Listening with empathy training 

Listening with empathy is putting yourself in the other person's shoes.  It's an act of imagination - trying to imagine what thoughts and feelings are going on in the other person's mind. But not being telepathic we're not directly connected consciously with another person's mind in the same way we are with our own. This means that tuning in on their wavelength calls for imagination.  We have to read the signs - for example, their words and facial expressions - and try to infer their thoughts, feelings and intentions.  Research psychologists and anthropologists tell us that our survival as a species has depended on our ability to do this, and that a large proportion of the human brain is used for this highly complex and largely unconscious process (see social intelligence).

Since we are wired up to do it why is listening with empathy consciously so difficult?  A common difficulty is to do with where our attention is focused.  For most of us our attention is mainly focused on our own thoughts and feelings.  We're pre-occupied with what's going on in our own minds.  We don't think about this, we just go along with it.  It's a habit we're not even aware of. It doesn't occur to us to set our own thoughts aside and to pay attention to someone else's, particularly when we're in hot pursuit of a goal of our own.

On the Skills with People course you'll learn to harness consciously your innate sensitivity to the signals you receive from others.  You'll learn and practice the skill of listening with empathy.  You'll learn that you have the ability at any moment to make a conscious choice about where to focus your attention, whether on your own thoughts or on another person's.

Listening with empathy is a powerful response.  It makes people feel understood and respected. When they are angry, upset, resistant or complaining, it rapidly calms them down and enables them to recover their right mind. It is one of the main keys to being able to influence, persuade and sell (see handling objections).  Listening with empathy is one of the two basic skills at the heart of the Skills with People course (see Skills with People course contents). (See also Listening skills).