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Empathy is killing your culture, say whaaaat?

I can hear the uproar from here – stick with us and hear us out.

Would it be us if we didn’t have a killer analogy to describe this for you?

I want you to imagine you’re out walking, you come across a well (yup, you’re living in the stone age – flex your imagination for us here). You walk over to said well and you notice someone stuck in there. They’re at the bottom – crying out for help.

Empathy, according to the oxford dictionary, is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

So in this analogy.. being empathetic – is you jumping in that god damn well with them. Because to truly understand how they feel, you let their energy totally encapsulate yours and now you’re both sitting at the bottom of a well – crying out for help and assistance.

Not really productive or helpful now is it? Sure, the person has company… but you’re both stuck in the well now ☹️

Let me introduce you to another approach. You’re walking along, you come across a well and yup – someone is stuck in there. Before you delete all rationale and judgement from your mind and dive right in there, you stop.

Pause.

Assess.

You call out to them, ask them questions, you listen – you make sense of how they got in there and what they’ve tried already to get out. Then! You throw them a rope, whack a ladder in there, tell them to sit in the bucket so you can heave ho their backside out of there – whatever works.

You show… C O M P A S S I O N.

See, when we operate from a place of compassion, it’s all the beautiful benefits of empathy yet it doesn’t result in two people overcome with negative energy. It results in one party feeling heard, safe and seen whilst the other gets to proactively improve their scenario; with helpful tools and resources to get them out of the fricken well.

And you’re probably reading this going, well okay – I’ve been saying empathy and meaning compassion… Have you been showing compassion over empathy though? Did you truly know the difference and know how to articulate this to your team or team mates?

Language matters.

At Mindfluencers, we’re also master practitioners of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). Yup, basically, we’re word nerds. And know how certain words affect and influence your unconscious mind.

A huge part of communication, is totally unconscious. I’m sure you’ve heard the classic ‘words make up 7% of communication’ and that is true – however there’s an unconscious energy attached to certain words and therefore attached to their interpretation.

So when you know better, you get to be better.

No more glorifying empathy. Sure, sometimes it’s the right thing to jump in the well and be with the person. Perhaps help is too hard for you to offer, perhaps it’s a loved one and recognising their level of ‘stuck’ automatically makes you feel stuck too. Those things get to be okay.

And whilst yes, this approach and knowledge will help you to better help and lead others – it will also help you; establish, uphold and be aware of your own energy and boundaries. Win – win!

So, now you know – great leaders, we would argue the best leaders, are compassionate before they’re empathetic.

And great cultures have a solid AF foundation of compassion.

It’s giving, ‘you’re safe here to tell me you’re in a well, and I’m going to do whatever I can to help get you out’.

Need help with your workplace culture becoming one of compassion and proactive solutions?

Let us help you do that.

Send us an enquiry form and start the conversation with us.

Let’s do great things.

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