The skinny on empathy that will change your life

Crying when someone else is crying - great, you're empathic, right? Emotionally tuned-in to the other person. Big Tick in the Box.

Perhaps.

But what if there is more to empathy than meets the eye. What if being tuned-in means more than being tuned into emotions. What if empathy as traditionally understood is just the tip of the iceberg of human interaction and understanding.

The following article seems to think so, positing three kinds: emotional, cognitive and compassionate:

This is helpful and makes some good sense. My own thesis is that empathy is all about resonance. ANY resonance:

So what is resonance? Here is an incomplete list:

1. Feeling a friend's pain and crying with them
2. The tacoma narrows bridge shaking itself apart when its resonant frequency was same as the average wind speed - empathy is also destructive
3. Uncle Joe telling a racist joke and his family laughing OR someone confronting Uncle Joe on this
4. Delighting in your favourite music or book or film that really touches you
5. Outwitting your enemy by understanding them (Sun Tzu)
6. Solving a mystery
7. Building and joining knowledge and instruction
8. An idea sparking another idea
9. St Theresa and Hildegard von Bingen in religious ecstasy
10. Life itself

The thing about resonance is there are positive and negative aspects (cf. reinforcement learning: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/what-is-reinforcement-learning/) and both play a part in the shaping of ourselves and our experiences. Like all things it's about energy. And when energy is flowing, it's typically in multiple directions simultaneously, like between two ideas or people or organisations (or electrical networks and more esoteric stuff). The concept of mutuality is often involved, picture Yuri Geller bending a spoon. Back and forth, give and take.

This can lead to counter-intuitive and dualistic understandings of ourselves and others that (once duality adjustment nausea is overcome) can really help. Some scenarios:

First impressions

Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy and her colleagues has discovered patterns in the way people make first impressions. She says we quickly seek to answer the following questions:

• Can I trust this person? AKA warmth
• Can I respect this person? AKA competence

So what about the resonance and mutuality angle. They score me in terms of trust and respect and I score them. We note the scores down in the sub or not so subconscious books the brain holds of such things. Names are added and we swipe left or right.

But this is missing something. What if the distrust I am feeling is because the resonance sets off some uncomfortable thoughts about myself. What if the respect is based on my own framing narrative of what good looks like? Could my first impressions be mistaken?

People hire people like themselves says the orthodoxy. But what happens when things need to change? Our first impressions may be wrong. We may need to learn and grow and "empathy" defined in these terms may paradoxically be preventing it. Value judgements are bidirectional and reflective after all.

To say nothing of the bad apple effect:

And what if the bad apple is doing the hiring? A warning to transforming organisations: empathy may not be on your side.

The "bad" idea

1. You have an idea and it is nurtured, you develop it and it flourishes and it fails
2. You have another and it is neglected, you try to develop it but it dies before flourishing

What is is the difference? Not the idea - ideas are ideas and the ones we reject are the ones that need nurturing and any value judgements we place on them are our own. The difference is in the environment that the ideas are expressed. The resonance. Amazon understand this very well in the value chain they operate for ideation. Visualise a cornet:

In the Amazon ideation model, the idea is blown from the lungs shaped by the embouchure into the mouthpiece. It is seen as precious and full of potential. This is why the first step in the ideation value chain is to write a press release (hitting the keys), to enter a future success mindset. As the idea enters the flaring some shaping occurs, friendly feedback, then if it can still grow, less friendly feedback before going through the governance boards (unless the idea is to abolish them) before arriving fully formed (if not self-abandoned by then) at Andy Jassey for some investment budget. The cornet model used here is a masterclass in human interaction design, maintaining psychological safety as the idea grows and can handle more critical scrutiny. Resonance again.

And if people don't like your ideas? Who cares - you're not doing it for them? That's not how ideas work, that's not how they flow. Go resonate with yourself if necessary.

