When it comes to preparing for your presentations and media interview performances, there’s a crucial element which – for some – can be completely absent.
This is demonstrating empathy with your target audience.
It’s effectively showing your audience that you understand what life is like for those with whom you’re seeking to talk about and to influence.
Without empathy, you can easily come across like a heartless, soulless robot.
Without empathy, your great ideas and plans can count for nothing when it comes to persuading your fellow humans.
Alas there have been some gobsmackingly atrocious demonstrations of a lack of empathy in recent weeks.
These have been evident on the Eastern and Western sides of the Atlantic – and in the far North Atlantic in a place called Greenland.
In the UK, a baffling absence of empathy has been demonstrated by the Minister for Pensions, Torsten Bell.
Before he entered the parliament, Torsten Bell had a professional interest in improving the lives of those who are struggling financially.
He was Chief Executive of a British economic think tank – the Resolution Foundation – which aims to improve outcomes for people on low and modest incomes.
You might think that a man with this background would show profound empathy towards people struggling to make it in difficult times.
Alas, not.
In an interview on BBC ‘s Newsnight programme, he managed to demonstrate virtually zero concern for those less well off than himself.
He did so while seeking to defend moves by the Labour Government of Sir Keir Starmer to cut expenditure on welfare.
Many British citizens may rightly feel that saving money on taxpayer’s welfare bills is a noble and necessary endeavour.
However, Torsten Bell managed to exhibit no concern for a particular group on welfare benefits who are looking at receiving a mere £70 a week.
At the risk of showing excessive empathy for Torsten Bell, it is probably a tough time to be the minister in the front line of reducing welfare benefits.
But if Torsten Bell wants to know how he came across to the viewing public, he just needs to read some of the comments left on the YouTube thread that his empathy-free interview style provoked:
Audience comments were largely aimed at him personally – with jibes such as:
+ “What a ruthless man. If he is Labour this country has a real problem.”
+ “This is a man on around £10,000 a month wages telling someone else that they have to survive on £280 a month. We must be mad allowing these people to get away with what they do.”
+ “Every minister should be forced to live on benefits before they are allowed to be in government.”
+ “Absolutely shocking. How about doing away with his expenses?”
If there were to be a prize for anyone who could demonstrate even less empathy than Torsten Bell, it may well be won on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Living there are two often empathy-free men who are seeking to snatch the imaginary Non-Empathetic Champions Trophy – by grabbing control of the giant freezing cold island of Greenland from its NATO ally Denmark.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his Vice-President JD Vance have decided that rather than continuing as an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland should be under their control.
However outrageous you may regard this claim, you might assume that anyone seeking to win over the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark to their greedy Trump-Vance plan, would seek to demonstrate a little empathy and even charm.
But if you listen to the comments of the president and vice-president in this Sky TV report below, any feelings they may have for those who live in Denmark and Greenland are as cold as these Atlantic icebergs.
The belligerent nature of the Trump/Vance efforts to win over the hearts and minds of the Danes and the Greenlanders have so far been as successful as the maiden voyage across the Atlantic by the iceberg-prone Titanic.
No wonder the only audience available to hear the vice-president during his uninvited and unwelcome visit to Greenland were the American troops stationed there who had no choice!
When it comes to detecting the lack of empathy in the White House approach, note the comment in the Sky report of the Greenland woman who indicated it was as if the USA was trying to force her people to dance with America, rather than to woo them.
Even a team of highly qualified psychiatrists would probably find it difficult to teach self-absorbed people like Donald Trump, JD Vance and Torsten Bell to try to empathise with those who are less privileged than themselves.
However, the good news I have found is that teaching people to DISPLAY empathy that they are genuinely feeling – but not effectively SHOWING – is possible.
For those who are not totally self-centred, it is possible to successfully encourage them to put themselves in the position of people they need to connect with through their media interviews or presentations.
But as the indigenous people of North America are known for advocating, it’s good to walk in someone else’s mocassins in order to understand what their lives are like.
I find that when you encourage those being trained to imagine what things are like for members of their target audience, you can edge them towards better demonstrating their empathy in the way they come across.
There’s information about media interview response training sessions at:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/media-master-classes/
There’s details about presentation training sessions at:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/presenting-with-confidence-impact-and-pizzazz/
When empathy is demonstrated in interviews and presentations, it makes the world of difference to how interviewees and presenters are judged by their audiences!
Donald, JD and Torsten are not the ideal candidates for seeking out this kind of training.
But more emotionally intelligent folk can benefit from it hugely.
It takes time and patience on all sides, but it can be done!