A posse of foreign journalists travelled with the Dalai Lama as he visited village after poverty-stricken village. In every village the people would come out and present the Dalai Lama with gifts — a handful of rice, an old book, whatever they had.

One of the journalists became angrier and angrier as he saw people who had practically nothing gifting what little they had, and the Dalai Lama graciously accepting every offering.

In the final village of the tour, an old lady who lived under a tree was in tears because she had nothing other than the clothes she wore to give the Dalai Lama. Then she started digging furiously at the foot of her tree before carefully unearthing an old, fraying, dirt-encrusted dress. It was her wedding dress from many years ago.

With tears still pouring down her wizened cheeks, she presented the Dalai Lama with her dress. He accepted the gift, clasped his hands together and bowed humbly.

This was the final straw for the journalist. Almost exploding with rage he challenged the Dalai Lama: ‘Why on earth would you take a wedding dress from this poor lady?'

The Dalai Lama replied, ‘I accept the dress and the gifts not because I need them, but because people need to give them'.

The Dalai Lama had demonstrated his mastery of empathy. He cared for people; he connected with them at a deep level and understood they wanted to experience both the joy and dignity of giving. But most of all he had the courage to act in a way that to others may seem counterintuitive.

Caution: caring people ahead

Sympathy is when someone climbs into the well with you. Empathy is when they throw a rope down to help you climb out.

Empathy has three components. The first is to demonstrate care by understanding other people and what matters to them. Dr Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, famously wrote, ‘Seek to understand before being understood'.

So often influencers and leaders jump into content without thinking, ‘How is this relevant to my audience?' Or even simpler, yet just as profound: ‘What matters to my audience? What makes them tick?'

Beware of projection bias

Your own biases can get in the way of caring (understanding others). You tend to think what is important to you is automatically important to your audience. Presuming other people think like us is called projection bias.

Projection occurs when you externalise what you are thinking or feeling onto someone. Because you love chocolate, you might conclude that chocolate is the perfect gift for everyone. I love chocolate, so even using this example feeds into my own bias!

Every parent who has tried to cajole, coax or compel a teenager to clean up their room suffers from projection bias. A clean and tidy room is important to a parent, but for many teenagers it is a less pressing priority. In the comic strip Zits, by cartoonists Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, the teenage son is composing a song for his mum's birthday. He explains to his dad, ‘Yeah, it has been pretty easy. You will be surprised how many things rhyme with nag!'

In business, biases get in the way of influence, and empathy is a powerful way to overcome this roadblock.

We were helping leaders in a large Australian national bank roll out their new strategy to more than 20 000 employees through a series of roadshows.

The focus of the leadership team's strategy was on taking the bank from number four to number one. Through doing an audience analysis exercise with us, the most senior leader realised that the people at the coalface simply didn't care about the bank's ranking.

What they really cared about was whether the new strategy would make their lives easier, help them serve their customers better and leave them with a job at the end of the process.

The message, and indeed the entire roadshow, was based on a false premise and needed drastic reframing, as one leader was brave enough to acknowledge. So the group recrafted their presentation to start with a care package.

Her opening statement at every stop on the roadshow now emphasised the bank's new strategy: making the lives of their team members easier and helping them serve their customers better. They had everyone's attention immediately. For once the presentation was about them, and the audience got the message that the presenters both understood and cared about them.

The key take-away? To care you have to know what drives your audience. Is it pride in a job well done, a ‘that's not fair' attitude, or a ‘we could step up if we had the tools and the training' mindset?

As Henry Ford said, ‘If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own'.

Connect here for empathy

The second component of empathy is to create connections and look for commonality.

‘It's all about connecting with your audience; nothing else matters,' says John Polson, the founder of the immensely successful Tropfest short film festival. ‘If you don't connect you are dead.'

This applies to everything you do in business: presenting, communicating, selling, customer service and leading. But above all it applies to influencing.

You probably connect intuitively. But what does ‘connecting' actually mean, and how do you measure it? Can you break it down into repeatable behaviours you can adopt every time to ensure meaningful contact with your customers or stakeholders, or with the audience you're trying to influence?

Of primary importance in building a connection is that people like you. You already know that the first 30 seconds are vital, that first impressions matter. It's when what you say or do sets the tone for people to like you, or not. Take this seriously. People like to do business with people they like. People are also more open to listening to people they like.

