I have been so heartened by hearing President Obama talk about looking for empathy as one attribute when choosing a Supreme Court Judge–one of our leaders of the United States. In fact, I have heard the word coming up so frequently in many discussions and presentations. I do not remember hearing such an emphasis on empathy. Perhaps it was a “given” that we would look for leaders who had empathy, but to hear it is amazing to me.
When reflecting on the various leaders with whom I have worked I would say that without exception, empathy was one of the important attributes of each of the leaders. I know I have had some nay-sayers say that a leader needs to be strong, not too sensitive. “You cannot always “tune in” to the needs of others,” is a comment I have heard frequently. Conversely, I would say that the leaders with whom I felt valued and respected were empathic—and did not apologize for being so.
I have been thinking about New Year’s Eve for many days. My husband, Bob, and I joined his parents at a lovely gathering with friends in North Carolina. Laughter, great food, and dominoes were all part of the agenda of the celebration of the new year’s birth. However, what really punctuated the evening was an emaciated, tired, hunting dog who came upon their property. Seemingly “out of the blue” this dog lumbered onto the property with sad eyes and even sadder physique. He was in need of much attention. Who knew how long he had been lost? By the looks of this kind and gentle dog time and the elements had worn him down to a pitiful sight.
Now I must confess that I do not feel confident enough about my dominoes game playing so that might have had something to do with the fact that I had to retreat to the front porch where the dog was residing. I noticed he was shaking and so I asked for a towel or blanket to cover him. This needy dog needed someone who cared to sit with him and watch him sleep. Intermittently, I rejoined the party and many people asked about how the dog was doing. The owner of the house called the numbers on the dog’s collar to let the owners know that their dog had wandered off and the people at those numbers did not seem to have the appropriate response. We wondered if they had been drinking too much that evening as they had slurred words. The police, an animal control organization was called, etc. What I noticed throughout the evening was that the empathy for the dog was growing—-people expressing disbelief that the owner did not want to immediately retrieve their dog, the police did not want to take the dog and so on. The attendees at the party were conversing about how they felt about this poor unfortunate dog. What I was so taken with was that the gentleman who owned the house, my parents-in-laws dear friend, continued his quest to find a safe place for the dog. He could have easily turned away from that responsibility. He truly cared about that dog—his empathy “shining through.” Also my father-in-law checked in with the dog and me as we were sitting on the porch.
Someone mentioned about this “gift” of the dog that evening. Yes, I feel that the dog was gift. It was a check-in for all of us to live our values. When we see a child, adult, animal, etc., who is in need it is all part of our collective culture of values that we care for each other. Just so you know the outcome of this story… on the road back to Houston we got a call from my father-in-law saying that the owners came the next morning to pick up their dog. I hope when they look in those sad and gentle eyes of their dog they soon realize that their dog is and was truly a gift for the new year.
Dr. Gary Small’s iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind suggests that current brain research reveals that “digital natives” may be developing different brains than Baby Boomers. A Newsweekarticle explains:
Small says these differences are likely to be even more profound across generations, because younger people are exposed to more technology from an earlier age than older people. He refers to this as the brain gap. On one side, what he calls digital natives—those who have never known a world without e-mail and text messaging—use their superior cognitive abilities to make snap decisions and juggle multiple sources of sensory input. On the other side, digital immigrants—those who witnessed the advent of modern technology long after their brains had been hardwired—are better at reading facial expressions than they are at navigating cyberspace.
Emma, my daughter, is having “the year of her life” in school — huge leaps of passion and learning and adventure. And facing powerful challenges. The most pressing being a relentless conflict with another girl, let’s call her Josie. They are both strong willed, independent, and believe themselves to be smart. Patty & I have worked to help Emma see that being right is not that interesting unless you are also kind. In turn, Emma has worked hard on being less abrasive, but these two just push one another’s buttons — and now it seems like nearly every day Josie is accusing Emma of something.
