Leading with Empathy with Lisa Thomas

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at AI, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings, both virtually and in person, all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview.

Foreign.

Lisa, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks, Kwame. It's a pleasure to finally make it onto the podcast. Privilege to be on this platform.

Thank you. No, we're excited to have you. And for me, it is a pleasure to not always be the person who's rescheduling because usually it's me scheduling. So whenever somebody reschedules on me, I actually like it because I'm like, see, I'm not a bad person. So this is great. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

My professional background is my law degree for five years. And then after that I went into my barrister training pupilage and I did that for about a year and a half, mainly in criminal litigation. Then we had the pandemic and we were all shut in. And of course that's where I started to reach into LinkedIn. And then of course, I stumbled across students on LinkedIn who were in need of guidance. Law students in South Africa, mentorship was something, is something that is still not common here. So I started to become a bit of an agony aunt, but of a psychological safe space for them. And that has just catapulted me into a space where now sort of advocate for their rights and their treatment as juniors in the industry. And I'm also involved in teaching them, reteaching them legal concepts on LinkedIn. And it's now evolved to where I launched my legal academy two weeks ago.

This is great. And Lisa, I want to say too, because for me as a lawyer, growing up as a, when I was a baby lawyer, the mentors that I had, they were so vital for my growth, just incredibly helpful. And so it's great to see that mentorship is still growing and it's growing in all parts of the world. And in this episode, what I want to do is really focus in on the conversational and communication skills of good mentors because clearly you have stumbled upon something and you're doing a solid job of it, where people are flocking to you for your mentorship. And so even if we take a step back from the law, in particular, when you think about what it takes to be a good mentor, what are the first things that come to your mind?

Empathy. Truckloads of empathy. I've been asked a few times, like, why are you so nice to us? Or why do you, why do you want to help us so much? And I say I just have a lot of empathy. Like I can put myself back into the shoes of a student at any given point and feel the fear and feel the trepidation, feel the anxiety. So I would say empathy is huge. And not just, not just cognitive empathy, not put on, but something that, where you tend you. Actually I call myself being empathic to a fault where sometimes I tend to own or I get sometimes too invested and I myself have had to create the boundaries, sort of empathic boundaries so I don't burn out in giving off too much of that energy. So definitely a genuine empathy. And secondly, I would say just being non judgmental. So what, what sort of started the whole thing with students was I started to learn the concept of psychological safety and having been a recipient of it, I saw the benefits and I saw the healing and the resolution. Even your own from your own self, you find the solutions from yourself when you're given that space. So I wanted that to be the experience of students where they so used to being judged and invalidated and undermined. And your opinions are important because you're still a student. And of course with me being sort of the senior, quote unquote, in the industry, they don't expect to be listened to by the seniors, so they don't expect to be taken seriously. And often there's a little bit I have to get them a bit orientated with regard to, yes, I am a senior, but I want to listen, I do want to listen to you. I really do want to listen to you and I don't interrupt. So which gives them that latitude to just sort of run, run off at the mouth. So yeah, it's, it's empathy, it's psychological safety and of course it's just a genuine desire for the other one take to succeed. So I always. I'm always repeating myself on that. I say, look, you guys can be competitive. Me, okay? I am not the standard. I have done a lot of things. I may have gotten to this point, but I've done a lot of things in unhealthy ways. You know, I have used a lot of unhealthy habits and, you know, lost sleep and poor time management, things like that. So you can aspire to be like me, but I'm not the bee's knees. And if you rise higher than me, then I'd like to know that I had some part in your journey. And I would. I literally get excited or I get like, I can jump up and down with excitement when I hear, like, one of my mentees getting an opportunity or even exceeding me. I mean, that's the whole point of why we do what we do is because I don't want to keep them at a level that is comfortable for me. I'm not creating a cult. I'm not creating a flock of sheep. They are all individuals and they all have different packages. So I want to nurture those packages. You know, I want to bring out. I want to show them that they can be who they are and still be a good legal professional. So I cannot create people in the mold of Lisa. That's not my aim. So I just want them to rise higher. And if they can say one person helped them to do that and it was me, you know, that's the payback. You know, seeing them flourish is all the payback that I need. So empathy, wanting to see them rise higher, and psychological safety. And of course, I've had people at the end of maybe a first call where they would say to me, I feel so much better now, or I feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel, or I feel hopeful now.

