Name: 職場必備溝通藝術：以同理心傳達壞消息（Deliver Hard News with Compassion）
Uploaded: 2026-03-23T17:25:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 4 s

One of the hardest parts about leadership is giving people hard news.

領導中最難的部分之一，就是給予人們壞消息。

Sometimes you have to say that your job isn't here anymore.

有時候你得說，你的職位已經沒了。

Sometimes you have to tell whole organizations that there's going to be a new structure to things.

有時候你得告訴整個組織，事情會有新的架構。

而壞消息，嗯，就是很難開口。

It's very important that leaders understand that that is not a good argument for avoiding hard things.

領導者非常重要的一點是要明白，這不是迴避難事的藉口。

Now, one of the biggest problems that we have is misunderstanding empathy and compassion.

現在，我們面臨的最大問題之一，就是誤解了同理心和同情心。

And when you're motivated entirely by empathy, it becomes a really hard thing to do, to do these difficult things.

而且當你完全被同理心驅使時，做這些難事就會變得非常困難。

And you might even be handcuffed and unable to do them.

你甚至可能會被束縛住，無法去做。

And you'll wait too long when it gets even more damaging to other people.

當情況對他人造成更大傷害時，你就會等得太久。

Compassion has four parts to it: understanding a problem, feeling enough of the pain such that you can actually be in the place of the person affected, being able to be rational about what needs to be done, and

同情心有四個部分：理解問題，感受到足夠的痛苦，讓你能夠真正設身處地為受影響的人著想，並且

Being a truly compassionate leader is what people need.

成為一個真正有同情心的領導者，是大家所需要的。

Their greatest bosses are compassionate, not empathetic.

他們最棒的老闆都很有同情心，而不是隻懂同理心。

Because they love people enough to do what actually needs to get done.

因為他們夠愛這些人，所以會去做真正該做的事。

That's just leadership at the end of the day.

Let's say you're in a situation where you need to downsize your employee base by about 20%.

假設你現在處於一個需要縮減約 20% 的員工規模的情況。

And that means a bunch of people, including people that you've worked with for years, are actually going to lose their jobs.

這意味著，包括你認識多年的同事在內，很多人都要失業了。

If the only tool in your arsenal is empathy, that's going to be overwhelmingly hard and maybe something that you're going to put off,

如果你工具箱裡只有同理心，這將會非常困難，甚至可能讓你一再拖延，

Compassion is one in which you understand exactly why this needs to be done.

同情心是那種讓你清楚明白為什麼必須這麼做的能力。

You put yourself in the place of other people such that you can understand what they're going through.

你設身處地為他人著想，去理解他們正在經歷什麼。

You have a plan for how you're going to transmit this information and actually what you're going to suggest to people who are affected.

你會有一套傳達這些資訊的計畫，以及你實際上會對受影響的人提出什麼建議。

And you have the courage to get it done quickly because that's in everybody's interests.

而且你也有勇氣迅速完成，因為這符合每個人的利益。

That's fundamentally superior in every way.

好了，關於這點，快速岔開一個話題。

How do you grease the skids a little bit?

你要怎麼讓事情進行得更順利一點呢？

The Buddhists talk about having a loving-kindness meditation.

佛教徒談論進行慈悲觀（或慈心禪）。

And one of the things that I've done is I pray for people before I have to do a hard thing.

而我做的一件事是，在必須做一件難事之前，我會為人們祈禱。

I pray for the people that I'm actually going to affect in this particular way.

我會為我實際上將以這種特定方式影響到的人祈禱。

And so whatever your technique is, meditation, visualization, prayer, I would recommend doing that actually before you have the interactions with people as well.

所以，無論你的方法是打坐、觀想還是祈禱，我都建議你在跟人互動之前，也實際做這些事。

So don't misunderstand what I've said here.

I'm saying not to have unaccompanied empathy.

我說的是不要只有「單獨的同理心」。

Empathy is only step number two of four steps.

同理心只是四個步驟中的第二個步驟。

And when you shear it off from an understanding of the problem, an understanding of what needs to be done, and

當你把它從對問題的理解、對需要做什麼的理解，

the courage to do it, then it becomes problematic because it's on its own.

以及付諸實踐的勇氣中割離出來，

它就會變得有問題，因為它孤立無援。

And as a virtue, it can quickly turn into a vice.