Empathy in relationships
We know empathy is hard. It requires us to see, hear, think, and feel from someone else's perspective. It is uncomfortable because we've never lived their life and experienced their circumstances. We may get close, but not exactly. The best we can do is imagine what it's like and how it affects the way they interact with the world.
If it takes me 10 minutes to walk 2 blocks to work, I can only attempt to imagine what it would be like to have to commute 3 hours. We often say "I can't imagine..." when we try to sympathize with others. It's almost as if the impossibility of our ability to imagine lets us off the hook from trying.
But, what if we actually tried to imagine?
Well, sometimes we imagine right, and other times we couldn't be more wrong. We will never know. Our interpretation of their worldview affects our relationship with them. We may think we know what they need or want, but it's merely our interpretation - perhaps originating from what we'd need or want ourselves. Again, we can only do our best.
Empathy is the key to trust and a feeling of safety, whether it's in a relationship between two people or a culture within an entire organization. We know we need empathy to be excellent leaders, friends, or colleagues, and we know we can always get better at it.
But we also need to understand what empathy is not.
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Jamil Zaki wisely shares, "Empathy is not protecting other's feelings, but it's building a relationship by saying what needs to be said."
As human beings, we all want to belong. We want others to like us, and we develop the habit to please. So we interpret empathy as only being nice and saying things others want to hear. We actually don't feel like we have permission to be truthful when what we have to say may be difficult to hear or may contradict. We wonder: What if they get angry? What if I come across as incompetent?
We see this in the default "conductor vs. ensemble" relationship all the time. It is ingrained in our training to expect conflicts between the conductor and the ensemble, and we try our hardest to avoid them:
- As conductors, we are given advice about how to establish our authority and how to manage an ensemble's disgruntled attitudes (the key here being we learn to expect disgruntled as a default).
- As ensemble musicians, we are given advice about how to prevent run-ins with the conductor, what to call them so as to not disrespect (or really not to damage their ego), and how to get them to like us artistically and personally so we get hired again.
There is a lot of walking on eggshells here, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
What we are really doing is managing other people's impressions of us. What do they think of me? How does it affect my status in the mind of others or in the organizations? We are on the defensive, afraid of saying what needs to be said, and not living in a relationship that is open to discourse.
In that relationship, we don't have what Amy Edmondson calls psychological safety, which she describes as a "climate where people believe they can freely speak up" - about anything.
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So, instead of using empathy to create a pristine and conflict-free relationship, we can use it to understand the messiness that is inevitable for relationships and to set the stage for honest discourse about how we can navigate the relationship together.
Empathy at the very least allows us to begin from a platform of respect. Even if we can only imagine where someone is coming from, simply attempting to do so is surprisingly appreciated. Then, after we feel seen, we have a deeper capacity to consider feedback and differing opinions. This then gives us permission to adopt a learning mindset where the goal is to figure things out together. And in that environment, we have permission to speak openly and honestly.
Poor performance is poor performance and there is often no need to sugarcoat it. However, when a conductor is curious about understanding why a musician's having a bad day artistically, the conversation is no longer about whether there is a problem, but it pivots toward finding feasible solutions given that understanding. No threats to protect our authority, no belittling to prove we're right, and no public shaming to make sure someone knows they're wrong. There may not be a nicely packaged solution waiting for us and the conversations won't be easy, but it leaves space for "us" rather than hiding behind the closed doors of "me vs. them."
A mutual understanding of where each other is coming from helps us feel more safe and trusted in situations of conflict. It's not about working hard to shelter our feelings from each other, but protecting the integrity of the relationship that enables real work to be done together.
I don't have all the answers and neither do you. And together, we can attempt to move forward.
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