Ep 150: Bringing Your Heart to Work

In this episode, David and Margaret discuss the power of bringing your heart to work.
“Empathy Techniques” vs. Genuine Empathy
Our hosts heard the term “empathy techniques” recently while listening to a refresh of the Positive Intelligence programs - and felt compelled to double click on this concept.
How is an empathy technique different from genuine empathy? And why would a leader or a fundraiser chose to deploy one instead of the other?
The idea of empathy as a technique sounds alarmingly manipulative. David offered a possible example: Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain” statement. Margaret offered another example of an empathy technique: the practice of asking questions from a pre-determined list, hoping to appear curious (rather than simply being curious).
Genuine empathy, on the other hand, is the genuine feeling of another person’s pain.
Genuine Empathy Isn’t Always Simple
Allowing ourselves to feel another’s emotions - which might include anger, joy, grief, and sadness - is a very human and humane act. It’s not always easy.
Some of us have more capacity with empathy when it comes to certain emotions. For example, for some, being around other people’s anger or grief feels very hard. Their tendency would be to step over it. They might be scared to step into someone else’s grief because they don’t know how to step back out.
For others, they resist being empathic with other people’s joy. Brené Brown has notably talked about her terror around joy.
David expressed his appreciation for Margaret’s recent empathic listening about a difficult time in his life, involving the suicide of his sister and his father’s struggle with guilt.
Margaret differentiated between true empathy and faking it. True empathy might involve feeling and holding space for others’ emotions. Faking empathy might stem from being uncomfortable. An example might involve: someone shares about the death of a parent … and the listener offers words of condolence and then quickly changes the subject.
Wired for Connection
David and Margaret discussed the capacity of human beings to feel and connect with others’ emotions. It is biologically wired into us.
Still some people learn to put up emotional filters as a survival mechanism. One path to putting away some of these filters and access more real empathy starts as an internal journey to embrace one’s inner mess.
To access more genuine empathy and compassion, there are many tools, including:
Begin practicing self-compassion, or being compassionate towards oneself. David shared how he used to find it easier to generate empathy for others than for himself. Fortunately this has evolved over time.
Another way to generate compassion for others is to imagine the other person as a child. That can include considering what happened in their life to make them behave in a certain way. This tool can be particularly helpful to generate warmth when dealing with people who are unkind or critical.
The practice of focusing on the heart to generate warmth.
Making a choice to give yourself or the other person a break.
All these tools require courage.
Empathy and Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
Finally, David and Margaret discussed the importance of empathy and genuine listening in leadership roles.
This concept has applications for fundraising. It is also important in team meetings.
David suggested the practice of “clearing” to create space for team members to share personal struggles. He found this practice led to increased productivity and a more supportive team environment.
They encourage listeners to consider: bringing one’s heart to work (along with your brain!) can be beneficial.