By Tom Reilly, the guy who wrote the book on Value-Added Selling
Research shows that college student empathy is at an all-time low while narcissism is at an all-time high. I have studied the research, but more importantly I hear the question from my clients, “How do we deal with this new crop of employees?” They are expressing the frustration of trying to socialize a group of recruits that would rather text than talk.
I will not burden you with psychological theories of why empathy has taken a back seat to narcissism, but it has something to do with one’s willingness to subordinate personal interests to the greater good of serving. This would be less of an issue for us except that professional selling requires empathy. Shifting the focus from oneself to another person is necessary for relationship building—a requisite of Value-Added Selling.
For decades, research on sales success has shown that aggressiveness and empathy are equally important characteristics. You can be as aggressive as you want in pursuing business if you balance your aggressiveness with an equally strong measure of empathy. There is no problem that aggressiveness will get you into that empathy will not keep you out of.
Managers and recruiters, fret not. There is hope. You can teach and coach fledgling sales reps to empathize—how to practice the behaviors of empathy. One way is to teach them to ask questions and patiently listen to the other person. To listen patiently—to really listen—means focusing on the other person, not the self.
Carl Rogers, father of client-centered therapy wrote: “To be effective at all in active listening, one must have a sincere interest in the speaker. We all live in glass houses as far as our attitudes are concerned. They always show through. And if we are only making a pretense of interest in the speaker, he will quickly pick this up, either consciously or unconsciously. And once he does, he will no longer express himself freely. Active listening carries a strong element of personal risk. If we manage to accomplish what we are describing here—to sense deeply the feeling of another person, to understand the meaning his experiences have for him, to see the world as he sees it—we risk being changed ourselves. It is threatening to give up, even momentarily, what we believe and start thinking in someone else’s terms. It takes a great deal of inner security and courage to be able to risk one’s self in understanding another.”
These recruits coming into the ranks are smart. They understand the technology that is changing the world. It is our job as trainers, recruiters, managers, and coaches to make sure that they understand the people using the technology. Humans are social creatures. On some level, people care about others. It is one way that we preserve the species. Let’s make sure these creatures know how to be social.