with the staff on what was going on, including their thoughts and opinions throughout the process, and see how differently things would have turned out had empathic communication been part of it. Hell, even if those of us staff members approached each other with empathy rather than distrust and anxiety about our positions, we probably could have been more helpful to one another through the grueling rounds of layoffs.
Innovation Through Trust and Communication
Creating an open, trusting work culture that truly values the intellectual and emotional recognition of all staff (from top to bottom) is vital to a business’s success. To do that involves empathic communication throughout the organization, which leads to trust, which leads to the sharing of ideas and talents, which leads to innovation.
Key Takeaways
- Psychological Air: People need to feel understood, valued, and appreciated to thrive both personally and professionally.
- Empathic Listening: Listening to understand, rather than respond, creates trust and emotional safety. Only after understanding can we offer meaningful advice or solutions.
- Business Success Through Communication: Valuing employees’ and partners' knowledge fosters trust and collaboration, leading to better service, innovation, and profitability.
- The Cost of Poor Communication: A lack of open, empathic communication can erode trust, create toxic work environments, and lead to high turnover rates.
- Innovation Requires Trust: Building a culture of trust, where ideas are shared freely, enables organizations to unlock creativity and achieve long-term success.
Whether in business or life, let’s be intentional about offering psychological air to those around us—because trust isn’t built by words alone but through how we listen and understand.
Ponder This
- How can you improve at giving “psychological air” to those around you, whether at work or in personal relationships?
- Have you experienced situations where leaders built or lost trust through their communication? What were the consequences?
- How can your organization foster more empathic communication to unlock greater collaboration and creativity?
Books
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
- Blue Ocean Strategy - Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim
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