Trust the source, trust the information

Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne conducted research into how Australians accept new technology.

In their 2008 study, Professor Michael Gilding concluded, ‘Trust in those delivering the information is crucial because when presented with complex scientific or technological data people often take a short cut and form an opinion based on the information source rather than the information itself.'

Renske Pin, a PhD student who worked with the Swinburne team, put it more simply: ‘If people trust the information source they are more inclined to trust the information'.

In their 2013 Harvard Business Review article, ‘Connect, Then Lead', Amy J. C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut and John Neffinger point out, ‘Before people decide what they think of your message, they decide what they think of you'. Imagine if people both like and trust the source, and the source is you.

Recently I had the privilege of hearing Mark Stephenson speak. The MC introduced him by rolling out a short version of his biography. Among other talents, Mark is an expert in prime number cryptography and computer-aided design. Listing his achievements went on for a couple of minutes.

To put it mildly, Mark is a super-high achiever. The audience was thinking, ‘Wow, I don't think I could connect with him. He's up there in the stratosphere. I hope I can understand something of what he's going to say'.

Then Mark stood up to speak, and the first thing he said was, ‘You probably think I'm an ass now'. There was a brief second of silence before the whole auditorium exploded with laughter. People were thinking, ‘We like this guy!'

You don't have to resort to crude language, but if you can convey to people who you really are in the first moment, it will help to break the ice and get people to like you.

To connect you must be able to relate to your audience, whether it's a customer or a room full of strangers. They need to feel you ‘get' them.

In the first episode of Junior MasterChef Australia, all eyes were on Anna Gare, the new judge. When Anna was introduced to her young audience, all under 12, she said, ‘I started cooking when I was your age and I could barely see over the counter'. Her audience laughed and immediately connected with her, because she related to them and understood what it felt like to be a child cooking.

The power of value exchanges

Connecting means seeing your interaction with another as a value exchange. You may be giving your audience information or a cool new tool, but they are giving you their time and attention. They need to feel they are getting something of value from you, something they can take away and use instead of merely being talked at or sold to.

This explains why there is so much free, high-value content on the internet. The people who give away this kind of content know they are setting in motion a high-value exchange.

You initially engage with them through high-value content, maybe a free e-book or a video. It's almost like a taste test; if you like the flavour, you're more likely to buy. You will eventually buy from them only after they have connected with you through a mutual value exchange.

These are some of the building blocks of connection. Of course the acid test of connecting is whether they would like to see you again. I know I would love to see Mark Stephenson again, and again.

The key take-away here? When have you felt understood? Connection is reaching out and being clear on your intent.

Empathy is courage

The third facet of empathy is courage. The courage to suggest a way out, to offer options. The courage to step in and encourage a person not to continue wallowing in the problem.

Connection and courage together create change. Sympathy generally stops with care and perhaps connection. Empathy forces you to extend the mandate to embrace courage — the courage to change.

One of my early mentors and leaders was very open and encouraging when any team member spoke up and shared or aired issues and problems. After giving them a patient and very empathic hearing, he would ask, ‘What is your proposed solution?' or ‘What can we do to fix it?'

Often he would preface the question by playing back the problem: ‘I want to be sure I have understood what you are saying …' This made the person feel both heard and understood. He always moved the dial on empathy to the courage phase — the courage to take action.

We learned quickly always to have a solution in mind, or at least some ideas towards a solution, before highlighting a problem. Our mentor intuitively understood that without the solution or courage phase, we would be stuck in the mire of sympathy, which is oh so comfortable, but unproductive.

Empathy is caring (understanding others), connection and courage bound together with action for change.

On the Friday before Mother's Day in May 2015 in capital cities all over Australia, television news viewers were treated to an unusual sight: about 100 people tottering along in the street in high heels, in a one-mile march to raise awareness of domestic violence against women. Participants in this action, called ‘Walk a Mile in Their Shoes', were mainly suit-wearing real estate agency men. One of them carried a placard that read, ‘It takes courage to stand up and be heard'.

The marchers were literally walking in others' shoes to demonstrate empathy and support for an important cause.

Both connection and courage promote change, or at least provide an agenda for change. But there's much more to empathy and making it work for you.

