This is my first article for the year. Prompted by sport and my desire to be more empathic and understanding in 2017. Sport is a great testing ground to build empathy and an understanding character. I truly am a stand for empathy. I am a stand for BEING an empathetic understanding person whilst focusing on results. And, if the truth be known, I find it hard at times.

The big secret in the coaching industry is that we coaches have bucket loads empathy and it’s simply not true. I have met some hard arsed coaches. Coaches DO NOT have the empathy gene. In fact, from my experience in leadership profiling work of at least 200 or more so participants in the corporate space, not that many people have a high empathy score. I was surprised and shocked. Most people are average on the empathy score. Coaches, I have met lots of them, have to work on it like anyone else! In the last organisation I worked with it, empathy was an admired trait. It was like GOLD.

I work on it because I know empathy leads to continued performance and longevity leading to great results in any field or endeavour. And that IS my passion and my driver. I value expertise and a “high skill level”. I know, when we lose our empathetic skills with ourselves or each other we get stuck, our skill goes down, our self-esteem takes a beating and we can say things we could regret. Simply said empathy rules.

My empathy gets a workout around the tennis courts. I feel I am a bit of an expert, not in having more of it than anyone else but in the process of working on it. I have been tuning in my empathy muscles for many years and I am still getting it wrong! As some of you know, I have a son who is a tennis player.  This makes me a tennis mum and a tennis manager. I drive the car, get the food, make the food, stop at the service station for ice, plan the tournaments, laugh, and cheer and cry (secretly) and I pick up the pieces when it falls apart and then I attempt to let it go and move on to the next tournament. Whew! I love it! I experience the full gamut of human emotions and I have to deal with MY EMOTIONS. And I am so grateful I get to feel. I get to be a human being warts and all. I owe this to my beautiful son, I thank my son, who has allowed me to participate in this amazing journey of being human. You, my son, have taught me so much.

To fulfil jointly on these two roles takes something from me and it is vitally important to keep my empathy skills red hot. When I watch my son play, naturally I can get really hot, fiery and emotional. It’s fine when it’s a win and horrid when it’s a loss. The wear and tear of the winning and losing can reduce your perspective of WHY you are doing it.

I have learnt a few things along our 11-year journey from wrangling with the empathy gods. My most present learning is:

Empathy disintegrates when you feel you are losing. I ask myself questions like:

Why is it hard to have empathy when things aren’t working out?

Why can’t we be more understanding? Why can’t I be more understanding?

I have a conscious rule and reminder that goes like:

 “EVERY TIME I go to a tennis tournament pump up the volume on my empathy”

As Michelle Obama recently quoted: “When my children go low, I go high”.

Here are a few things I know work to go high:

1. Get enough rest, food – being tired or hungry is a sure fire killer. It’s almost impossible to think of another.
2. See the journey, not the win – focusing on what is working towards the bigger picture keeps you calm.
3. Think deeply of the other person – stop being selfish and really think consciously think quietly about how they must have felt.
4. Call it a day early – don’t mouth off and go into analysing or pulling apart the project, the match or meeting. I know I have broken all of these rules. In the workplace, I once had a manager who pulled apart problems for breakfast till I was cross-eyed. This is a turn-off. Keep it short and keep your voice modulated and calm. Use your authority to guide them back onto the right track and don’t be a dragon. Empathy is more like a wise goddess or a radio announcer for the over 70’s. Then let them get on with working it out.
5. Go and love them – acknowledge the other person in a way that has nothing to do with what has happened. Your acceptance of their efforts and WHO they are as a person will give them the space to work it out themselves.
6. Grip fast to potential – pick your moments and grip fast to their potential and stay in the conversation with that.

All of these strategies can be applied in your leadership life and though they sound simple, they are not. They are associated with a myriad of behaviours and mainly the false idea that the other person can’t sort it out.

There is a coaching 101 rule that says, the client is the expert and actually knows what to do next.

This does not always apply in sport. A broader perspective is needed, due to the fact the player is in the heat of the moment and simply does not have it. In a business context, the false idea that they need your badgering help and expertise makes them feel insecure and unable to handle their own messes. It’s not your job to do it for them.

True empathy leaves the other person feeling understood and enabled to keep going.

Go high and go the empathy.