Empathics are a huge asset to organizations when placed in the right places. What are those places? Glad you asked...
The World is buzzing. People’s thoughts and emotions swirl around us pushing us in many directions. We all feel it, it’s part of being human. It comes with the flesh suit.
Electromagnetically we connect mainly from two centers, the heart and the head. This is measurable and the reason why electrocardiograms and electroencephalograms exist. If you get into chakras, each one can be taken as a connecting point with a dedicated purpose. From the scientific point of view, we can be modeled as bundles of waves with main frequencies of the order of 10³⁰ Hz.
This encephalografic field connects us with the macroconsciousness at the local level in a direct way. The internet is our attempt to recreate this with technology. It’s fascinating. From here we download ideas and we also plant them. Every thought ever thought has a copy there.
The heart field is what makes us permeable to other people’s emotions (think tuning fork). It goes right into the sympathetic nervous system and the cascade of hormones that control how we feel.
Empathic people are particularly sensitive to other people’s emotions. In one end of the spectrum you have HSPs (Highly Sensitive People) which will give you back any emotion as a mirror. On the other end of the spectrum you have empaths, which went through the process of self discovery that lets them sort emotions and develop tools to keep what’s relevant and deflect the rest.
Having empathic people in any team is a blessing if they are in the right place. Empathic people are natural service to others so they are among the most honest, hard working, and fast to understand what others really want and need, in some cases even before themselves. Many can also connect with the macroconsciousness easier than most, and they will be highly creative and/or natural problem solvers.
The perk with empathic people is highly charged environments and incoherence.
If emotions run too high or there are many people around, they can go into overload and shut down. Some HSP in overload could even be confused with people with Asperger Syndrome. Many empathics are apparent introverts, they might or not be. Overload can make them think they are.
The other big issue is coherence. They can pick up incoherence between what people say and feel, between contradictory thoughts, between short term and long term goals. When this happens, it can lead to freezing. Think what would do someone (or a robot for what matters) if you ask them to go North and South at the same time.
So in general if you are going to have an empathic in your team, or you are one, honesty and respecting boundaries are the keywords to success. Empathics are the canary in the coal mine. Any problem with them is the superficial representation of a deeper, and possibly lethal, issue.
In terms of positions, they will be better in places where they can work on their own without interruptions. Dealing with many people at the same time or be in contact with permanent stress is not the best match for empathics. They are particularly skilled at dealing with people one on one. Just don´t expose them to crowds.
So if you wondered how I chose the services that I give and don’t give. Here is your answer. I’m an empath, yet another one.