The more threads, the better.
Outside-In thinking—taking the perspective of the other party—is the first of the four pillars of persuasive power, and it has figured prominently in this blog. Yet one can always learn more, and Daniel Goleman’s new book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence
Goleman’s empathy triad comprises three forms of attention: cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and empathetic caring.
Cognitive empathy is the closest to what I call outside-in thinking. Essentially, it’s paying attention to the other person’s thought processes and emotions, of knowing what they’re thinking and feeling, and being able to incorporate that into your persuasive approach. Another term for it is perspective taking, which is the ability to see the situation from the point of view of another person. It’s a skill that may be unique to humans, and begins to develop around the time we are three years old and ends only when we attain positions of power.
Emotional empathy goes beyond simply being aware of what they are feeling, to being in tune with the other’s emotional state: you feel it yourself at least to a certain extent. In brain scan experiments, volunteers watching others undergo painful electric shocks show activation in the same brain areas, indicating that their minds are simulating the same experience.
Empathetic caring, the third level, is sometimes a missing ingredient, because it’s possible to know and feel what the other person is undergoing without caring enough to do something about it. For example, many doctors are well aware of what patients are feeling, but do not show a human concern for their condition. Interestingly, even when there is no difference in actual outcomes, those with a caring bedside manner are less likely to be sued for malpractice, and more likely to have patients follow their directions.
Let’s look at the benefits and dangers of each:
Cognitive empathy is extremely useful in sales, particularly in a complex sale that requires that you show a deep understanding of the client’s situation. Striving for and achieving it requires research, insightful questions, and close attention to the client’s words and body language in describing their situation. It works beyond sales; in any persuasive conversation the mere act of striving for it makes you more credible and sympathetic in the eyes of the other person, and increases the chances that they will open up and provide you with the reasons and the language that you can use to achieve your persuasive goal.
But the downside to cognitive empathy is that without feeling or caring it can easily become manipulative or awkward (remember the debate when Obama told Hillary Clinton she was “likeable enough”?). Indeed, Goleman tells us that successful sociopaths, such as swindlers and narcissistic leaders, succeed because they can be experts in understanding and manipulating other people. They can describe the other person’s emotions intellectually, but because they don’t feel them, their consciences are not constrained, and they see others only as instruments to get what they themselves want, making any persuasive goal acceptable and any tactic fair game.
So if being right is as important to you as being effective, you must balance outside-in thinking with outside-in feeling and caring. As a recent Harvard Business Review article puts it: “Warmth is the conduit of influence.”
How to achieve the right balance
Although Goleman does not call them this, I prefer to think of each type of empathy as head, gut, and heart. One would think that it’s best to have high levels of each type of empathy, but different situations call for different mixes. The best persuaders achieve the right balance of each depending on the situation. For example, a salesperson who is too focused on the intellectual dimension of the problem to be solved will overlook the little things that build long term trusting relationships; on the other hand, a surgeon who could not detach herself from the emergency room patient’s fear and pain would probably be too shaken to think straight. A presenter may be so focused on remembering his material that he neglects to notice that the audience has checked out.
How do you achieve the right balance of head, gut and heart?
Ironically, the best way to be good at outside-in thinking may be to begin with effective inside-out thinking. In other words, you need to be fully self-aware before you can be truly aware of others. Begin by examining your own reasons and motivations for the persuasive appeal you are making. Do you sincerely believe that it is in the other person’s best interest? If you were in their shoes, what would you do?
If your self-awareness tells you that you need to get better at feeling and caring, you can “fake it ‘til you make it.” This may sound really cynical, but researchers have found that teaching doctors to go through the motions even when you don’t feel like it—paying attention to the patient’s body language, facial expression and tone of voice—makes them more aware of them as people, and engages the second two legs of the empathy triad. During the conversation, monitor your own reading of the situation: can you sense what the other person is feeling at this stage of the interaction? Are you asking questions that elicit subjective information? Have you tried summarizing or paraphrasing what they are saying to ensure that you understand them, and that they know that you understand them?
It’s all about how you focus your attention. There is a rich stream of signals that flows between two people in a conversation, and we each have our own personal tendencies to selectively notice some of the stimuli and to ignore others; and the unconscious choices we make determine the quality, content and results of our dealings with other people. By allocating your attention appropriately to all three levels of the empathy triad you will ensure that you are persuading others to do the right thing in the right way.
