DomoDomo@INSEAD

The painful lesson of Empathy

Ouch! I received a knock-out punch by Fernando in PIM. But that will be a good lesson...

Remember my Rogerian interview? How I wanted to shake the interviewee into getting a job and forgetting about the ideal world of MBA (his was LBS's)?
Well, I guess Fernando Batholomei concurred with that conclusions.

On his sore comments from the interview, taken from my Final Report:

"How French!"
"My God!"
"What a language!"
"Such a complex and pretentious way of expressing oneself"
"Such Bullshit"
"I wonder how you were feeling when listening to all of this!"
"Does he believe in his own BS?"
"He loves to hear himself speak so brilliantly"
"What?"
"I am curious to read how you analysed this crap"

Now that is so typical of Fernando...
I guess on the analysis we sort of agreed, though he said it was "so-so", but the conclusion was "It was very difficult to be Rogerian in handling the stuff he threw at you!" which reassured me -at least- on my abilities to listen to even the darkest, obscurest, sophisticated speeches.

The big lesson was: Don't empathize too much. You can listen, but still keep your critical reasoning.
Now I'm starting to believe that Fernando, for his personal reasons, does not like to be liked. He shot the widest array of grades 1 in INSEAD memory. I guess it's also a message that we should not feel like we're some sort of psychiatrists...
Still it's a very tough way to handle the message.

It's still a tremendous class...

Labels: P4 Courses, PIM

posted by DomoDomo@INSEAD @ 6:08 PM