Ask Sun Ra. This hero of mine produced so many albums he probably forgot about most of them. He moved on, evolved, adapted. Reinvented: https://reinvent.awsevents.com/

Now: inspiration is another matter and ideas are only half the story but they are a necessary raw material.

Conversation as resonance

Some clichés to kick us off with or perhaps skip over:

As anybody who knows me will testify I love to talk. Sometimes people like it and I feel that I am being smooth. Sometimes. The thing is about conversations that different people can play by different rules. I like to talk about golf and my brother prefers talking about the opera. I tend to lecture my dog about his habits while he would rather sniff around the bushes. Who takes the lead, should someone take the lead and what is the topic, who's turn to talk? What is a topic, and how does this relate to empathy?

All good questions I hope you will agree. The thing is we don't all come up with the same answers. And why should we, we're not post-sentient hyper-beings, we're individuals. It all comes down to resonance; to empathy. As a techie there are some jokes my non-techie friends just do not get and vice versa. There are some aspects of being a woman that I as a man do not get (I am still trying!). The inevitable conclusion here is that with all these factors in play it is a wonder we can talk and resonate and empathise with people at all.

Some people are better at it than others and I maintain that while talent may be helpful it can also be a learnt skill. And if you are worried about faking it, I would argue that autheticity itself can be learnt. Keep it real but give yourself permission to be human.

Here is my conclusion on this topic:

Empathy is a group experience of minds and networks resonating as one. The results can be constructive, destructive and sometimes both. Crying is optional

So how can we improve? Surely empathy is innate, right? I'm not so sure, particularly given the expansions we have discussed. Normative expressions of emotion may be changing, look for different ways of triggering an empathic response in people. And what about the conflicts that even the simple three types of empathy will create:

An example:

Family laughs at Uncle Joe's racist joke at the dinner table

• Cognitive empathy/resonance: family members all agree that racism is fine
• Emotional empathy/resonance: their collective recognition of this fact at a point in time reinforces their bond

New girlfriend of Joe Jr., let's call her Dana, takes objection to this fact, sees the dynamic.

• Cognitive empathy/resonance: Dana realises that the group is infected with corrupt empathy/resonance predicated on a distorted belief
• Emotional empathy/resonance: Dana feels the pain of the community that is being oppressed by the perpetuation of these distortions and is morally affronted

Dana says "Uncle Joe, you're a racist." Gets up and leaves

• Now that's compassionate resonance/empathy

...and Dana just collected the whole set! But did they thank her for it or did Joe Jr. just find himself a more racist girlfriend? Hmm.

This goes deep. Right down the rabbit hole with Alice that's for sure. Another VUCA problem - https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeroenkraaijenbrink/2018/12/19/what-does-vuca-really-mean/#3e5558c017d6. So what do we do? Here are some tips I have learnt about empathy and resonance to play around with in your life:

1. Listen and observe (thanks Jatin Aythora: https://www.aythora.com/) - we cannot help but reveal our souls. People can be read like a book. Do not hide behind a rock but tune into what makes others and yourself tick
2. Try something you are unsure of. Let people know of your fears if you want, but have a go. Monitor the results
3. Interact with people you resonate with, managing psychological safety along the way. Seek to discover resonance with people you do not resonate with. Build bridges. Partner with rivals: https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/microsoft-partnering-with-rivals-pays-off-15009010
4. Do not be afraid of the dark. Understand the negative energy, resonance and empathy games also
5. Play around and allow yourself to make mistakes. Failure with purpose is the root of success

So there you have it, an inside look at some pet theories that help me in my day-to-day life. Would be great to hear about your own observations about this fascinating topic.

Sure, cry if you want to. But let the resonance flow.

Postscript: here is a less coherent attempt at this topic:

Postscript 2: and here is where I got the Uncle Joe reference from:

Postscript 3: a great summary on blind spots from Mandy Sunner:

References:

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/laughter-is-the-best-medicine.htm

https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/ksmoore/research/tacoma-narrows-bridge/