About My Excessive Formalism & the So-Called “Lack of Empathy”

I am processing the results from half a year ago’s 2012 360 degrees evaluation for personal branding & development. I have decided to approach the issue of the most visible and criticized weakness: the formalism I use to screen people. First of all, I want to mention an important aspect. My mother gave me an Austrian education from her grandfather, a man who lived and worked in the USA and Austria for a long time and got a lot of the Western spirit into his character. So this history has an educational aspect that cannot be undone. I do not see this as a big problem as most Romanians do because this is part of who I am. I don’t have a Latin character, but more of a German one – even if I don’t know German, I don’t have any German relatives or friends, and I have never been to Austria.

I also have to declare empathy as one of my biggest successes and, simultaneously, one of my biggest failures for the past year. Why? Well, because, in 2012, empathy as a strength came in the 4th place in top positive aspects (from the 8^th place, mind you!), and lack of empathy as a weakness reached a new absolute record: the 1^st place with the highest score for weakness, in all the 7 years I have been doing this evaluation for (with almost twice the points from 2011).

As this article deals with the weakness and the previous one dealt with strengths, I will concentrate more on this aspect. So, people had quite a lot to say about me, as this seems to most people the most relevant weakness (and, not only by the account of the Romanians but also by the account of several Nordic people).

All of these impressions center around the way to relate with others. Over the past 7 years, while I have been doing this 360 degrees evaluation, more than 100 different people noticed this among their top 4 observations about me. Their formulations ranged among these (I have marked what they said in 2012, too):

Insufficient empathy; no emotion recognition; lack of attention to others (non-)verbal reactions; not taking the pulse of the rapport; lack of presence; lack of attention to people and things around; artificial listening.
insufficient sociability/interactivity/relating/interpersonal communication; communication problems with people; social distance; coldness; not building/sustaining a social environment through relationships; excessive task orientation (even in networking); low team spirit;
not expressing/displaying/caring about thoughts/opinions/emotions/feelings; autism; poker face;
too much (scientific) calculation; “Scientific businessman”; equation vision over the world and people;
lack of spontaneity/enthusiasm/humor/passion/energy/activity;
excessive intelligence/reason;
superficiality;

Let’s take them one by one.

1. insufficient empathy; no emotion recognition; lack of attention to other’s (non-)verbal reactions; not taking the pulse of the rapport; lack of presence; lack of attention to people and things around; artificial listening.

In NLP terms, I have a “New York-style of pacing & leading”: lead, lead, lead, pace. In fact, I can be very attentive to other people’s reactions, but I don’t show it or care. Some people feel unheard. This is OK for me. Sometimes, I hear them, but I just don’t let them know.

2. insufficient sociability/interactivity/relating/interpersonal communication; communication problems with people; social distance; coldness; not building/sustaining a social environment through relationships; excessive task orientation (even in networking); low team spirit;

This is simply not true. I have lots of friends. Actually, each year I have more and more friends. But I can’t be friends with everybody. I don’t have time to maintain relationships with hundreds of people – believe me, I meet A LOT of people every month.

3. not expressing/displaying/caring about thoughts/opinions/emotions/feelings; autism; poker face;

That is very true – I find it very useful in negotiation. When do I negotiate? Uhm… let’s see… almost all the time. Case closed.

4. too much (scientific) calculation; “Scientific businessman”; equation vision over the world and people;

It goes with the fact that I seriously studied psychometrics.

5. lack of spontaneity/enthusiasm/humor/passion/energy/activity;

This is also not true. Since 2009, enthusiasm and proactivity have constantly been my top 5 first positive attributes. As for spontaneity, I can be pretty unpredictable and create surprises, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people will like me for it. The people want the surprises they appreciate. The surprises they don’t appreciate are being called “problems”. I take my passion and use it in significant issues I need to solve with seriousness.

6. excessive intelligence/reason;

This is because my intellectual intelligence is higher than my emotional intelligence, which has always been among my strongest points.

7. Superficiality.

Some people consider superficiality as a weak point of mine. That may be because I don’t like to insist on some details, but I concentrate more on other details. Generally, I have good attention to detail, but not to all parties. In any communication, I must know what my target is. Sometimes, I don’t want to get in very deep into a particular subject, or I merely scratch the surface, but that is just because that is the level of depth I want to reach with that subject. I go into more depth with other issues.

In conclusion, I accept what some people say as a part of myself. I cannot make it disappear; I don’t want to make it disappear, I don’t want to change it, I don’t want to hide it. I want people around me to understand it. This is the reason why this is a critical article for me. I know that I’m not appropriate or readily adaptable to Romanian society. I don’t plan on staying in Romania for the rest of my life. My place is not in Romania; it is somewhere in Western Europe.

I hope this article explains many things about me and answers some questions many people have (had) about me.

If you liked this article, please also read the following:

4 +, 4 – (14.01.2012)

Personal Development Goals in 2012 (08.03.2012)

Cine eşti tu şi cum te vezi în oglindă (15.05.2011)

My Personal Development Goals Evaluation For 2012 (30/03/2013)