Public and private discourse

Recently I was listening to a parenting expert at my daughter's school. The expert said that teenagers engage in a public discourse and a parallel and sometimes contrary private discourse.

For example, when your teenager shouts, ‘All my friends are going!' or ‘None of their parents are ringing to check', their private discourse may be: ‘Keep me safe; set me firm boundaries'. But it's very hard for parents to keep in mind the possible private discourse when engaged in their teenagers' public war of words. The private discourse is hidden, unspoken but important.

I immediately thought how relevant and applicable this is for influencers grappling with empathy. As an influencer, you need to be aware of both the public and the private discourses in which your audiences engage. However, as we're all polite adults and not hormonal teenagers, our public discourse can be more polite than honest and our private discourse less polite than honest.

As another example, I was talking to the CEO of a large global professional services company that had run a massive event for its clients. At the end of the central PowerPoint presentation, they asked members of the audience for feedback and received lots of polite positives.

The CEO, however, confided in us: ‘We could detect a lack of sincerity in their voices'. His observation was accurate. Afterwards an anonymous online survey (the private discourse) showed that attendees were less than impressed with the event.

The CEO and his team listened to the feedback and substantially altered the event for the following year. It was much more successful.

What happens when you become aware of the private discourse? You can choose to step into a moment of authenticity and create a deep connection with your audience.

One of our clients — let's call him Jack — was presenting at a roadshow. He told us employee attendance was compulsory, though he knew what they would all be thinking but not saying. As a senior leader, Jack decided to step into the private discourse so he opened by saying, ‘I know a lot of you might be thinking, “Not another bloody roadshow!” '

It was both unexpected and refreshing. His audience immediately burst into laughter. They'd been outed! Here was a leader who understood what they were thinking and feeling. They leaned in and listened.

Articulating the private discourse helps you show empathy and understanding for your audience. By demonstrating courage you can create powerful connections.

What if you can sense the undercurrent of a contrary private discourse but can't quite put your finger on it? This is a fork in the road for you. You can bravely plug away at your message while pretending nothing is wrong. This may feel safe, but it's actually more perilous than acknowledging that all is not as it should be. You risk losing your audience's attention and, worse, your credibility. It's time for you to speak to the truth of the moment by asking the audience for their truth. This is what power players would do.

We ran a storytelling workshop with senior leaders where each leader in turn shared a story. After each story we asked for very simple feedback from the other leaders, and also provided some of our own. We couldn't understand why there was so little response. It was like drawing teeth.

Then one of the senior leaders opened up: ‘Why aren't we providing feedback? I thought we were building a culture of openness and honesty. There's a real opportunity here to demonstrate that. What's stopping us?'

She had stepped into the private discourse. There was a stunned silence for a moment, until another of the group blurted out: ‘We're all so busy worrying about our turn, we can't concentrate on others' stories'.

Everyone felt sheepish, but now that the truth had surfaced and been acknowledged, the group's behaviour shifted. People became much more forthcoming in their feedback, realising that this was the fair and right way forward, regardless of all other stressors.

Stepping into the private discourse can be challenging. Can you fathom the private discourse, and do you have the courage to address it?

As Mark Twain famously observed, ‘Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, NOT absence of fear'. Try sharing that with your teenager!

Empathy and the bottom line

By the late 1980s disposable nappies, or diapers, had become a commodity business. A nappy was a nappy was a nappy, and all the key brands were reduced to competing on price.

Sick of being number two in the nappy wars, Kimberly Clark engaged a research firm to find out what they could do differently. The firm conducted market research, going out and talking to and interviewing customers — in this instance, parents, grandparents and caregivers.

So what did the researchers discover?

In one instance, after the camera was turned off, one of the parents confided in the researcher that she was embarrassed when asked by her neighbour, ‘Is your child still in diapers?'

This reaction yielded a core insight that eventually led to Huggies Pull-Ups, a new kind of diaper in the form of training underpants that children could pull on themselves. The ad shows toddlers in pull-ups with a tag line ‘I'm a big kid now'.

Ever since, Kimberly Clark has been number one in the disposable training pants market. That insight, an empathic response in product development and marketing, has generated a new, multi-billion-dollar business category.

Empathy power — priceless!

Armed with these empathic insights, the next objective for the power player is to achieve message mastery, as explored in the following chapter.