First of all, we are born to have empathy. Therefore, it is not about are you empathetic or not. It is about how empathetic you can be.
Being empathetic is to:
Perceive things in according to another person's frame of reference instead of self
understand how another person feels and thinks
reflect your understandings to them.
It is important to acquire empathy in our daily life. It does not only help in building trust and understanding between colleagues, but also a big step towards a civilized world.
Why do I write this type of book?
Firstly, I found that I had problem related to empathy. There was something wrong with my communication with my bosses, colleagues and clients. I did not understand them in their perspectives. My needs and my priorities were the most important things compared to caring for other's needs. Consequently, many problems have emerged.
Of course, it is easier to discover the lack of empathy in other people! For example:
When the lift is opened, people would not let the people inside go out first. Instead, they rush into the lift to make sure themselves can get in first.
When people drive from side street to main street, they would not slow down and yield to the traffic from the main street.
Most of the sales only care about what they want to sell, but not what the customers need, let alone talking about creating a good customer experience.
Of course, my experience at a bakery shop named 85 C was my greatest push for such a book! See what happened.
So what kind of problems can power of empathy solve?
If one is able to develop the power of empathy:
Our living quality will be improved as we have advanced our communication skills! (More trust and less conflict)
Our society will be more civilized too. (A society with understanding, respectfulness and good cohesion)
Who do not want an empathetic boss who understands our needs; an empathetic colleague who can think in different perspectives; and an empathetic subordinate worker who can stand in our perspective to work as fellow team member?
Who do not want to deal with empathetic sales person, doctor, banker, teacher, etc who are willing to understand our needs when we subscribe to services?
How can we develop the power of empathy then?
First, as mentioned above, it is not about do you have empathy or not. It is about how you develop empathy.
For example: everyone can do push-up, right? The answer must be yes. However, can everyone do 50 push-ups in a minute? Definitely yes too, but we need some time to get trained though.
Empathy can be trained too in according to the above theory. Perseverance is the key element to develop our power of empathy.
"1-3-5+ model"
1 attitude (1 positive attitude)
3 principles (understand the principles of empathy rationally)
5 or more training (Practice makes perfect)
The model gives an idea of what persistent practices are. Power of empathy will be enhanced after these training.
Reading this book will be a good start. There are many workshops related to empathy will be held too. Our visions are:
Helping entrepreneurs and managers to develop the wisdom of empathy;
Empathy training course about the wisdom of leader for new managers;
Empathy training course about the wisdom of creating love for families;
Empathy training course about the wisdom of gaining customer's trust for sales;
The empathy training course and the tailor-made action and reflection scheme for our students are our best guarantee.
