06. Empathy in Communication III: Empathetic First Response (Part 2) Copy
Empathetic First Responses have the power to make or break a conversation. First responses decide the course of all your conversations and are extremely important to watch out for. A lack of empathy in your response can turn your conversations into an unnecessary escalation.
So, what do you do to make sure your first response is empathetic?
You make sure that you frame your first response properly.
Take this lesson to learn more about how to frame empathetic first responses. And don’t forget to take the accompanying quiz at the end of this lesson.
Happy Learning!
Format
This lesson is in video format.
Transcript Provided
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When responding to people’s emotions – here are two important things to do to make the speaker feel understood.
1. Calling it Out – Identify the emotion you see, or the thought being manifested and verbalise it.
For example:
The speaker has just described how angry they are about something. An empathetic first response in this case could be: ‘That’s upsetting’*
The speaker has expressed disappointment in something. An empathetic first response in this case could be: “If I hear you correctly, you are saying that that you feel let down.”
The speaker has approached you several times about steps of a process that they just can’t seem to get right. Consider saying, “I understand that the steps involved can often be confusing.”
The speaker avoids committing to something whole-heartedly. Consider saying “You sound unsure.”
Calling out the emotion or thought offers you a dual advantage.
1. Done correctly, it conveys to the other person that you understand what they’re feeling or going through.
2. If you have read their emotion wrong, people will often correct you.
For instance, you might have said, “That sounds frustrating.” If the other person isn’t frustrated, they might say something like “It’s not so much frustrating as it is shocking.”
In this case, you can acknowledge the correction and proceed with the conversation.
