Page 2 - Nellis Creech NTTR Bullseye Oct. 21 2016

2 October 21, 2016
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Becoming human again:
Developing empathy
By Sta Sgt. Jodi Martinez
375th Air Mobility Wing Public A airs
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. —
From the moment we’re born, we need
human interaction and crave to be un-
derstood. It can have a profound e ect
upon our personal lives by making us
feel empowered or conversely by mak-
ing us feel powerless if those needs are
neglected.
It also extends into our professional
lives. In fact, many of the most success-
ful companies in the world recognize
this and invest in training employees
on e ective communication. It’s a hard
skill set to learn that can ultimately de-
termine a business’s success or failure.
I’ve always prided myself on being
a good communicator. A er all, I’m a
photojournalist whose job is to bridge
communication gaps and help us under-
stand one another, right? So when I saw
the opportunity to attend Air Mobil-
ity Command’s Communication Skills
Training, I signed up. I thought I could
perfect and master an already learned
skill. What a sobering experience it
was to nd that I’m actually terrible at
communicating. Luckily, I wasn’t alone.
One by one, I saw my classmates have
the same epiphany. As we chipped away
through the course that was unlike
any I’d taken, we began to unravel. We
began wearing our faults for everyone
to see instead of burying them into our
subconscious. As a class, we were be-
coming aware and wanted nothing more
than to better ourselves. ere was one
man in particular, however, who made
me brave enough to approach the course
with an open mind.
In any other circumstance, he would
be someone I would instinctively avoid.
I’m non-confrontational. He’s abrasive
and intimidating. I don’t like to make
decisions until I have all the facts. He’s
an “it’s my way or the highway” sort of
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Commentary
guy. He stood well over six feet tall and
had a bass- lled voice that I could feel
vibrate o the walls. When I think of
friction, I think of him. Well, I thought
of him. But in an instant my opinion of
him changed when he did what most of
us couldn’t do.
He admitted that his failure to com-
municate has pushed him into solitude.
“I don’t have any friends,” he said,
shaking his head. “I don’t. And my mar-
riage is crumbling.”
en, as his eyes turned red, he said
if he died tomorrow, he couldn’t scrape
up six people to carry his co n.
at evening, I went home and re-
ected on my own shortcomings and
the things that have kept me from being
the person I want to be. I decided that if
he was going to give this class an honest
chance, I was going to also.
In the end, this is what I learned:
On confrontation
When we think of confrontation, we
associate it with negativity. It’s uncom-
fortable. It brings anxiety. But confron-
tation, if approached right, is just an op-
portunity. e key to successful con ict
resolution, though, is not as much about
confronting as it is listening, something
we o en forget.
ere are only three logical, healthy
moves when faced with a problem:
truly accept the behavior (not false ac-
ceptance), adjust the circumstances, or
ask for change.
When confronting someone, the
important thing to remember is that
we are ultimately asking them for their
help. We are bringing them a problem,
so it is their problem to solve – not ours.
When we take ownership of a conversa-
tion, we prevent the other person from
being empowered, and we are less likely
to have our own needs met.
Bringing up an issue is uncomfort-
able for both sides, but by getting into
that awkward box with them, we are
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saying, “You don’t have go at this alone.
We can do this together.”
 On listening
We’ve all had it happen to us, and
we’ve all done it to other people. While
talking to someone about a concern,
you realize that the other person isn’t
truly listening. ey’re just waiting for
their opportunity to talk. en, they tell
you how they’d deal with it. ey meet
your problem with judgment or advice
when all you wanted was to be heard.
We know what we need to do. We just
need a sounding board to work through
the problem on our own.
When listening, silencing the mind
is the hardest thing to do, but it is
necessary if we want to be effective
communicators. We need to silence our
judgments, responses, and all of the
distractions in our head and o er an
empathetic ear.
Data suggests that 90 percent of our
communication is non-verbal. e tone
of our voice, eye contact, body language,
and the message we speak must be
harmonized in order to show sincerity.
As we’ve heard before, it’s not what
we say—it’s how we say it. People will
remember how you make them feel, and
that is more important than what is said.
So the next time an Airman comes up
to my desk, I’m not going to tell them to
wait one second while I nish an email
as I have done in the past. I’m going to
show them that they are my rst priority
and give them a listening ear.
 On empathy
O en in life we speak to be heard but
rarely to listen. We judge people based
on their actions but we judge ourselves
by our intentions. Imagine if instead
we empathized with the intentions of
others like we do our own. is is em-
pathy. It doesn’t mean we have to agree.
It doesn’t mean we have to fold. It just
means we care enough to attempt to feel
what others feel and see things the way
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they do. is is the key to communica-
tion, and this is what makes us human.
Even in regards to our enemies, un-
derstanding is key. Amaryllis Fox, a for-
mer undercover CIA agent, shared what
she believed to be her most important
takeaway from her experiences.
“I think the question we need to be
asking as Americans examining our
foreign policy is whether or not we’re
pouring kerosene on a candle,” Fox said.
“ e only real way to disarm your en-
emy is to listen to them. As long as your
enemy is a subhuman psychopath that’s
going to attack you no matter what you
do, this never ends. But if your enemy is
a policy, however complicated, that we
can work with.”
 On motivating
e truth is, I can’t motivate a single
person. e only thing I can do is create
an environment in which people moti-
vate themselves.
ere’s an old sherman’s tale that I
o en turn to: if you put a single crab in
a boiling pot without a lid, the crab will
escape. If you put multiple crabs in a boil-
ing pot, you won’t need to cover it all. e
crabs will pull at each other, preventing
any one of them from escaping.
If we are aware enough to see just how
ine cient this is, then we can take steps
to change this. We are motivated by our
own needs and tend to pull to get ahead
instead of o ering a bent knee to help
each other nd solutions. We forget that
we have the ability to help each other
help ourselves.
What makes us human? What is the
key to restoring our faith in humanity?
The ability to empathize. Without it,
there can be no progress. Without it, our
life loses meaning.
The next time the course is high-
lighted in those public a airs bulletins, I
encourage you to take a shot at it. Maybe
it can help you, like me, become human
again.
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