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And that was just me sitting there and listening. It wasn't me lecturing them or dispensing anything to them. And of course, the last thing I think is what we brought up before we went live is the conversation. So now I noticed that there's this trend called reverse mentoring. And it's something that I have already been doing where I welcome them to teach me back, to mentor me back, because I have a very, I'm very intrigued by those that are younger than me who seemingly have much more life experience than I do at 38. I mean, I marvel something and listen to a 21 year old, 22 year old. I'm like, where did you get all that experience? You're so young. And so for me it's fascinating to work with the young ones because I also learn and I welcome that. I say, please, I'm not the oracle of knowledge. And if there's something you can teach me, and sometimes I do have older people who are willing to be mentored. So even there, especially there, I say, come, you know, you can give me advice, you can teach me something. I want this to be a two way. And I think that's where you sort of set that or reduce your burnout is where you, at some point you sit back in the conversation and you start drawing, you start taking away something from that conversation so that in some way you are also replenished after what you've given.

I really appreciate this, Lisa. And I love the fact that it's organic too, because it's not something that was contrived. You didn't do any kind of special formula beforehand or anything like that. This is just you having a lot of experiences and then recognizing what works. And then for the listeners out there, you can recognize, hey, this sounds a lot like the skills we need in negotiation. Empathy, being nonjudgmental, listening without judgment, of course, psychological safety, being willing to have a reciprocal conversation where you're not just going in to educate other people. You're saying, listen, no, you have value to bring to this interaction as well. I want to hear from you too. This is really great. And it makes sense that you approach it this way given the fact that you are really into alternative dispute resolution. So I love to see that come through. And one of the things that you said when it comes to empathy that I thought was really interesting was it's not just cognitive empathy. Can you go a little bit deeper on what you meant there? Because I think that's really important.

I think cognitive empathy, it's learned empathy. I do think empathy can be learned, but for me, what, maybe a better term would be cerebral empathy, where it's just, it's cold. So it's like you expecting me to jump into your shoes. So yeah, I'm going to jump into your shoes. There's nothing from the heart, there's nothing, there's nothing organic. Like there's nothing loving about it. It's just I was told to be empathic during a negotiation, so I learned it in a book summit. So I'm going to do it. While you learn empathy, I think eventually it must become a part of you. It must become something that is unconscious. And maybe if you can have an unconscious bias, you'd rather be biased towards empathy or biased towards being non judgmental and putting yourself in someone's shoes. So yes, you can learn it, but when you learn it and employ it in a very clinical fashion, then people pick that up in a heartbeat. They can pick up a phony. And I often tell the mentees, like, I haven't, I don't have a manual here how to mentor you. I'm not reading from a book as every call happens, I'm taking it as it comes. It has to become intrinsic for people to trust you, for them to feel safe with you. Because if you are putting on an act, if you are just implementing a skill that you've learned in a textbook somewhere, then you know at some point you're going to run out of steam and. But the act's going to fall or the facade is going to fall and then what do you do? Then people will say, oh, but you were just pretending to be a safe space. So you're just pretending to care. But you had, you just, you knew what would push my buttons, you know, and so you knew that I needed empathy and therefore you learned it. But it's not, I'm not feeling it from you. It's not authentic, it's not organic, it's not loving. So I say ADR is a lifestyle, you know, because mediators, negotiators, arbitrators, you've got to have certain personal qualities. You've got to have a certain way of life that you bring into each ADR scenario. And if you are naturally empathic, or even if you've learned empathy and it's become part of you, then that's something you're just translating into the mediation space. You don't become empathic just for the sake of the mediation. So that whole lifestyle, profession, interplay is really important to me that you are who you are in the profession and you're the same person outside. That is a skill set that I learned in law school that I'm now applying to your problem. This comes from who I am as a person. And it's all of those things that I bring to resolving conflict. Empathy can be learned, and I think it's something that I think most good leaders have that make them sort of make their followers want to follow them and trust them.