The latest round was that Josie was mad that Emma ignored her. “I don’t want to fight with her so I just walk away,” says Emma… and we all agree that’s better than fighting… and that it’s not the same as making peace. Emma was at a loss, though, of how to engage a different way, and was feeling helpless. “She’s mad at me no matter what I do.”
So last week I shared a bit of Gandhi’s story. Emma could definitely relate, and found the concept of Satyagraha fascinating. Satyagraha is the name Gandhi gave to the type of nonviolent resistance he led to transform India. Gandhi wrote:
Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence.
He contrasted satyagraha to passive resistance — or to walking way (in Emma’s case). Satyagraha is active, it’s a force, but it’s not the kind of force most of us in the West think of when we think “power.” Yet it turns out to be a game-changing, world-changing power because it steps out of the paradigm of escalating might and righteousness.
And it’s not just “what you do” that matters. “How” is just as important. For Gandhi, the means is the result — if you pursue peace through violence, you have made violence. If you create peace through love, then you have created love.
Emma came back the next day having tried it. “Satyagraha is SO difficult,” she said, “but I am going to keep doing it.” While she struggled with it, she also knew, she experienced in just one day, that this is a transformational way of engaging with disagreement. We could see in her reflection that she had, in fact, found a new kind of force.
As Gandhi said, when you let go of “violence of the heart” it generates a powerful new energy:
What I have pleaded for is renunciation of violence of the heart — and consequent active exercise of the force generated by the great renunciation.
The challenge is maintaining it — holding onto the kindness in the midst of the daily frustration. Because while Emma can choose her response, Josie is continuing to look for opportunities to blame. And how do you, as a 9-year-old, not take this personally? It’s so difficult to step back and recognize that Josie’s reactivity is Josie’s.
In our EQ training we sometimes talk about the idea of “making others good.” This means letting go of being right over others — it means accepting that “they are doing their best and I could do no better.” The challenge is finding a genuine, solid core of caring for this “enemy” (who our egos are saying is “wrong/bad/mean”) and letting go of the defense of righteousness.
Satyagraha is a process of resistence and a force of power, and an exercise in justice; at the core it is change that starts with love.
A friend of mine recently got a new job. “Jodie” soon discovered that her boss, “Sandra,” was a pariah in the company—secretly despised by almost everyone. It was easy to see why. Sandra had an abrasive manner, she literally stomped down the halls, stared at her colleagues with a stern expression, and often went silent on the phone for excruciatingly long periods. While most everyone was alienated by Sandra’s nonverbal behaviors, Jodie was more curious. What was behind Sandra’s severe, unsmiling stare? What was behind her “bulldozing” behavior?
Jodie guessed that Sandra was actually a terrified administrator who felt attacked by everyone. Because Jodie had also led projects, she recognized Sandra’s hidden fear and loneliness. Instead of resenting her boss’s shrill and demanding tone, Jodie realized the cry for help underneath. Whenever Sandra had a meltdown, Jodie offered help. Soon, a great trust developed between the two and Sandra began to soften.
Jodie’s emotional intelligence has also begun to transform the rest of her department. She has earned the trust of her peers who come to her with their complaints about Sandra. They know they can speak freely and in confidence. With Jodie’s encouragement, they have even begun to slowly share some of their complaints with their boss. This increase in transparency continues to help their department build trust and better teamwork.
Yesterday the BBC published their commissioned report Changing UK which says that analysing the census data going back 30 years reveals the people in the UK are now much less rooted in their local neighbourhood. London was revealed as the ‘most lonely in UK’
‘Researchers put this down to the high concentration of unmarried adults, people living on their own, inhabitants who have moved to their current address in the last year and the numbers of people privately renting their accommodation.’
But is this issue as simple as this research appears? Last week New York Magazine published Alone Together which looked at loneliness from many perspectives.
In New York County 50.6% are single-individual households – in New York City, one in three homes contains a single dweller. And yet the suicide rate in New York City is one of the lowest in the US.
John Cacioppo, the Director of the Centre for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago has recently published Loneliness with William Patrick, which looks at how ‘social cooperation is, in fact, humanity’s defining characteristic. Most important, it shows how we can break the trap of isolation for our benefit both as individuals and as a society.”
