Last weekend in our MCD retreat, a participant—let's call her Carol—described a meeting at work in which her boss offered feedback. The words, tone, and volume of the feedback didn't meet Carol's needs for kindness and respect. Carol asked how she could approach this situation. When I suggested empathy, Carol's eyes got wide and a wrinkle of worry appeared on her forehead.

Remembering that your boss might be feeling overwhelmed and needing empathy isn't about giving them a “get out of jail free” card with regard to behaving in a way that meets your needs. Rather, accessing shared humanity is helpful for situations like these in a number of ways.

First, it can release you from the unconscious mandates of roles. Your “boss,” Sally, suddenly becomes a human being. Facing Sally is easier than facing “a boss.” You also get to be another human being instead of “an employee.” You can replace “my ranting boss” with “Sally is feeling stressed.” Responding to stressed Sally opens up a wider range of options and it's easier to find compassion.

It’s not so easy to trust that creating connection will help you and others meet needs. And, sometimes it's hard to imagine that the other person wants to connect. Your mind might be quick to judge Sally . . . “overbearing control freak,” “heartless perfectionist,” “she shouldn’t . . .!”

The extent to which you can see the situation for what it is—Sally is feeling stressed (or otherwise under-resourced emotionally)—is the extent to which you can intervene and create connection. Though we are all trained not to interrupt, my experience is that most of the time people are relieved to be interrupted when it helps them to be heard.

How would empathy for Sally look in the context of a work meeting?

In the dialogue below you can see the five elements of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue (MCD): observations, thoughts, feelings, needs, and requests. Each time you interrupt, you can translate what Sally says into one of the five elements.

You: (interrupting) Sally, I want to make sure I am on the same page with you. The two events you are referring to are the auction and the banquet, is that right? (OBSERVATIONS)

Sally: Right.

You: (before Sally can continue) Which one are you wanting us to focus on first? (REQUEST)

Sally: Well, all of it was a disaster.

You: (you jump in quickly) Yeah, I’m hearing you thought (THOUGHT) both were disasters and you want to make sure we learn from our mistakes here (NEED = learning). Is that it?

Sally: That's right. For instance, you didn't hire enough staff for the banquet!

You: (using your jedi powers you dodge this possible hook by remembering that Sally is feeling (FEELING) stressed and probably fearful regarding the success of the company. When people are stressed and fearful they often use blame to try to meet their needs for acceptance.) Yeah, so you would like to start by talking about staffing? (REQUEST)

This same conversation could be done in reverse with you bringing up these topics and naming your observation, feeling, need, and request.  The difference between communicating this directly at work versus with a friend is that with a friend you are attempting to create mutual understanding and intimacy. At work, you are simply hoping to create enough mutual understanding and connection to do the job effectively (meet needs). Thus, at work it is sometimes more useful to leave out vulnerable feelings and put more focus on observations, thoughts, needs, and requests. Your direct and clear communication can then help you to create connection while avoiding being perceived as confrontational or too vulnerable.

Practice

This week at work begin your practice with choosing a few key meetings or relationships in which you will track the observations, thoughts, feelings, needs, and requests. This might be easiest if you take a few notes just after these interactions and then review them at home, naming the five elements for each.