During this meeting we discussed the key components of effective communication: listening, speaking, and non-verbal cues.

Takeaways from Video 1:‍

1. This a great example of literally acknowledging the ‘elephant in the room’ and allowing the emotion to be felt so the process of change or progress can occur.

2. Sympathy vs empathy – 2 closely related but distinct emotions.

Sympathy involves feeling sorry for, or pity for someone

Empathy involved understanding and sharing someone’s feelings.

Sympathy is more of an external expression of emotion, while empathy is an internal emotional response.

Knowing = sympathy

Understanding = empathy

3. This is also a great example of the uncomfortableness we feel if this is not our ‘style’.  In this example the ‘happiness’ character was way off the mark and would have gone off solo in the wrong direction

4. Cheering someone up, and forcing something on your own timeline can actually be seen and felt as quite dismiss and ignorant (i.e you’re making it about you).  “I need you to move on so I can get what I want.”  ( always be mindful of behaving sensitively to their needs)

Emotional Intelligence:

Empathy is one of the 5 emotional intelligence skills

• Self awareness
• Self regulation
• Empathy
• Motivation
• Social Skills

Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as recognize and influence the emotions of those around you.

Listening:

Listening helps us embrace different perspectives!

Listening is a great way to build trust, find common ground in opposition,

When people Feel heard, they then trust you, etc

Park your assumptions, go in with genuine curiosity

Active listening – the other person will ‘feel’ heard (empathy)

• Replace judgment with curiosity
• Create a safe space for someone to ‘empty to the bucket’ – say everything without judgement.
• Ask questions to understand
• Trap: Sympathy – tend to rush to give unsolicited advice, we pity someone and have this urge to ‘fix it’.

Don’t:

• Defend, Interrupt, Litigate

Do:

• Be curious, ask questions
• Use phrases like, tell me about it, Go on, tell me more, what else….
• BE quite, don’t fill the space……………embrace the silence
• Read facial expressions and body language
• Behave sensitively to their needs

Empathy

A note on empathy from the Harvard Business School:

‍Empathy is the capability of understanding another person’s experiences and emotions, and has been ranked as the top leadership skill needed today by global consulting firm DDI. According to DDI’s research, leaders who excel at listening and responding with empathy perform more than 40 percent higher in coaching, planning, and decision-making. By actively listening to your employees and taking the time to understand their wants and needs, you can boost engagement, build trust, and more effectively coach them through challenges. The more your team feels appreciated, the more invested they’ll be, which, in turn, leads to higher morale and a stronger company culture

Empathic listening is hard, it’s uncomfortable which is why we usually don’t want to do it and avoid it

Leadership

This is so relevant when we translate this into the leadership world, one of our biggest responsibilities as Leaders is holding other people accountable. – performance conversation.

When we hold someone accountable we are simply bringing to the for-front the desired behaviour and making it know that this is what is required. We are allowing them to become conscious of the requirements. They can now choose whether or not to comply. To make this happen, there must be some form of emotion. Nothing will happen without it. As managers, we are the spark that raises this consciousness. As you do this more and more, it will get somewhat less painful, yet the uncomfortableness you feel will never totally go away. There tends to not be any gain without some pain. There is a statement that I find very true “Successful people do the things that failures dislike and refuse to do.”

Drawing a line in the sand, or cleaning the slate so to speak and allowing people to focus on moving forward rather dwelling in the pity party for too long!

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