THAT MOMENT WHEN YOU WONDER

• “How's it going?"

• "How are you doing?"

• "How are you?"

…you’re in the Good, Bad & Ugly of navigating how to show empathy appropriately at work.

THINK // 3 insights from the field

😇 THE GOOD THING about asking that casual "How are you?" is that it probably comes from a genuine desire to connect with someone else at work.

Nobody enjoys showing up in a workplace where people will not even offer each other even the smallest gesture of human engagement and connection.

A casual but authentic "How are you?" "How's it going?" "How are you doing?" accompanied by a sincere physically 'felt' connection offered via a welcoming gaze, kind smile, warm tone or appropriate touch can go a long way to making someone feel seen, accepted and welcomed.

We are all born into the world neurologically hardwired to "look for the face that is looking for us".

For a newborn to begin life on a good pathway of development, they would need consistent connection with the presence of at least one safe human being: eye-to-eye, skin-to-skin, voice-to-voice. This gives us a deep, profound sense of psychological and physical safety.

Things are strange. We feel strange. But once that psychological and physiological connective tissue is drawn between us and another safe human being, we are set at ease. We are safe enough. Our environment is safe enough.

In many ways, though we are no longer newborns, we never ever stop looking for those "faces that are looking for us".

Even as grown-up working professionals, a part of us feels much more at rest when we receive an empathetic, sincere offer from someone else in a workplace that communicates to us, "You're OK with me. You're OK to me. You're safe with me."

🤬 THE BAD THING about "How are you?" "How you doing?" "How's it going?" is that it doesn't always have that intended empathetic effect of creating sincere, connective tissue between giver and receiver.

Problem #1: VAGUE QUESTIONS GENERATE VAGUE ANSWERS

• The question is framed by the Asker in such a general, broad and vague way that the Receiver struggles to frame their answer. Sometimes if people draw a blank or give you some stock response, it's because they may be wondering: What do you mean? Are you asking me about my feelings? Are you asking about my health, my work, my terrible marriage? How do I scope my answer to fit the request?

• Listen for the vague and unhelpful answers given that signal to you that you might have been unhelpful: "I'm OK I guess?" "It's alright, I suppose?" "I dunno" "I'm not sure how to answer your question"

• What shall I do then? Asking the question in a more specific frame of reference can help people grasp the scope of their answer. If I ask "How are you doing, healthwise?" "How are you feeling after that meeting?" "How did your weekend go with all the wedding prep you were talking about that day?", it gives people more specific things to work with. It can also show them what I remember and connect with in their sharings thus far about their life. This can help build empathetic bonds better.

Problem #2: DISSONANCE BETWEEN WORDS AND PHYSICALITY
CREATES DISTANCE

• The question is not offered together with a physically "felt" gesture of empathy from the Asker causing the Receiver to second-guess the Asker's intent.

• We all look for different physical cues to try to gauge where someone is coming from: How are you looking at me? Why aren't you looking at me? Why that tone? Is this person smiling weird?

• So if you ask "How are you?" but your eyes dart elsewhere, your tone sounds bored, you fidget and move on to the next thing before they can complete their answer, they may see you as disinterested and unsafe. They disconnect to protect themselves and will not disclose further.

• What shall I do then? When you ask people how they are doing, thinking or feeling about something that can feel vulnerable, complement it with a felt sense of "I am with you, for you in this". Practice what supportive gaze, supportive tone, supportive smile, supportive touch can look like for you - and get feedback from trustworthy people about how you come off.

😈 THE UGLY THING about the way we ask our "How Are You?"s is that it might expose our dysfunctional relationship with establishing too high or too low a boundary when it comes to showing empathy.

EMPATHY x TOO HIGH BOUNDARIES = DISSONANCE

• Some of us ask our "How are you?"s more as a social courtesy. We might not be actually that interested in showing empathy to others at work.

• We might have a misunderstanding that to be professional at work is to maintain such high boundaries that we should not be personal with each other at all. We might believe keeping everyone at a cool, arm's length, clinical distance is the best way to work together.

• But this lack of a physically felt sense of warmth and presence feels at odds with even the most courteous words offered. This dissonance casts doubt on your sincerity and capacity for genuine care. It really decreases that sense of psychological safety people need to trust each other, tackle hard problems and do good work together.

EMPATHY x TOO LOW BOUNDARIES = ENMESHMENT

• Some people ask their "How are you?"s broadly coupled with a sincere but outsized projection of physically felt desire for connection. We want to spend time deeply listening to everything in a person's life. We are the ones to spend 2 hours at lunch listening to a colleague's love-life woes. We might be a little too interested in showing empathy to others at work.

• We might have a misunderstanding that empathy is about deeply feeling, deeply caring and deeply loving everybody that crosses our path. We might have gotten hurtful feedback that we are a little overwhelming, a little too intense, a little too smothering, a little too personal at work. We might believe bringing everyone into the fold, being tightly bound up with each other's lives as if we are like family or a tribe of besties is the best way to work together.

• Empathy without healthy boundaries is really enmeshment. Sharing vulnerably without healthy boundaries is really manipulation. When we get too emotionally and psychologically entangled with each other at the workplace such that professional-personal boundaries get blurred, it can affect everybody's professionalism at work. We get tribal, we get clique-ish, we get strange "power-over" dynamics in the workplace.

FEEL // 2 links to help you feel less alone

LISTEN Researcher Brene Brown and her sister, therapist Ashley Brown Ruiz, share about how living BIG with others is about Boundaries + Integrity + Generosity

READ  Researcher Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart on why boundaries are a prerequisite for compassion and empathy

DO // 1 strategy to try this week

NOTICE  the next time you ask a friend, family, colleague, client, vendor or even your boss: "How are you?" "How ya doing?" "How's it going?"

FIRST, GET CURIOUS

• Is the question indeed too vague? How are they answering me? Do they know what to offer me? Are they giving me a stock standard answer?

• Am I giving physically felt cues of "I am with you, for you, present with you" that establish connection? Or am I disconnected and not fully present?

• Do I sense I am establishing too high, too low or "just right" boundaries with the other person as I ask that?

THEN, PRACTICE ASKING A MORE SPECIFIC EMPATHETIC QUESTION + PHYSICAL CUES FOR CONNECTION

❌ Unspecific empathetic check-in

• "How are you?"

• "How ya doing?"

• "How's things going?"

✅ More specific empathetic check-in

• "How are you...doing after that difficult meeting?"

• "How are you....feeling now that the project is over?"

• "How are things going...since half the team left and you're still searching for replacements?"

• "How are you...coping since your mom's funeral?"

How can I get better at facilitating conversations?

If you want to shift the personal dynamics, professional situations or organisational cultures around you, I would love to help you.

I help my organisational clients strategise how to change what's working/not working in their culture. I design interventions, train leaders & their people in necessary skills and facilitate necessary conversations on their behalf. You can also look up our public training offerings at Common Ground Civic Centre such as this one:

Have a worthy weekend, workplace warriors.

Leading organisational cultural change is a good and meaningful thing. But it can be a battlefield through some bad things and ugly things. I'm here for you in the trenches.

Every Friday, you’ll get 3 insights + 2 links + 1 strategy to arm you for Monday.

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Meanwhile, get some rest this weekend. I'll see you next Friday,

❤️ 👊 🙌

Wishing you love, power & meaning,

Shiao