Lisa, this is really interesting because when I think about empathy, the way that you described it is really great because we have the like, the cerebral empathy, which is like all head like you said, but the empathy that you're talking about, the true empathy, it's both the head and the heart. You have to be thinking about it, of course, but you really supercharge it once you start to feel it. And I'm going to take a wild momentary pivot here for a second because it just, it made me realize something. With, with the artificial intelligence leaps that we've been making technology in the last couple of months, we can see pretty clearly in the, in the near future there's going to be a time where we can interact with it via chat or maybe even via voice, where it passes that Turing test, where it can convince somebody that it's human. But what we're recognizing is that there's still an element that's missing. Even though we could program empathy and we could program the perfect communicator, and it's that element of care, it's the heart piece. We want to believe that the person that we're talking to genuinely cares about our well being. And that's something that you can feel. And so if you're a negotiator, a mentor, a mediator, a parent, teacher, who, whatever it happens to be, and you're having these conversations and you listen to the podcast, you read a book and you say, I'm going to be tactically empathetic. I'm just going to use my whole head and just, just, just the head though. I'm not going to open myself up and be vulnerable. We'll see why it can, it can still, you'll still struggle in these conversations because that's when it starts to feel fake. Because the person thinks the only reason you're doing this is so you can get what you want. You don't care about me. And I think that's really important for us articulate here when it comes to maximizing empathy. Here.

Yeah. Like you saying you can't teach a robot. There's still that thing you can't put your finger on, that humanity, you know, if somebody knows you truly care. Like I've had people tell me, like I said, at the end of the calls, I feel safe with you, or I feel hopeful, or I feel like the light's on at the end of the tunnel again. And what. What creates that feeling in them? I didn't say, I'm here to make you feel safe. I'm here to do this. I didn't out a. I didn't condition them to feel safe with me. That whole thing about feeling safe, it evoked something in them, that connection where they say, I can't wait for our next call. And I wouldn't have booked the second call by that time, but they will say, I can't wait for the next call because there's something that organic connection that people just lean in once they know that you are in it for them. That's something I've had to learn as well in my communication skills, is that I need to be present for the other person and not be so interested in what I have to say. If I'm only interested in what I have to say, it's not a conversation. It's just me and a monologue, the Shakespearean monologue. I mean, it's just me wanting to hear myself. And I had to learn how to be quiet and let the other person finish. And I get annoyed when I'm looking to other people and safe spaces, and they are too quick to interject to stop me, stop what I'm saying. And that immediately creates for me a barrier. And like, why don't you let me finish? If you let me finish, then you can give me. You can give me a better response if I completely put my story out there. So it's communicating not at the other person, not to the other person, but with the other person. And of course, that tends to open up. Like I said, they will be vulnerable back to you. They will mirror that behavior and they will say, lisa, what do you need from me? Or, let me give you something from this conversation. And I think all of that happens subconsciously. It's not a decision that we make. It's that safety that comes from that organic connection that makes people want to even reciprocate. I think it's just being very aware of not necessarily who you are speaking to, but the fact that you are speaking to another person who has a position, who has a viewpoint, and who needs to be validated, not agreed with, but validated. To say, yes, I'm respecting the fact that you have a, a viewpoint. That's all we'll agree up until that point. And I'll let you say what you need to say and then I will say what I have to say. Once that connection forms, then you have a conversation. And it's not a dialogue, it's not a monologue, it's not a lecture. I'll be like, guys, stop me at any point.

I love this. This is gold, Lisa gold. And one of the many gems that you dropped that I want us to explore a little bit further before we wrap up. One of the things that I want to explore is the difference between validation and agreement. Because when you said earlier, we want to be non judgmental and we want to be able to listen non judgmentally. I think validation is a really important part of that. But most people struggle with validation because, you know, both you and I were both lawyers. Attorneys, barristers, I should say. And I think everybody has a little barrister in their head that wants to litigate. Every point that we disagree with is like, wait, what did you say? No, I need to jump in immediately and I cannot allow you to continue until you know how wrong you are. And that's something that we need to work on. And so when you're talking about validation, but more specifically the difference between validation and agreement, what does that mean in these conversations?

