Empathy

Much talked about, rarely implemented

Learning from others’ mistakes

Following a big field exercise, my brigade commander took some of the company commanders on a long run. He took turns running with each commander and asked them how they were doing and what they thought about the recent exercise. When my turn came, and he asked me what I thought, I didn’t mince words. I knew the question was coming and had a well thought out and detailed answer. “Sir, I thought that there was very little training value for…” he cut me off immediately. He explained to me that I was thinking incorrectly. The training exercise, he explained, was primarily for the staffs at the battalion and brigade level.

I wanted to explain that I fully understood that, but that very small things could have been done to greatly increase the training value for the line companies and the Soldiers. He wasn’t interested in hearing any of that, he only wanted to explain what I was supposed to think and how I was supposed to explain things to my Soldiers.

Fast forward a few years to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. We were there for a big staff exercise. I asked one of the senior NCOs about how he thought the training exercise was going. He didn’t mince words. “I think this whole thing is a huge waste of time and money. We could have done this same training back at home station and we wouldn’t be out here wasting everyone’s time.” From his perspective, he was correct. He and his Soldiers were out there to support the staff, and their work was thankless grunt work. They put up camouflage netting, filled generators with fuel, placed concertina wire around the perimeter, and many other tasks that allowed the staff to focus on planning and controlling operations. But he saw it as a waste of time.

I listened to the NCO, asked what suggestions he would make to make the training better for him and his Soldiers and he paused to think. He made a few minor recommendations that I thought were very reasonable. I repeated back to him what his major concerns were and what he thought could be better in the future and said, “Thank you for your perspective. Sometimes we can lose sight of the hard work that you all do, and I think we could do better to make it worth your while.” He was a little shocked. I can only suppose he was shocked because he wasn’t used to being listened to. We were silent for a second and he asked me, “What about you, sir? What do you think about all this.

I didn’t mince words.

“For me and the team I am on, this training is absolutely invaluable. If we have to go to war and run this division in combat, we have to get these systems worked out. That’s why I sincerely appreciate what you all are doing, because it enables us to get the training we need. But I acknowledge that you have many frustrations, which are totally valid.”

He kind of smiled, and we went about our separate business.

A young lieutenant overheard our conversation and, after the NCO had walked away, I asked him how he usually dealt with soldiers when they had complaints about a training exercise. He gave me a proper Army response saying, “Well, sir, I always try to explain the ‘why’ behind what we’re doing. I think once soldiers understand the ‘why’ they can understand the purpose behind what they’re doing.”

I said, “Yes, that’s what most officers do.” I continued, “There’s nothing wrong with explaining that, but before you say anything, you need to validate what’s just been said. Most soldiers, especially the good ones, will appear to be convinced, but in their heads, they’ll mostly reject what you tell them. If you simply let them know they’ve been heard, rather than try to explain things to them, they’ll feel much better, they’ll have much more confidence in you, they are more likely to trust you, and they’ll be more open to hearing what you have to say.”

Results

Empathy isn’t just some feel-good BS, it is about being pragmatic and oriented on results. People who feel cared for will work harder and will be more loyal to you and to the organization. It takes practice and it takes learning and applying techniques. You can master empathy with those in your organization just as you can master a skill level 1 task like taking apart a machine gun. Yes, some people are more naturally empathetic than others, but it is a skill that can be trained.

Empathy is so important for Army leaders that the Army has codified it in doctrine.

Army leaders show empathy when they genuinely relate to another person’s situation, motives, or feelings. Empathy does not mean sympathy for another, but a realization that leads to a deeper understanding. Empathy allows the leader to anticipate what others are experiencing and feeling and gives insight to how decisions or actions affect them. Leaders extend empathy to others in both their leader and follower roles. Leaders with a strong tendency for empathy can apply it to understand people at a deeper level…Empathetic leaders are better communicators, help others to understand what is occurring, and inspire others to meet mission objectives. During operations, Army leaders gain empathy when they share hardships to gauge Soldier morale and combat readiness. They recognize the need to provide reasonable comforts and rest periods to maintain morale and accomplish the mission.

-ADP 6-22 “ARMY LEADERSHIP AND THE PROFESSION”

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Learn

Remember, empathy is a skill that takes practice. But what exactly are you practicing?

I really like Chris Voss. If you’ve never seen his stuff or read his books, you should check them out. He used to be an FBI hostage negotiator and now is kind of a negotiations guru. The two things I learned from watching some of his videos are “mirroring” and “labeling.”

Mirroring is just repeating back the last few words that a person said in the form of a question:

Major Smith: “I don’t think the officers at division understand this operation. We are going to have real problems trying to shape the enemy’s maneuver.”

Major Jones (mirroring) “Trying to shape the enemy’s maneuver"?”

Major Smith “Yes, we should be using more artillery fire in the early phases to degrade their combat power so it will be easier to fight them with our main forces. We also need to work our non-lethal effects to try and delay their movement.

Do you see how MAJ Jones’ response invites elaboration? That’s all you are doing with mirroring. This is very easy to practice.

Labeling is using a statement like “It sounds like…” “It feels like…” “It looks like…” in response to what you just heard.

