The four types of connection between people

As a Certified CliftonStrengths Coach, I often think about one of the 34 themes: Empathy.

Once, someone told me, “You’re either born with it, or you’re not.” I didn’t really know one way of another.

A study by the National Institutes of Health indicates, “In the past, empathy was considered an inborn trait that could not be taught, but research has shown that this vital human competency is mutable and can be taught to health-care providers,” suggesting that empathy can be learned. (1)

The study also says that “Empathy declines during medical training,” suggesting that it you can have it and lose it.

So maybe empathy is something that can be gained, grown, lost, found, etc…

For me, empathy is toward the bottom of my CliftonStrengths profile (it’s actually second from the bottom at number 33), but as I mentioned above, it’s one I think of quite often, especially as I learned that your ability to empathize can be trained. The next thing I thought was: how do you get there? How can you truly empathize?

The four levels of connection

According to my own entirely unscientific reflection on the matter, I propose that there are four levels of connection with people, the final and deepest connection being empathy and these others being the first three.

Level 1 - Acknowledgment: This is simply recognizing that someone has said something, shared something with you, etc., and moving on.

Level 2 - Appreciation: This is a step up from acknowledgement because you’re hearing what the other person is saying and you’re also grateful that they shared it. You might not understand it (or agree with it), but you’re better off knowing what was shared.

Level 3 - Understanding: This is taking appreciation to another level because things make sense to you. You can see how 2 + 2 = 4.

Level 4 - Empathy: This is the final, deepest level of connection, where you literally feel the same feeling someone else has.

Breaking it down

Sometimes you don’t need to go all the way to empathy because it’s not necessary. If someone tells you that they had pizza for lunch, maybe a Level 1 connection of acknowledgement is all that is needed for that scenario. Obviously, some things are deeper than that.

If someone shares something deep—perhaps they used to have a problem with addiction—that might be something that you can truly appreciate. Knowing it helps you know that person better and enables you to better connect with them because you feel closer to them, simply because they shared something deep with you. That said, you might not be able to truly understand it because you’ve never had a problem with addiction, so you might not be able to fully understand how someone could get to that point.

To understand something—where 2 + 2 = 4 in your own head—things have to line up and make a lot of sense. Here’s what I mean, using a personal example. One time, I did something that made my wife upset. I acknowledged her reaction and truly appreciated that she was upset, and I said that I would try not to do that “something” again. But I didn’t really understand why she was upset. Over time, the issue hadn’t been resolved and required more than just appreciation, and it was only after some reflections and some wise insights from a friend, could I then begin to understand why my spouse was upset. Afterwards, it finally made sense to me. 2 + 2 = 4. Once I was able to fully understand the issue could we grow from it. Without that level of understanding, we were stuck.

Finally, to empathize, you need to take understanding to the next level. You need to feel the same feelings. If someone says one of their parents died, you would literally feel as if one of your parents died, too. If someone says they got promoted and are jubilant about it, you would feel that same sense of excitement and energy…just like you had been promoted, too. If and when you get to this place of empathy, you have the deepest level of connection with someone.

How connected do you want to be?

The important thing to consider going forward is: how connected do you want to be with others, and what do the people around you require of you?

1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5513638/