possible deal, engages in some silence. After thirty seconds,
Wendy prints a boarding pass and hands it to Ryan,
explaining that there were a few seats that were supposed to
be filled by people who would now arrive much later than
the flight’s departure. To make Ryan’s success even better,
she puts him in Economy Plus seating.
All that in under two minutes!
The next time you find yourself following an angry
customer at a corner store or airplane line, take a moment
and practice labels and mirrors on the service person. I
promise they won’t scream, “Don’t try to control me!” and
burst into flames—and you might walk away with a little
more than you expected.
KEY LESSONS
As you try to insert the tools of tactical empathy into your
daily life, I encourage you to think of them as extensions of
natural human interactions and not artificial conversational
tics.
In any interaction, it pleases us to feel that the other side
is listening and acknowledging our situation. Whether you
are negotiating a business deal or simply chatting to the
person at the supermarket butcher counter, creating an
empathetic relationship and encouraging your counterpart to
expand on their situation is the basis of healthy human
interaction.
These tools, then, are nothing less than emotional best
practices that help you cure the pervasive ineptitude that