Robin Dreeke shared in this interview some input coming from a new book related to trust and empowerment. Here you will find a very personal set with some of the points he mentioned:
Empathy foundations
- The three key questions to ask in an input-gathering conversation are how, what and why.
- Dopamine goes to our pleasure centers - our brain rewards us then.
- Getting our interlocutor to get their brain rewarded by you talking to them should be our goal.
- It is important to understand context. How can we adapt ourselves to understand their way of being?
The tribe
- We need to understand the tribe mentality.
- When we are part of a tribe, it means survivability.
- Our ancestors had the need to belong to a tribe.
- Our brain rewards us when we feel part of a tribe.
- We could use DISC to identify communication styles.
- How do we do it quickly?
Make it all about them from the psychological viewpoint
- We should not memorise anything we are planning to say.
- Proposal: Use sympathy and an artificial time constraint.
- We can practise sympathy e.g. help me find a Valentine’s day gift for my partner.
- Our conversation would identify direct individuals (people oriented persons).- If they get us to do most of the talk (then they are passive).
- Just by analysing the way they dress they will tell us whether our interlocutor is people-oriented or indirect, task-oriented or analytical.
Demographics and culture
- One very simple technique - the easiest listening technique is have nothing to say - shut up!
- Key point: We want to validate them, we need to be focused on what they say, so shut up!
- The second we need to say something, we need to discard it!
- Example of input-gathering sentence: “I had a similar experience, tell me about yours”.
- If necessary, we can give a little bit of info but let's remember it’s about them.
- People are constantly testing how much we will accept them, if we accept them, they will tell us a little bit more about them.
- We need to become that person that will accept them unconditionally.
- We need to control our non-verbals so that we don’t reveal that we are judging them.
- It is almost as if we turn the conversation into a science experiment about people.
- One step further would be how did they decide to dress that way?
- Our focus will influence our approach, we want to know why that person
made some decisions.
Curious people
- What do we do with people who keep on asking questions?
- This is a validation coming to us.
- We could bounce it back and be conscious of the information we are giving away.
- If it keeps coming back to us, we'd better cut the engagement.
- Internet based social networks - people are constantly seeking validation - that is why people have thousands of friends e.g. in facebook.
Job interviews
- In a job interview, we'd better put in context how we can help them and their company.
- Currently, given labour market limitations, we could go back to a time constraint, e.g. "let’s run a contract o three months and you test me".
- Become fascinated about people.
- No one will hire us because of us but because of the benefits we can bring to them.
- Feel the emotion behind what you are saying.
- Positive psychology - be happy with what you are doing now.
 | |
| Getting closer to the empathy palace |
Happy empowering 2014!
