Tan, Chade-Meng - Search Inside Yourself - The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)

The more often you are able to see how each side in a disagreement is correct and reasonable, the more often you will be able to understand differing perspectives objectively and the more accurate your political awareness will become.

This reminds me of a joke: Two guys had a major disagreement they could not resolve, so they decided to consult a wise guru. The first guy presented his argument to the guru, and the guru nodded his head and said, “Yes, you are right.” The second guy presented his diametrically opposing argument to the guru, and again the guru nodded his head and said, “Yes, you are right.”

A third guy watching the entire exchange got a little bit annoyed and asked the guru, “Wait, something is wrong. They cannot possibly both be right at the same time.” And the guru nodded his head and said, “Yes, you are right.”

Mental Habits for Highly Empathetic People

Empathy comes preinstalled in our brains; we are all hardwired to be empathic. However, the main takeaway of this chapter is that empathy is something you can improve with practice, and most of that practice involves mindfulness and creating mental habits that are conducive to empathy.

Chief among those mental habits is kindness. Having the mental habit of kindness means that every time you interact with a human being, the thoughts in your mind that arise habitually and effortlessly are, “This person is a human being just like me. I want him or her to be happy.” Having this mental habit makes you more receptive to other people, and them more receptive to you.

Another mental habit is being open to understanding how other people can seem reasonable, at least from their own points of view, even when you disagree with them. Having this mental habit enables you to view social interactions with more clarity and objectivity.

If you practice mindfulness frequently and foster the above mental habits, you will have a very strong foundation for empathy. If, on top of that foundation, you also practice a lot of empathic listening and pay frequent attention to people, you will eventually develop strong empathy that extends to political awareness.

And that is no monkey business.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Being Effective and Loved at the Same Time

Leadership and Social Skills

You can make more friends in two months by becoming really

interested in other people than you can in two years by trying

to get other people interested in you. Which is just another

way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.

—Dale Carnegie

Being Loved Is Good for Your Career

Two renowned leadership scholars, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, offer the following research conclusion:

… researchers looked at a number of factors that could account for a manager’s success. [They] found one, and only one, factor significantly differentiated the top quartile of managers from the bottom quartile … the single factor was high scores on affection— both expressed and wanted … the highest performing managers show more warmth and fondness toward others than do the bottom 25 percent. They get closer to people, and they are significantly more open in sharing thoughts and feelings than their low-performing counterparts .

… All things being equal, we will work harder and more effectively for people we like. And we like them in direct proportion to how they make us feel . 1

To those of us in the corporate world used to the idea that the most effective way to get things done is to act like a jerk, this study offers a refreshing and inspiring possibility of a better approach. You do not necessarily have to get things done at the expense of being liked; it is possible to have both. You can have your cake and promotion too. In fact, being liked may be the most effective way to get things done in the long term. This possibility is also reflected in the study of U.S. Navy commanders we quoted in Chapter 1, which showed that the most effective naval commanders are also the ones with higher emotional intelligence and who are most liked.

“You know, Lord Vader, you’d be much more effective if you were more likable.”

In this chapter, we will explore some emotional skills that will help you be liked and also be successful at what you do. Some people buy books that teach them to be liked, others buy books that teach them to be successful. This book teaches you both. You are so lucky.

Using Kindness to Grow Friendship from an Ugly Situation

Even in difficult situations, it is sometimes possible to make important things happen while still creating happy friendships. It requires a kind heart, an open mind, and the right social skills.

Many years ago, I had a friend and co-worker named Joe (names have been changed, again to protect me). Joe was never on my team, but his work involved building systems used internally in the company, so in that sense, I was Joe’s customer and a very satisfied one. A new manager, Sam, joined the company and took over Joe’s team, and within a few weeks, Sam called Joe into his office and told him his performance had been very unsatisfactory and dismissal procedures would soon be initiated against him.

Joe was devastated. I was very unhappy too. As a customer of the team, I considered Joe one of its best performers, so I was angry that Joe would even be evaluated poorly, let alone dismissed on performance grounds. I was determined to help him.

I was an influential person in that company, so if I had confronted Joe’s new manager, Sam, the potential for things to become really ugly was obvious, even to an engineer like me.

Fortunately, I already had years of meditation and compassion practice, so I had the right tools to deal skillfully with this situation. I calmed my mind with mindfulness and used the Just Like Me meditation (see Chapter 7) to put myself into Sam’s shoes. I quickly realized that there must be something important I did not know about the situation and which I needed to understand before I judged. I was missing important data. My mind quickly shifted from anger to an eagerness to understand and engage with kindness and curiosity.

I wrote Sam an e-mail introducing myself, sincerely welcoming him to the company, and then explained my concerns about Joe and my eagerness to help him. Part of the e-mail read:

I understand that we are all reasonable people, so that decision must not have been made lightly. However, I hope to be able to understand the reasons behind that decision, so that I can figure out how to better help Joe .

Will you be comfortable if I schedule some time with you so that I can listen to and learn from you about this case? I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position, so please feel free to say no .

Happily, Sam, though understandably a bit uncomfortable, engaged me with reciprocal kindness and sincerity. We sat together, exchanged personal stories, and then talked about Joe. We both learned a lot in that conversation. From Sam, I learned that Joe had created issues for his team, such as taking on too much from his customers in an undisciplined manner that caused him to neglect some important team goals. On the other end, Sam learned from me how much Joe’s customers valued him for all those extra miles he had gone for them. Sam and I both acquired important missing data.