SUBTEXTsmall business. They were equal partners, but Sal ran the shop
and Norman the office. The problems in each place were different
just as the work was different, and from the very beginning neither
one could understand the other's problems.
"The trouble is," Norman told Sal, "you don't understand that
I can't always order the best equipment, and I can't always give
credit to a guy when you promise it."
"Maybe so, but you don't realize it's no picnic running a shop.
You promise things too, things I can't deliver."
"You don't understand." "You don't realize." These two expres-
sions are clues to a lack of empathy. A friend who understood
this and knew that Sal and Norman had to work together rather
than at cross-purposes suggested that each sit down and try to
make a list of all the complaints the other had!
Sal did his best to list Norman's grievances, as Norman felt
them, and Norman tried to list Sal's complaints. "It made me
think," Norman said. "I dug up more reasons than Sal could
about how I was bollixing things up!"
"Me too." Sal laughed. "All of a sudden I was finding fault
with myself."
It was a beginning, a first step toward empathy, and it worked
for them. They were able to understand a little more about each
other, enough to break through their problems and cope with them.A WARNING
While empathy can be a great help in handling other people, too
much of it can also be a hazard. I have a friend who started out
as a brilliant young neurosurgeon, but after ten years of work in
the field, he changed his specialty and started over in hand surgery-