Perspective-taking is at the heart of our first essential quality in moving others today. Attunement is the ability to bring oneâs actions and outlook into harmony with other people and with the context youâre in.
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We are limited by our perspective and frequently wrong. Therefore, it is useful to practice being attentive and curious in order to increase our understanding of others. Usually, the more familiar we become with others, the more we assume we âknowâ them. We risk believing we are ârelationship experts.
The research shows that effective perspective-taking, attuning yourself with others, hinges on three principles.
1. Increase your power by reducing itâŚ
As the researchers conclude, âpower leads individuals to anchor too heavily on their own vantage point, insufficiently adjusting to othersâ perspective.â
The results of these studies, part of a larger body of research, point to a single conclusion: an inverse relationship between power and perspective-taking. Power can move you off the proper position on the dial and scramble the signals you receive, distorting clear messages and obscuring more subtle onesâŚ
2. Use your head as much as your heartâŚ
Perspective-taking is a cognitive capacity; itâs mostly about thinking. Empathy is an emotional response; itâs mostly about feeling. Both are crucialâŚ
This second principle of attunement also means recognizing that individuals donât exist as atomistic units, disconnected from groups, situations, and contexts. And that requires training oneâs perspective-taking powers not only on people themselves but also on their relationships and connections to othersâŚ
3. Mimic strategicallyâŚ
People therefore looked to cues in the environment to determine whom they could trust. âOne of those cues is the unconscious awareness of whether we are in synch with other people, and a way to do that is to match their behavioral patterns with our own.â Synching our mannerisms and vocal patterns to someone else so that we both understand and can be understood is fundamental to attunementâŚ
The key is to be strategic and humanâto be strategic by being human.
This conceptual shift demonstrates the third quality necessary in moving others today: clarityâthe capacity to help others see their situations in fresh and more revealing ways and to identify problems they didnât realize they had.
The first principle of improvisationâhearing offersâhinges on attunement, leaving our own perspective to inhabit the perspective of another.
This approach connects to the quality of attunementâin particular, the finding that lowering your status can enhance your powers of perspective-taking. And it demonstrates that as with servant leadership, the wisest and most ethical way to move others is to proceed with humility and gratitude.