Good Stuff from Joan Eisenstodt

... what it feels like to walk in someone else's shoes? Or ride in their chair or on their scooter? Or manage a day when pain overtakes you?

Recently, at an industry meeting (in a very large hotel) at which I moderated two sessions, I used a scooter to get around. (Sometimes my NHL makes me unable to walk long distances.)  It was a fascinating experience - watching people ignore me and pretend I wasn't there by never looking down to my level, or the hotel that set the tables so close for breaks that maneuvering through them was an interesting challenge .. for me, the non-driver. 

It reminded me when, years ago, at another industry meeting, a colleague and I used wheelchairs to experience what it might be like for someone with a mobility disability to get around a meeting.  Seeing this article in today's New York Times made me think more about how we can learn through simulation - and even through empathy.

Dan Pink, in A Whole New Mind, talks about the importance of empathy in our lives and in our work.   In the book, Dan provides some great urls to test your empathy quotient, your systematizing quotient, and to take the mind in the eyes test and the spot the fake smile test. 

In all aspects of our lives, we need to be able to read, and empathize with, others. We can never fully understand what another person goes through. We can, through simulations and using empathy, begin to have a better sense of it.  And these abilities will pay off in all we do in our work - and most certainly when negotiating, dealing with people we perceive as being difficult, and conducting pre-con meetings.

So what's your empathy quotient?