Empathy: Turning Toward, Away, and Against

It's been a while since I've written about empathy (The Secret to Building Relationships, Emotional Literacy), and in this post I wanted to write about a way that people often sabotage their empathetic efforts without even realizing it.

Relationships, be it personal or professional/business, are built upon trust, but what builds trust?

In short, bids for connection, and specifically, bids for connection that are answered in a positive way.

Obviously, in a business sense, the bids for connection are vastly different from the bids for connection in personal relationships - but there are bids nonetheless.

At the core of a bid for connection there is a person (the bidder) who is, in some way, shape or form, saying to another person (biddee, for lack of a real word) 'Hey, I'm here. Do you see me?' How the biddee responds has a huge impact on whether the bidder feels seen, heard, and/or recognized, and subsequently whether trust begins to develop, or if the opportunity to build trust is lost.

There are three primary ways a biddee can respond - they can either turn towards, turn away, or turn against.

• Turn Towards: In this scenario, the bidder makes a bid for connection, and the biddee responds by holding emotional space and devoting attention to the bidder. A more common phrase we may come across that signifies turning towards is active listening.
• Turn Away: In this scenario, the bidder make a bid, but the biddee only perhaps makes a vague attempt to respond, or does not respond at all.
• Turn Against: In this scenario, the bidder makes a bid, but the biddee actively rejects the bid.

To get the obvious out of the way, I think we can all agree that turning towards is the best scenario to build a relationship. And we can probably all agree that turning against is not ideal, either. But what is interesting is that turning away is actually the most destructive.

Yes, even more destructive than turning against.

Why? Because turning against provides the opportunity for repair. Turning against may harm the bidder, but at least the bidder knows where they stand. It's not a comfortable spot, but it's a known quantity. Turning away, on the other hand, leaves things vague. The bidder is hurt, but is still in a position that leaves hope, leaves opportunity for second chances, etc.

Think of this example. You and a friend go out to dinner, sit down, and catch up for a few minutes after sitting down. The other person then grabs their phone and starts checking email, facebook, reddit, or whatever else they are doing that is not paying attention to you. It's easy to cast this aside as 'oh, they don't mean to be a jerk', or 'oh, they are just checking work email because they may have something important that came up'. A thousand excuses come to mind, yet in the end, you are sitting there opposite a person who indicated they wanted to share an experience with you (dinner), yet in the moment, decided that something else was more important with barely an explanation.

Now, think about your reaction if they had said, at the onset, 'Yes, lets meet for dinner - but I will be honest and tell you I may get distracted because things are crazy at work right now, and I apologize for it'. So much better! All because they took half a second to put themselves in your shoes, turn towards you and be honest and upfront with you about the situation.

As I said earlier, all relationships - personal and business (heck, even parent/child relationships) - are built upon trust. After over 20 years of working with customers in the business world, I've seen variations of all the above play out, and seen how it impacts relationships. Regardless of how technically successful a project may or may not be, far more important, and the thing that leaves a much longer lasting impression, is how did the other party feel about the interactions they had with you?

If the other party felt you understood where they were coming from, and you took the time and effort to turn towards them - chances are much higher they will want to do business with you in the future, regardless of the technical outcome of the previous interaction was a success or not.

The concept of turning toward, away, and against is from Dr Gottman and his research at the Gottman Institute.