21 st Century Skills: Empathy Lesson 1 Listening & Mirroring

1. 21st Century Skills: Empathy Lesson 1Listening & Mirroring www.newworldofwork.org

2. Primary Attributes (Traits) of Empathy: 1. Knows the difference between empathy (putting yourself in someone else’s shoes) versus sympathy (feeling sorry for/ understanding what someone is going through) and knows when to use one approach or the other. 2. Connects with others by being a good listener, asking questions to help understand what the other person is feeling, being honest, and mirroring positive nonverbal communication to build trust. 3. Develops good relationships with people from different backgrounds and cultures by showing they are respected and valued. 4. When working with clients or customers, makes decisions based on client or customer needs and points of view, and asks how satisfied they are with the outcome.

3. Sympathy vs. Empathy Sympathy Empathy Empathy is your ability to truly understand and share the feelings of another person. It is a personalized understanding of what someone else is feeling. • Sympathy is your ability to care about or be sorry about another person's state of being. It is a conceptual understanding of what someone else is going through.

4. What is Empathy in the Workplace? • Empathy is the ability to understand and feel what someone else is feeling, to walk in someone else’s shoes. • So, empathy in the workplace is important to understand coworkers’ and customers’ needs and to learn to fit in with the work culture. • Recent scientific research explains empathy.

5. Nova Mirror Neurons Video • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmx1qPyo8Ks

6. What does mirroring have to do with workplace skills? • You can build common ground quickly with coworkers and clients by using empathy • Physically mirroring coworkers and clients helps to build trust and rapport • Use mirroring to connect with organizational culture • Empathy and mirroring are key tools introverts can use to make others feel comfortable and understood

7. How does this apply in the New World of Work? • In the Gig Economy, it will be necessary to form new partnerships for projects or new jobs quickly. • The ability to form rapport and establish relationships quickly will result in a broader network of connections for prospective partnerships. • With the rise of individuals on the autism spectrum, mirroring may not come naturally to all people. So, just as the Nova video indicates, don’t become too reliant on mirroring to assess other people’s abilities. Highly intelligent people can have difficulty reading the emotions of others, but can still work well in project teams.

8. How to Mirror • Mirror the body language (non verbal communication) of others to create mutual understanding. • Practice Observe two people interacting: How are they sitting or standing in relationship to one another? Are they in a similar posture, are they using similar hand gestures? • If they are mirroring one another, this can create mutual understanding, if they are not, this can make them feel disconnected or misunderstood.

9. Empathy “What Not To Do” Video: • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey4dEjETGZw&t=7s

10. Empathy & Attentive Listening Another aspect of empathy is the ability to listen attentively, which means: You don’t interrupt in the middle of someone’s sentence, but instead let them finish a complete thought before commenting. When you do comment, it is to ask clarifying questions to check for understanding, such as “It sounds like you think/feel that… Have I understood you correctly?” At this point you can expand the conversation, but it is always with the intent of letting the other person convey a message to you, it is not for you to dominate the conversation.

11. Practice Activity: Question- What do you think are currently your strongest skills you can bring to a workplace? • Partner with the person sitting next to you. Each of you will take turns being the speaker and listener • Choose who will speak first • Speaker has two minutes to share thoughts and feelings • Listener is to give full attention with no interruptions; provide supportive atmosphere through eye contact, smiling, nodding, and mirroring body language • If speaker gets stuck, listener can ask open ended question such as “How does that make you feel?” or “Tell me more about…”

12. Self-Assessment of Empathy The Empathy Quotient (EQ) is a 60-item questionnaire designed to measure empathy in adults. https://psychology-tools.com/empathy-quotient/

13. Next Steps: Practice! Courses: • Building Trust • Being a Good Mentor • Customer Service Foundations • Communicating with Empathy Videos: • How to empathize • Building professional relationships • Focusing on customer needs LinkedIn and New World of Work have partnered to provide suggested next steps after each of the 21st Century Skills lessons. Go to: www.linkedin.com/learning These videos will help you continue to explore Empathy. You can earn certificates of completion to post on your LinkedIn profiles along with any of your digital badges and skills verifications.

14. For more information: • Tasler, N. (2013, March 7). How to Get Your Way: New Research Dispels Three Common Myths that Prevent Us from Moving Others . In Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/strategic-thinking/201303/how-get-your-way • Cort, J. (Writer). Fine, S. (Director). (2005). Nova: Mirror Neurons [Online video]. USA: PBS. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/mirror-neurons.html Provides the full transcript for the video