I think for me, validation involves feelings. And I think one of the sort of the tenets of negotiation is, you know, under the positions that people take are interests and feelings. So I think when you validate somebody, you're saying, I'm appreciating that you have these feelings about this, the subject of this position. And of course it's whatever else goes with the feeling. So it's not necessarily you are agreeing with the substance of what they're saying, but you kind of say, I get where you're coming from. I can see what's motivating your position or what's motivating your part of the discussion. Of course, when you do that, then you are also exercising a certain curiosity. You say, okay, so why do you have those feelings? Or why do you have those motivations? What are the drivers that further drive your motivations? And that sort of breaks down. Positions, positions, as we know, in negotiation ends up, you know, it's a stalemate. You stay in your corner, I stay in my corner, nobody's backing down. But if we say, look, I'm validating your position, I'M validating also the fact that you are entitled as an autonomous psychological being, you are entitled to a position. You are entitled to a viewpoint, to an opinion, and I respect that. I cannot expect that respect back if I don't validate that position for them. Where I say, you have an opinion, I have an opinion. That's our psychological makeup. It's our design. We inevitably tend to draw battle lines when it comes to contentious positions. But I'm curious about, and I'm going to validate what it is that drives your position. I'm going to validate your feelings because I can't tell you how to feel. I can't say that your feelings are wrong. You can't tell me my feelings because that's my psychology. That's your psychology. So I guess it's breaking down the barrier to get to agreements. If you validate the stuff that underlies people's positions, then you can work your way up to, okay, this is why you are. You have the substance. This is why your position holds such water is because you have personal motivations or you have motivation, you know, fearful motivations or negotiation, mediation. You work towards the solution once you understand what's driving.

Yes, very well said. And it's something that is free for us to give, but it can mean the world to somebody else when you take the time to validate. Because when I'm assuming you're the. Your mentees have experienced this, they feel differently when they speak to you because you're not judging them, you're validating them. Right. And it's like, I might not agree with your ultimate conclusion. However, I respect you enough to listen to what you're saying, number one, and then take the time to truly understand how you got to your current position and then let you know that I see that too, because we have to let the other person know by summarizing or recapping just to make sure that you're understanding it the right way. And when I think about validation, I think about it almost like a school teacher in math class, where it's like, okay, so you have to show your work. So we can give you partial credit. I can see how you got to the conclusion. Conclusion is I might not agree on the conclusion, but I can see the steps and respect that cognitive process. And that alone just works wonders when it comes to these conversations. But the hardest part of empathy and listening nonjudgmentally is the restraint and humility it takes to not jump in when you want to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's something That I have to, I really have to practice consciously.

Definitely. It's, it's so important. And I think it's pretty safe to say when it comes to, like, mental health and well being related to stress, concern about the future, things like that. The lawyers and law students in general are pretty cynical bunch. So the work you're doing is so important. And one of the things that you said at the very beginning was that after they talk to you, they feel better, they feel more hopeful, more positive. And even if they don't leave the conversation with a specific tactic like, oh, I need to submit this at this time and I need to apply for this job because it'll lead to that. You certainly give tactical advice. But I think what's even more important is the feeling of hope and positivity. And I think regardless of whether or not somebody is listening to this as a mentor themselves or just as a person who cares about other people, you could get a lot of value just recognizing that, caring about somebody, empathizing with them, listening nonjudgmentally, that by itself is enough, but that's where it needs to start. But a lot of times people start with the cold tactics and strategies and then they wonder why they. They're not getting the results that they want. So I really appreciate you coming in and kind of walking us through how to connect in this way. And for people who are listening and saying, well, I want to learn more about Lisa, how can they get in touch with you? What's the best way?

LinkedIn is my space and connect, follow, share, like and subscribe.

Thank you so much for joining us and everybody. Lisa's information will be in the description of this episode. Lisa, really appreciate it. Thanks for joining us today.

Thanks, Kavi. Thank you so much.

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