Relationships

In Chapter Three of my upcoming book, Influence: What’s the Missing Piece, we discuss the organizational culture and the landscape for high return on investment. One of these cultures is connectedness that results in friendships.

In Part One of our previous post on friendship and connection at work, we talked about the importance of having workplace friendships.

Today, we turn to how to actually build healthy friendships at work.

In Chapter Three of my upcoming book Influence: What’s the Missing Piece?, we discuss the organizational culture and the landscape for high return on investment. In today’s article, I want to dig deeper into one facet of something covered in that chapter.

One of the key aspects of a healthy organizational culture is that people need to foster strong relationships at work. Let’s call this the connection factor.

Most people guess incorrectly about the best way to reach out in empathy to others. Yet identifying with others is one of the chief means we gain likeability, one of the Seven Influence Traits®. Of course we don’t empathize with others merely to increase a score; however, having people understand we are emotionally in their corner does help us lead them.

What Is Empathy?

The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner - Merriam Webster

Which Road to Empathy?

Research suggests that a process of systematic reasoning outperforms gut instinct for understanding what other people are thinking and feeling. This counters our own self-perception that gut instinct would be the best means to empathize.

Is it so bad to feel envious or jealous of someone or others’ opportunities?  No. Actually, jealously can be a helpful emotion. It serves as a clue that you need to pay closer attention. It forces you to listen carefully what is behind the green-eyed monster.