Take their perspective without taking on their feelings
Separate understanding what someone thinks and wants from feeling what they feel, and use the first when you need to solve something together.
Perché funziona
Perspective-taking (considering the world from another’s viewpoint) and empathy (connecting emotionally with them) are related but distinct. When the task is to find an agreement, understanding the other person’s interests and reasoning lets you see trades and hidden options; absorbing their emotional state can pull you toward giving up what you need.
Come farlo
- Before a hard conversation, write two short lists: "What they think and want" and "What they feel."
- In the conversation, ask mainly about the first list: what matters most to them, and why.
- Acknowledge the feelings out loud without making them your job to fix.
- Afterward, check whether you gave something up because their distress was hard to sit with.
Prove scientifiche
Across three studies using both individual-difference measures and experimental manipulations, Galinsky, Maddux, Gilin and White (2008) found that perspective taking increased negotiators’ ability to discover hidden agreements and to create and claim value, while empathy was not nearly as advantageous and at times hurt both deal-making and individual outcomes. (rct)
The studies were negotiations, where finding a deal is the goal. In grief, care or repair, empathy matters in its own right; the authors describe it as essential in many parts of social life.
Fonti
Errore comune
Concluding that empathy is the problem. The point is to know which one you are using, not to switch empathy off.
Metti in pratica questo con IX Coach
Altre pratiche per First, Second, Third and Fourth Person Perspectives
- Walk one conflict through four perspectives
Write the same disagreement four times — as you, as the other person, as a neutral observer, and as someone seeing how context shaped all three.
- Write their account in their own voice
Tell the story of the disagreement in the first person as the other person, using the words they would use.
- Check your version of them by asking
Treat your picture of someone else’s view as a hypothesis, and get their perspective directly before acting on it.
- Write the observer’s account
Describe your own conflict the way a fair bystander who knows both of you would, using names instead of "I" and "they".
- Notice what shaped every account, including the neutral one
Ask how background, role, culture and setting shaped your view, their view and the observer’s view alike.
- Separate the well-mapped steps from the speculative ones
When you read about person perspectives, sort each claim by what kind of evidence stands behind it.
- Hear which perspective you speak from
Read back what you wrote or said about a situation and mark each sentence by the perspective it speaks from.
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- Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (AQAL), Made Practical
Five elements for catching what your view of a situation leaves out, held as a map rather than a truth
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
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- Auto-Distanziamento: Pensare con Chiarezza ai Propri Problemi
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