Empathy starts with YOU
Recently, the concept of empathy is taking over the workplace. Many companies are learning that engagement is at the core of every transaction. Whether it’s a B2C company looking to build loyalty to a specific brand or a B2B company keeping other businesses on their payroll, the most emphatic will win the war. Where will your business stand when the dust settles?
As culture evolves and people start to differentiate between good and great experiences, shifts in how people converse will become more transparent. Since we all come in all shapes and sizes, our expectations will differ depending on the person. To demonstrate, let’s run through two seemingly different interactions that are more or less the same in practice.
I’d like you to imagine walking into a store where every single person greeted you. No matter where you went, someone tended to your needs and answered your questions. What was supposed to take an hour took only 15 minutes. You weren’t able to find everything, but you found enough to consider the experience good enough. Now, what are your thoughts about the experience? Take a second to jot it down or put it aside for comparison with the next phase.
Got your thoughts? Good.
Take the same scenario and add your own twist to the story. What subtlies make your experience better? What do you look for to elevate your good experience into a great one? Is there anything important that you must add? Take those thoughts and jot it down again or place it across the first scenario.
Are you ready to move on? Good.
Now compare the two scenarios side-by-side. If the exercise worked, then you should fall under one of three categories:
- Your expectations are high and your second list is lengthy at best.
- You’re satisfied with being helped and you couldn’t think of anything to add to your list or you added less than three items.
- You don’t care for the subtleties because you’re happy with any help that you can get.
If you have high expectations going into the scenario, its likely that your people will treat your clients in the same persuasive manner. If you’re happy with good experiences, then your people aren’t being pushed to become greater than the day before. If you’re just happy with getting all the help that you can get, then your people aren’t giving their best to your clients and you need to find partners that will level their communication skills.
Your people are a reflection of you after all.
Knowing which category that you fall under will help relate how your people are going through the process of engaging others with empathy. Assuming that you got to this point by following the instructions above, I challenge you to pass on this article to someone else who could benefit from the exercise and let me know if you learned something new about being more empathic.
Cheers!
If you’d like to start working with us, please email me or mgmt@ravina.co
