Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

Try new shoes. Empathy involves taking the perspective of another person. What
is he thinking? How is he feeling? If you switched places and stood in his shoes,
what would you see?
Leave running room. Start with big broad questions to get people talking. Invite
them to engage on ground where they’re most comfortable and most familiar.
Listen beyond words. The deeper you go, the more you need to listen for cues
and tone and mood. Pauses and hesitation have meaning, too. So do body
language, facial expressions, and eye contact.
Establish intimate distance. Convey compassion and interest. But maintain
enough distance and detachment so you don’t judge and can offer objective
questions or advice.
The Good Professor
Helen Riess is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She

---

studies empathy and teaches doctors how to incorporate it into their work with
patients. I got to know her through the Middlebury College board we both served
on. From the moment I met her I was struck by her instinctive ability to listen
intently and to represent diverse viewpoints with depth and sensitivity when she
spoke at our meetings. When she mentioned student life, for example, she
conveyed a special awareness of the pressures college students face, engulfed by
technology, plugged in to always-on texting, dealing with mountains of debt and
uncertain employment in a hypercompetitive global economy.
As I learned about her background and her interests, I discovered that Helen
was an expert on empathy. She researched it, taught it, wrote about it, practiced
it, and coached it. I wanted to know how she thought the rest of us could better
leverage empathy through the questions we asked, so I went to see her in Boston.
We met at a restaurant near her office, a few blocks from Massachusetts
General Hospital, where she was director of the Empathy and Relational Science
Program. Helen practiced what she taught: As we sat and talked, she leaned in,
locked eyes, and maintained a relaxed and comfortable demeanor. She listened
intently—no smartphone intrusions here—and did not break her gaze, barely
looking down at her lunch.
Helen described empathy to me as “the ability to listen and take another
person’s perspective.” It empowers you not just to understand the other person
but also to imagine you are the other person, she said. “Perspective taking” is a
way of asking people to assume another person’s viewpoints, emotions,
behaviors, and thoughts—to see through their lens in order to understand their
point of view.
“This is where imagination and curiosity come in,” Helen told me. “This is
the intentional act of moving yourself out of your shoes and into the shoes of the
other person.” Empathy is not asking “What would it be like for me?” she
explained, but “I wonder what it would be like for him?” Her empathetic
questions reflect that “perspective taking.”
What’s it like to experience what that person’s going through?
What are other people feeling?
Scared? Jubilant? Vulnerable?
What is it like for them to be who they are?
Helen works with doctors. She tells them to start with a broad question to
establish an empathetic relationship. It is the simplest of questions, yet if it is

---

meant sincerely, it can both solicit useful information and convey genuine
concern.
How are you doing today?
But Helen tells her doctors that they have to do more than just ask. They
have to listen, closely and sincerely. They have to hear more than words. They
must listen to voice tone and inflection and watch for reactions and body
language. She coaches them to maintain eye contact and scan the other person’s
face to see if they seem relaxed, anxious, frightened, or stressed. If they hear
strong emotion, they should respond to it directly and ask compassionately.