‘Cacioppo points out that loneliness isn’t about objective matters, like whether you live alone. It’s about subjective matters, like whether we feel alone.’ Also his research shows clearly that being married is not necessarily a cure for loneliness, ‘married people were indeed healthier – if they weren’t lonely in their marriages. If they were, the health benefits were so negligible the researchers considered them statistically insignificant.’
What both the BBC research and New York article seems to point to is that the most vulnerable communities are rural. But why is the picture drawn of New York so different from London? New York is full of single people living alone, but with good social networks and lots to do….even their marriages seem healthier, with low divorce rates. Is it possible that the BBC research is only using objective data and making very wide assumptions based on trends e.g. living alone, or marriage rates?
From Cacioppo’s point of view ‘our large brains didn’t evolve in order to do mutlivariable calculus or compose sonatas. They evolved in order to process social information – and hence to work collaboratively.’ “And if you look at any city,’ he says, “you see that we have a capacity, as a species, to do so. They show we can work together, we can trust one another…. There’s a new sense of community in cities, an increase in social capital, and increase in trust,” he says. “It all leads to less alienation”
There are strong comparisons with cities and the internet – where behaviours are more and more social. Even visiting a coffee shop with your laptop encourages sociability apparently – like taking your dog for a walk with fellow dog owners….
“In our data,” adds Lisa Berkman, the Harvard epidemiologist, who discovered the importance of social networks to heart patients, “friends substitute perfectly well for family.”
Through these different perspectives I think there are still many vulnerable people in our society: the elderly, the shy, the depressed, the disadvantaged … and also the young. Hopefully good insights will help us all focus our efforts where they are most needed: in helping people understand their innate needs to be sociable and connected and encouraging deliberate behaviours that can help them lead healthier emotional lives to keep from loneliness and depression …. what could be more important.
Was working on an empathy workshop yesterday. Is that why the news seemed relevant?
The cordial meeting of our current and soon-to-be first lady shows me how differences are overcome when we recognize our shared humanity. Reports said that during the meeting of these two very different women, much of their talk centered on raising daughters. Was it this similarity—both are mothers with two girls–that created such a warm and friendly meeting?
Since I don’t have children, I don’t relate to parents in the same way that I relate to dog lovers or gardeners or camping enthusiasts. When parents discuss their teething babies or grouchy teenagers, I have to work to find an analogy to understand their pain or joy.
But since empathy (and compassion) are born from sensing another person’s inner world, it is important that I work to understand. I probably won’t ever comprehend raising children as another parent would, but I understand the hunger for recognition, the fear of failure, and the pain of being misunderstood—emotional challenges that we all face, no matter our circumstances.
If we are similar, I can quickly empathize with your struggles and concerns. If we are very different, I’m often tempted to simply judge you. It is much easier (in the short run). But if I’m willing to push past my biases and keep an open, curious mind, I can be rewarded with empathy. Then, my world expands as I discover a more peaceful and compassionate heart within.
I was chatting with a colleague this week about empathy, thought you might appreciate this distinction:
There are two parts of empathy. “In” and “Out.” AKA “Awareness” and “Response.” AKA “Cognitive” and “Emotional.”
The cognitive part of empathy is like learning to read and make sense of what you read. You learn to accurately bring in data about what people are feeling and you make sense of it.
The emotional part of empathy is connecting back with the person via feelings. You can take action, you can use words – but if you don’t have the “correct” feelings underneath that, the actions won’t connect. This part can be hard to learn because it’s fundamentally not an analytical competence, and it is quite tough for people who are uncomfortable feeling!
You know you’re developing and using emotional empathy when people FEEL connected with you, when they perceive that you understand and support them without you saying or “doing anything.”
The challenge is maintaining it — holding onto the kindness in the midst of the daily frustration. Because while Emma can choose her response, Josie is continuing to look for opportunities to blame. And how do you, as a 9-year-old, not take this personally? It’s so difficult to step back and recognize that Josie’s reactivity is Josie’s.