Sergeant Adams: “Private Snuffy can’t do anything right! He’s always late, his uniform is a mess, he doesn’t pay attention, I don’t know what to do to get him squared away.”

Captain Johnson: “It sounds like Snuffy is a big leadership challenge.”

This type of statement, like mirroring, invites your interlocutor to continue talking. It makes them feel as though you are listening and empathizing with them.

These two VERY easy techniques can be practiced on a daily basis. But there is a barrier to using these that we’ll get to in a later section.

If you want to learn more about these techniques, you can check them out here:

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An Easy Place to Start

The After-Action Review (AAR) is an easy place to practice empathy.

When I was a student at the Command and General Staff Officer Course, my small group did a physical training session with one of the bigshot Generals at the school. During the PT sessions, I noticed that the General’s pushups were, shall we say, not to the proper standard — he didn’t go all the way down and his back was really arched. After the PT session, he conducted an AAR about the PT session. He said, “give me three things that we could have done better.” Jumping at the chance to provide feedback I said, “Sir, since we just implemented the new PT test that uses a different style of push-ups (we do a form of hand-release pushups now) maybe we could have a demonstrator show people the proper form before we begin.”

I thought this was a relatively modest proposal that would be generally well received, but I was sorely mistaken. The General snapped back condescendingly, “dId You wAtCh ThE iNsTruCtiOnal vIDeo ThAt wAs SeNT tO YoU?” I replied, “yes, sir!” He snapped back again, “THEN YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW TO DO THE PUSHUPS! NEXT!”

Don’t mind me, sir, I’ll just go f*ck myself.

He had the same type of retort to other people who had the courage to provide the feedback that they were asked, nay, ordered to provide.

Unfortunately, I have seen this kind of attitude from a multitude of leaders at many different levels. The message that he sent to that group was, “I am not interested in listening to your feedback. I am only interested in asking for it because that is what Army leaders are supposed to do.” I heard that message loud and clear, and for the rest of the course, I never gave a substantive response on a survey, because I knew that he was the one that read them. Why would I waste my time providing well thought out feedback?

All he had to do was say, “Good recommendation, let me think about it.” He could have thought that what I said was the dumbest suggestion in the world and still just said, “Cool, thanks.” It would have cost him nothing.

So, the next time you run an AAR or ask for feedback from subordinates, keep your mouth shut. Don’t shut down your subordinates when they give you feedback. You don’t have to correct their thoughts. Most of the time, if you just listen and let your message trickle out over time, they’ll start to change their own mind. But, more importantly, if they know that you’ll listen when they talk, they are more likely to be honest with you. Overtime, they will also start to think a lot more about what they are going to say because they know you are going to take them seriously.

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The Hard Part

The hard part about practicing empathy, which I alluded to earlier, is emotional control. This is especially true in really tense conversations when you really disagree with what the other person is saying. If you respond emotionally, you will not respond with empathy. The more worked up you get, the more you need to say nothing. It’s okay to allow silence to fall in a conversation for an awkwardly long time while you think about what you are going to say next. Rather than respond emotionally, sometimes it’s best to focus on one of the techniques I mentioned above. When in doubt, just label what the other person just said.

Sometimes your emotions are just too big to control. Whatever you think of Jordan Peterson (if you think anything about him), he had this great tip about what to do in really bad situations. I can’t find the exact video where he talks about this, but he said something to the effect of, “when you’re in a really bad situation, you should be completely honest. If you are afraid someone is going to hurt you and you don’t know what to do, you should say ‘I am afraid you are going to hurt me.’” Along the same lines, he also advised simply saying what you see. “I see that you are very angry with me.” If you are having a really tense conversation with your boss where she is really coming at you for something that you said or did, and you don’t know what to say, it’s okay to just say what you’re feeling like, “I am afraid you are going to fire me.” This puts the ball in the other person’s court. Maybe they’ll say, “I should fire you!” but at any rate, it changes the conversational tempo and makes room for them to expand on what they are saying. If you are caught completely off guard, it’s hard to go wrong with this type of strategy and just see where it goes.

Sometimes it’s hard to have emotional control because the power dynamic of the conversation puts you in a place where you can easily ignore what’s being said. When a subordinate is talking to you and you are distracted thinking about something else, you are more likely to give a robotic response rather than an empathetic one. Emotional control isn’t just about controlling your emotions when things are tense, it’s about controlling your emotions when things are really boring. This is why empathy is often hard for leaders. We have some much on our plate and so much we want to do that other people can become an inconvenience or a distraction from our concentration. I am writing this as much for myself as for anyone else. I am a very emotional person, and I often get carried away or lose focus on empathy, but I am trying to get a little bit better every day.

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Next Week

As I said at the beginning, empathy is about results. You can be an a-hole who doesn’t care about other people, that’s fine, at least you know it. But you can still use these techniques for free to get better results from people.

As the paid subscribers know, this newsletter is really all about pragmatism. In the weekly newsletter, I mostly take shots at the uber-soft-bumper-sticker-LinkedIn “leadership” advice that passes for insight. The sycophantic comments on those types of posts make me sick.

Next week paid subscribers are getting a newsletter about a huge problem I am starting to see with organizations, and it is causing those organizations to fail. Caring about people is all well and good, but results matter. Or, as General McConville puts it, “Winning Matters.”