Clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Jean-Louis Monestes is a researcher at the CNRS laboratory of functional neurosciences and pathology. A specialist in change, he is known for bringing ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) to France. We met him at the launch of his e-training program on “psychological flexibility”: a method that helps people learn how to change perspectives and truly put themselves in someone else’s shoes. His recent research now focuses on relational adaptability. So is empathy like a muscle? Can it be trained and strengthened? We asked him about it.

EVE: Hello, Jean-Louis. How did you decide to develop a learning program around empathy specifically for the world of work?

Jean-Louis Monestès: The question of empathy struck me one day when I was working at a hospital. I realized that when we care for people in distress, we struggle to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes; we don’t succeed in trying to understand what they are experiencing, seeing, feeling, or believing.

Imagine, for example, a patient who believes they are being persecuted. Have you ever wondered what it feels like to live with the constant certainty that someone is following you? It is terrifying.

That’s how I started designing exercises to train people on how to decenter themselves. While co-writing the book Vous avez tout pour réussir (You have everything you need to succeed) with Christophe Deval, Sylvie Bernard-Curie suggested that I transpose my work on empathy to the business world.

EVE: There obviously aren’t usually such extreme situations in the corporate world, but the need for empathy is definitely being emphasized quite strongly.

Jean-Louis Monestès: Yes, anywhere there are human relationships, there is a need to consider another person’s point of view, and a reason to try to change perspective.

I actually started doing that groundwork myself, asking people to describe in detail the roles of those who could be targeted by a workplace empathy program. I sought to understand what their lives were really like, what interested them and what limited them, to enhance how I integrated them into my program.

EVE: What is the aim of your program?

Jean-Louis Monestès: I want to increase participants’ ability to take other people’s points of view into consideration. First of all, we define what empathy means. People immediately think that it’s similar to compassion: the sharing of a negative emotion.

My definition of empathy is free from the positive or negative value of emotion or perception: empathy is simply the ability to see things from somebody else’s perspective.

EVE: Can empathy be measured?

Jean-Louis Monestès: It can be assessed as a form of dexterity with very simple exercises: for example, I am in Lyon and I am holding a red brick, you are in Paris, you are holding a green brick, we are both asked: “If you were the other person and the other person was you, where would you be? What would he be holding?” After that, we make the exercises a little more complicated by reversing all the elements of the problem statement and asking questions like “If you were the other person and the other person was you, and Paris was Lyon and Lyon was Paris, where would you be?”

We use the answers to exercises like these to help us assess people’s ability to change perspective and adopt the other person’s position.

EVE: But does that agility guarantee that relationships with other people improve?

Jean-Louis Monestès: Not at all! There are some amazing manipulators who have an outstanding ability to adopt other people’s points of view (laugh).

Good intentions can never be guaranteed. You are probably familiar with the best-selling book by Joule and Beauvois, Petit traité de manipulation à l’usage des honnêtes gens (A short treatise on manipulation for honest people). The authors explain brilliantly how manipulation methods can be used to help others (to quit smoking for example). Well, the opposite is also possible: something very commendable (the desire to put yourself in another person’s shoes) can be used for evil purposes.

EVE: But still, without turning it into a moral crusade, isn’t it important to ensure the approach is driven by positive objectives?

Jean-Louis Monestès: I believe that we need to agree on the objectives, not the intentions. The objectives are to streamline communication, avoid misunderstandings, take initiative in tricky situations, and find and cultivate common ground. In short, to develop relational skills and new behaviors.

EVE: Fair enough. The objectives sound great. So how do we develop those interpersonal skills?

Jean-Louis Monestès: Well, you practice. It’s like with a sport, you start by looking around you and taking stock.

• Step 1: I’m here, and there is the other person. They exist, and they are part of the relationship and will modify it.
• Step 2: The other person has a mindset that is different from my own, and mine is different from theirs, even though we are experiencing exactly the same situation.
• Step 3: I detach myself from my own mental states to make room for theirs…

EVE: I don’t think you can argue with that. But everyone needs to play their part.

Jean-Louis Monestès: Wanting reciprocity is a sign of somewhat excessive trust in other human beings (laugh). It also means moving away from the empathetic approach by seeking to impose your own expectations for a relationship as a prerequisite to any consideration of the other person’s point of view.

But above all, reciprocity is not what we are looking for in this approach: empathy does not aim to obtain empathy in return, it allows us to gather information about the other person, to sample the relationship.

EVE: Okay, so once you have “understood” the other person’s perspective, what do you do then?

Jean-Louis Monestès: You start by telling them. We underestimate the power of a sincere sentence that begins with “I understand that you…” (disagree, are angry, sad, disappointed etc.). Expressing understanding is the first step towards compromise.

EVE: Not to nitpick, but don’t you think there are some completely closed-minded personalities who don’t even care if we understand them or not?

Jean-Louis Monestès: There are some! The hardest part, in those cases, is to get closer to the other person, even though they—sometimes quite reasonably—repel you (if they are racist, for example). You might be afraid that if you talk to someone you don’t like, you will be “polluted.” Always remember that understanding someone doesn’t mean agreeing with them.

Your values are not up for negotiation. Neither is it about appealing to others. In this case, you have to make do with a person that you may not like.

This is true in many professions: doctors, accountants, and shopkeepers are sometimes required to interact with unpleasant people. As part of their mission, they are forced to gather information on these individuals, who mostly inspire negative feelings in them and may not even be willing to create a relationship. But doing they have to persist, even though the relationship may be tenuous and temporary. To succeed, you need to have collected at least some information that will allow you to make a proposal of some kind. Moving on, imagine that someone isn’t cooperating; the suggestion is “It seems like this is causing you pain…”

EVE: Saying “It seems like…” leaves room for error…

Jean-Louis Monestès: It’s not such a bad thing to make mistakes. It gives the other person space to clarify how they feel and realize that you are concerned about them. If someone says “no”, that’s a start!

Even if the suggestion is imprecise or just plain wrong, it’s a springboard for the relationship: I come with questions for you, I’m interested. All you have to do is tell me if what I’m perceiving corresponds a little, a lot or not at all to what you would like to express, to what you feel…

EVE: Would you go so far as to say that closed circles—spaces where the rules are understood and accepted by everyone within them—are starting to unravel?

Jean-Louis Monestès: Closed circles are being pulled in two opposing directions at the same time. On the one hand, they are tightening: some groups are becoming more inward-looking, even retreating into conservative positions. On the other hand, the reverse is also true. As individuals are now exposed to an ever-wider range of influences, traditional group markers are becoming blurred, codes are shifting, people are less predictable, even in spheres where we once knew (or thought) ourselves to be among those who, by definition, shared the same tastes, ideas, and convictions.

So now, even with our friends and family, those in our closed circle, we are having to put ourselves in other people’s shoes more than ever.