How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching and Counseling in Difficult Circumstances | Page 131
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That may be the case for those of us who are intuitively empathic. They may have little need for guidelines; the
guidelines may even get in the way of their intuition. But more often than not my clients have a pretty good
understanding of what’s going on for their stakeholders (whether they got there intuitively or analytically) – and
still don’t know how to communicate that understanding. I’m writing for them, mostly.
When feeling fails, at minimum empathy is an attitude: You are genuinely trying to get how your stakeholders
feel.
Empathy is not a strategy. I am not telling you to fake empathy, and faking empathy is hard anyway. If you
think your stakeholders are being foolish or treating you unfairly, it’s probably going to show. If you wish you
didn’t have to spend time with them, it’s probably going to show. Above all if you haven’t a clue why they’re
doing and saying what they’re doing and saying, and don’t really care to find out, it’s probably going to show.
The recommendations that follow are ways to make sure the empathy shows … if it’s there. You can’t use most
of these recommendations when all you’re feeling is hostility toward your stakeholders.
Not that empathic risk communication is reserved for use with stakeholders toward whom you have only the
kindest of feelings. You’re usually going to be ambivalent. My clients often say of their stakeholders, “I know
just how they feel. I’d feel the same way in their shoes.” Even though they mean it, they still have a tough time
hanging onto their empathy when the stakeholders start berating them at a public meeting. Use all the techniques
you know to hold onto your empathic attitude. Keep reminding yourself that you’d feel the same way in their
shoes. Count to ten. Find a confidant you can rant and rave to about what jerks they are. Write angry letters you
never send. And then try to feel your way back into their shoes.
On a bad day when all you’re feeling is hostility toward your stakeholders, don’t imagine that these
recommendations are going to help. When you’re feeling partly hostile and partly sympathetic, then some of
them ought to help.
So what should you do when all you’re feeling is hostility? Take a break if you can. Get somebody else to take
over for a while. Do whatever works for you when you need to recover your equanimity – and your empathy.
Then these recommendations will help again.
2. Candor and Humanity: Being Real
When all you’re feeling is hostility, you’re not going to be able to act like an empathic risk communicator.
When your feelings are mixed, when empathy and hostility coexist, consider the possibility that you should let
some of the negative stuff show.
Psychotherapists don’t share all their feelings with their patients, and risk communicators shouldn’t share all
their feelings with their stakeholders. But it’s important to share enough of what you’re feeling to come across
as real. It is very, very hard to communicate empathically if you’re not also being real.
Les Havens teaches his psychiatry students that getting angry at patients is occasionally the most empathic thing
they can do. Losing control is never the right thing to do, but deciding to let some anger show sometimes is.
One time when a patient was making racist and anti-Semitic comments in a group session, Havens leaned
toward the patient and said, with deliberate anger in his voice: “That makes me really angry. If you don’t stop
that right now I’m going to leave the room.” This helped the patient regain control over his own leaking
emotions. And it established that Havens wasn’t an impersonal, impervious therapist-doll, but a real person who
was really offended by what the patient was saying.
Similarly, I have occasionally advised clients to go ahead and express some of their anger at their stakeholders.
Maybe they’re questioning your competence and your integrity; maybe they’re costing your company or your
agency hundreds of hours and millions of dollars. Of course you’re upset. You may very well be as outraged as
they are! But while they’re freely expressing their outrage, you’re struggling to suppress yours, to hide it even
from yourself. Almost inevitably it leaks out – usually in the form of cold courtesy. You may tell yourself that’s
what it means to act professionally, but to your stakeholders you’re probably coming across as uncaring or even
passive-aggressive, certainly not as empathic. Letting some of your anger show is very likely an improvement
over converting it into frigid, obviously hostile courtesy.
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