- We are gonna talk about compassionate communication,
why it's important, and how you can do it.
So stick around for the details.
(bright music)
Hello there, and welcome back.
I'm Alex Lyon, and we are in the third video
of a four-part series on compassion.
And today's topic is compassionate communication
and it's really important
because compassionate communication can really change
the whole atmosphere, it can change your whole environment.
Now the truth is that cruel
or compassionate communication both spread,
they're both contagious.
So you can be a force for good
by communicating with compassion in an around your context.
You can't control what other people do,
but you can lead by example and do your part
by communicating with compassion.
Compassion is care, kindness,
especially the tendency to think about
the needs and the good of others.
It's a state of mind, a state of emotion,
that drives us to act with kindness toward others.
And we will look at three ways to communicate
with more compassion.
The first is an old saying,
"It's not what you say but how you say it."
So say it with kindness and patience, for example.
Speak with words and a tone that say you care about people.
My old friend and author, Allen Weiner, has a saying,
"If you could easily finish a statement
"with the phrase, "You dummy!,"
"you're using the wrong tone."
He has an excellent book on communication and leadership.
I'll put a link to that in the description below the video.
But the point is your words and your attitude both matter
in terms of how you come across,
whether you're compassionate or not.
And when we say tone of voice by the way,
we usually mean all the related nonverbal cues
that go along with it like eye contact
and facial expression.
It could be for example asking somebody to do something
rather than barking out orders and telling them to do it
with a rough tone or a disapproving facial expression.
So how you say things is just as important as what you say.
The second way to communicate with compassion is
to listen with compassion,
and part of this is listening with empathy.
When we listen with empathy,
we put ourselves in the other person's shoes
to feel what they're feeling.
And when we do this it will stir up our compassion for them
when they're in a difficult situation, and then they'll see
that we care and they'll feel supported.
So listening is huge.
And it could be a minor issue.
Like I recently went on a vacation to Florida
with my family.
I'm from upstate New York you might call it,
near Niagara Falls, so we were a long way from home.
One day, my son accidentally lost his brand new sunglasses
that we bought for our Florida vacation.
He left them somewhere.
He's pretty young, so at the end of the day,
I made some calls for him to see if we could track down
where he might have left them that day.
And it turns out they were at a gift shop just down the road
so we drove down to the gift shop.
At first my son felt pretty embarrassed
about having this conversation and losing these sunglasses
but there was a really nice lady at the gift shop
and she showed so much compassion for him
when she gave him his sunglasses back.
My son thanked her and she listened to my son,
she looked at him with compassion in her eyes.
It was very reassuring and it made him feel much better.
So we can listen with compassion,
and listening is a major part of our daily communication.
It's a huge chunk of what we do each day.
And the third way to communicate with compassion is
to respond with compassion and encouragement
when people are down in some way.
For example, you might feel moved
to say something encouraging and authentic,
and tell people how valuable they are.
I had a great boss once.
In fact, it was Allen Weiner,
the guy that wrote the book I mentioned a minute ago.
He helped me get my start in consulting many years back.
And he spoke to me really authentically
after I had made a major screw up.
I handled a situation with a client pretty poorly.
I was pretty close to brand new there
but he said, "You know Alex, it wasn't your best moment,
"but you really tried, you did your best,
"and I really believe in you Alex."
And I could sense that he meant it,
he said it with real compassion.
And I was in a moment of failure, and it's not every day
that supervisors talk to us like this.
In fact, I've had other supervisors
who might have used this as an opportunity
to give me some lecture about how I could have done better
and should have done better.
But Allen could see that I was already pretty upset
about my mistake and so he took a risk and he was authentic.
And it really had a positive impact on me, that compassion.
In fact, it happened so many years ago
but I still remember it like it was yesterday.
People really need that genuine encouragement.
We're so desperate for compassion sometimes,
so if you feel moved to say something
when you're feeling compassionate like that,
I say do it and take a risk.
It may feel like a risk but it's worth it,
it'll have a genuine impact.
So in terms of next steps, as I mentioned,
this is a whole series on compassion.
I encourage you to check out
the other three videos in this series
and I'll link to those in the description below the video.
Thanks, God bless, and I will see in the next video on
how to create a compassionate workplace.
(upbeat music)