Paying attention in this way is not only good ethics, it is good practice. Gaining agreement in this way will leave the other person better off and feeling good about their decision, which will lead to sustainable agreements, ongoing referrals, and long term trusting relationships.
Not the best way to succeed
Any commodity that is rare and useful it is bound to be very valuable. That is why in today’s frenetic world, attention is the new literacy.[1] It’s good to pay attention, but those who have the capacity and skill to invest their attention most productively will have a huge advantage in business, relationships, and life in general.
We all know how difficult it is to maintain focus for very long on one particular topic. In this age of continuous and ubiquitous connection, there are so many stimuli competing for our limited attention that very few of us feel like our attention fully belongs to us anymore.
Linda Stone coined the term, continuous partial attention, to describe our tendency to constantly be on alert for anything that might be more pressing than what we are doing right now. You experience it when you talk to someone. Although you know you should focus entirely on the person across from you, you are classically conditioned to respond to the chirp of your phone which announces an incoming message. At least the pigeons in Skinner’s boxes got a worthwhile reward for their mindless actions—yours is probably spam, but you’re powerless to resist anyway.
You see it when you try to sit down at your desk and focus on that project you’ve been putting off (such as this article). You know that you don’t hit your creative zone until about thirty minutes into it, but you just can’t resist stealing a glance at the screen, or getting up to walk around the house for a few minutes. When you give in to the interruption, it takes several minutes to get back up to cruising speed.
How much does it matter? I believe it matters a lot. Control of your attention is a hugely critical factor in the quality of your life and the arc of your success for the simple reason that your attention is the gateway through which all inputs that affect you enter your mind. Even when the inputs have entered within your mind, attention dictates how your mind uses them.
Where and how you invest your attention make you who you are. In short, you are the sum of what you invest your attention in. By improving your skill at investing attention, you will learn more, get more done, and improve your relationships.
There is no scientific proof of the old myth that we use less than 10% of our brains, but I believe that myth is still useful as a metaphor. I’d like to rephrase it by saying that we use less than 10% of our attention productively.[2] Most of the time our minds run on autopilot, passively taking in what’s around us and having a lot of cycle time available for unstructured musing and ruminating. It may be a song lyric playing over and over, or daydreaming, or worrying about whether you’re going to get that next deal. Very rarely are we thinking actively, deeply and constructively about an issue, so how can we even remotely approach our best work?
Attention is the foundation of all our other mental skills. For example, a lot of people complain that their memory is not that good, but I suspect that it’s more due to inattention than to memory. For example, I decided several years ago that I would master the art of quickly memorizing people’s names when they come into my classes. I pride myself on being able to take in and retain (for the duration of the class only, I admit) up to about 30 names. When people ask me how I do it, I tell them that it is almost entirely about listening to them when they tell me their name. At that moment, their name is the most important thing to me—not how I come across to them or what I want to say next—just their name.
Sustained attention is also critical to reflection and creativity. You have to spend quality time with a problem or a topic if you want to get that flash of insight that enables you to see the answer. You don’t have to be thinking about it all the time; in fact, those flashes usually come when you’re not thinking consciously about it. But you do have to spend time thinking about it to plant the seeds that will bear the fruit of insight.
Being in the moment is the only way to squeeze every ounce of juice out of life. If you’re here but not here, you’re not getting the full benefit of either where you are physically or where you are in your thoughts.
Your attention also determines the quality of your personal relationships. It is a cheap yet priceless gift that you can give to others. I know I need to be reminded of that on occasion. My wife once said to me: “I can’t believe you actually teach a module on listening,” to which I replied, “I try not to bring my work home with me.”
Think back to the last time someone gave you their deep and undivided attention for more than a few minutes. It felt pretty good, didn’t it? How often have you given the same to someone else? Or reflect on the opposite situation: you meet someone at a function and they don’t even look you in the eye when they shake your hand because they’re too busy scanning the room to see if there is anyone more important they should be talking to. How does that feel?
The good news to all this is that attention is a skill that can be improved with technique and practice, and that will be the subject of the next article.
[1] I love this phrase, and as near as I can tell, it was coined by Howard Rheingold.
[2] This figure of 10% is only a personal estimate; I don’t know of any research that has calculated the true percentage.
