You Need Empathy to Achieve Extreme Performance

“A great adventure racing team operates on four brains, eight legs, eight arms … and one heart.” — World Class Teams Motto

Great teams follow people, not orders. As a World Champion Adventure Racer, I competed in the most remote places on earth with mixed-gender teams of 5 people in “expedition length” (8-10 day, non-stop) races like the Eco Challenge, Raid Gauloises and Primal Quest. The most successful teams I competed in over my 17 years of racing were the ones that formed the closest personal connections.

That close connection wasn’t made by crossing the finish line first, but rather it was made in the worst of times, in the most difficult challenges, when one of us–sometimes me–was tired, exhausted, broken down and ready to give up. That’s when a teammate would reach out with a kind word, hold my hand, carry my pack for a bit while I recovered, and make all the difference in our performance. When you show someone that they are a friend and member of your tribe versus merely a co-worker, they will always go the extra mile for you— figuratively and literally.

Why you need empathy for extreme performance

Extreme performance is different than peak performance. Extreme performance is what you need when you want to reach a big, hairy, audacious goal–the kind that sets you apart from your competition. This is Zappos doing the ultimate for customer service or health care company SAS, going above and beyond for its employees so they have one of the lowest voluntary turnover rates in the industry.

You need real empathy to achieve extreme performance. Empathy is achieved when you have “double vision”— you not only see the world through your own personal lens, you are able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and view the situation from their perspective.  The moment you do that, you make a true connection with a human being, and stop treating them as a position (agent), department (purchasing), or company (Big Widget, Inc.). It’s this personal connection that makes the sale, changes someone's mind, and inspires someone to go to great lengths to help you and your organization succeed because they know you care.

If you want to connect with your coworkers, colleagues, clients, and customers, you need to connect with the person before the point, coach versus criticize, and remember that we work for people, not for companies.

Connect to the Person before the Point

What’s the first thing you want to hear when you walk in the door? Is it “We need this report done now” or “Great to see you. How’s your morning going?” If you respond more positively to people who look you in the eye and are genuinely concerned with your well being first, you’re not alone.

When I became the sales Rookie of the Year for a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, it wasn’t because I had the slickest sales presentation. It was because when I went into a doctor’s office I talked to doctors as people, learned about their spouses, children, favorite sports teams, and told them about our teams’ adventures. The “sales” part of the talk was often the shortest part, just going over the latest research. It was forging a real friendship with each of my clients (and their front office team!) that helped me achieve extreme sales performance.

Coach versus Criticize

Things go wrong. At work we lose direction, get lost, and sometimes fail. When you’re depending on someone to finish their part of a project (sales report, spreadsheet, etc.) and they don’t follow through, it can be very frustrating. You get justifiably angry, but do you think yelling at your colleague will get them to help you? When your voice goes up, people shut down or get defensive. Neither reaction will help with getting the work done.

To get the best from someone, you don’t point a finger… you extend a hand.  Maybe you take a moment to consider why your colleague or client didn’t come through. What were their problems, life circumstances, and time pressures? Was there something you could do to be a great teammate and help their process along? 

When you use empathy, you become a coach instead of a critic, and you gain a teammate versus an opponent. Not to mention the fact that when you genuinely care about someone and do what you can to help them succeed, especially in their toughest times, you have a friend and a fan for life! Who can ever have too many of those?!

We Work for People, not for Companies

We get hired by companies, but we work for people. You may be hired by Big Widget, Inc, for example, but the person you see every day is Samantha, your supervisor. Big Widget may send you your paycheck, but Samantha knows if you’re sick, when your kid has a birthday, when you landed a sale, or when you’re overwhelmed and need help.

I was reminded of this when I was battling a fire in October 2007 with my crew at the San Diego Fire Department. Sometimes, battling fires can seem like an anonymous process. One burning house looks like another. 

But at this particular fire, as I was pulling my hose across the front lawn of a home that had just caught fire in the eaves of the roof, I came across some framed photos that a family had dropped while running for their lives. These family photos made an instant connection with me. This was no longer an anonymous house. I was suddenly working for the Smiths, laughing on their honeymoon cruise, and their children, Suzie and Billy, who were smiling in their school photos. I was immediately compelled to save THIS house! So I got on the radio and called my crew over— and save it we did. To this day, they probably don’t know why their house was one of the only homes on their block to survive. But because of their chance scattering of photos on their race to evacuate, we were no longer working for the San Diego Fire Department, we were working for a family that needed our help.  

Never underestimate the power of the human connection. When you capture someone’s heart and mind by genuinely and deeply caring for them and those that they love, they will always go the extra mile and climb the highest mountain to help you and your organization succeed. 

“And in the end the love we take is equal to the love we make” — The Beatles

"We don't follow titles...we follow ties" — RB