 Let's talk about empathic curiosity. How do you know what the people you lead really care about? How do you help them to be more authentic and to give their all to the enterprise? I'm talking here about the use of emotions including natural empathic emotions in the service of imagining and Cognitively having a filled in understanding of other people. The first thing is the curiosity You have to recognize that you don't know how other people feel. That's the worst thing We don't say you know how people feel We have different worlds and it's a path of curiosity when you let your emotional cues begin to help you imagine those worlds This is not about being nice Robert McNamara was Kennedy's Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War in a famous film fog of war Which we should all see he was asked what his biggest mistake was and he said the biggest mistake They made as they failed to empathize with the enemy. They didn't understand what the people they're finding really cared about When I was in medical school, I was amazed how doctors had no curiosity about patients with cancer or depression What was really bothering the patient most and when I talked about it and tried to vividly imagine my patient's world I was told that would make me a less effective doctor. Luckily 20 years of research has shown that my professors were wrong. As Doctors or leaders, you know, there's three things that really matter. Identifying the problem correctly Motivating change and helping people deal with bad news I want to show you using medicine my work in medicine as an example how all three are supported by empathic curiosity First of all when patients come to see doctors, they don't always talk about what they're most scared and anxious about They love they first look and say a little bit then they read the doctor's face if they find empathic attunement and curiosity that's as here then they disclose the breast lump the drinking problem the opioid issues that they were Afraid to talk about second of all biggest reason health care is wasteful 50% of prescriptions are thrown in the garbage patients. Don't take what we prescribe Why they don't trust their doctors biggest predictor of trust the sense that the doctor worries about the things that you're worried about with you We have good diagnosis effective health care third crucial part of medicine is giving bad news How do you do it without crushing people? Patients remember years later how a doctor talked to them about a serious diagnosis It turns out that empathy helps people make decisions sooner for cancers and seek treatment sooner Sometimes this saves their lives Still we all know we have right brain we have imagination empathy But we need to be very objective as leaders to the big question when I started out was won't this undermine your objectivity? So I went into psychiatry Neuroscience behavioral science. I studied all these disciplines over a couple of decades to ask that question Can you still be objective and use your right brain and imagination? Turns out you can so two lessons that I learned in 20 years first of all the idea that you'll be more Objective if you're neutral emotionally. No Emotions shape your thoughts even more when you're not consciously feeling them So when you're not consciously feeling something they're still pressing on you But when you could acknowledge them or others can help you you'll become more objective Second thing I learned the most important part of transformative empathy is the curiosity part It's not the sympathy part sympathy is uncurious We just talked about the benefits of sympathy and it has a lot But it's not therapeutic in the sense that empathy is because it basically is a general fellow feeling Empathic curiosity tries to zoom in on another's world It's also empathic curiosity different than just knowing the data I you could tell me everything in the world about people being in refugee camps But when I saw the VR film clouds over Sidra, and I was inside a little girls world Then I had new ideas about what could happen in her life Finally sympathy can lull you in my view it can create trust, but it can lull you Empathy sharpens you it helps you avoid being blindsided and look for aspects empathic curiosity Look helps you think what am I missing you should have empathic curiosity about your own reactions as well as other people's I think that's very important to have this other way of thinking in addition to your left brain Because problems are very hard to solve and when you have two pathways you're much better off the example I use about two pathways is if you're having a heart attack, and you only have one major vessel You're in trouble But if you have an alternative pathway empathic curiosity gives you an alternative pathway to understand the people that you work with So I just want to generate a few questions I know you'll have many of your own But I'm curious how empathy operates in your workplace I want everybody to have sympathy empathy and compassion and awe So I really would be a nice fight to have which we should we have more of but I see if you use empathic curiosity in your workplace Do you think we can use technology to encourage empathy? The RNA are they helpful or not the internet questions we started with thank you