Leading with empathy: Better team meetings and conversations with Gefühlsmonster® Cards

By Lilli Höch-Corona

Talking about feelings is on everyone's lips. This should be decisive for the economy of the future, promote corporate culture, enable New Work and bind employees. - But how? How can you give feelings a place without them taking up too much space? How can you work with groups in such a way that there is a clear structure and diversity is taken into account as well? Conduct clarification discussions so that lasting results are achieved? This book presents twelve methods for working with the Gefühlsmonster Cards. From communication with groups and teams to self-management to a tool for clarification discussions and performance reviews, each with examples and clearly structured instructions for use. Lilli Höch-Corona has been working as a mediator, coach and trainer for more than 20 years. Her passion lies in reaching an understanding. For this purpose she developed the Gefühlsmonster Cards in 1996. Since then, a variety of methods have been developed around this instrument, which make talking about feelings both easier and more effective. The Gefühlsmonster Cards are available in stores or as an online application on the author's homepage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: Dec 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9783347185999

Lilli Höch-Corona

Lilli Höch-Corona decided to pursue a second career after working as a math and PE high school teacher for 12 years. Further training in gender–diverse teaching and mediation awakened her enthusiasm for better understanding communication in all its facets. In 1995, she completed her mediation training and worked as a mediator and taught mediation training programs herself for 10 years. While going through her own mediation training, an experience in a school project led to the creation of the Gefühlsmonsters® cards, drawn by her son Christian Corona. From the beginning she implemented these cards in her seminars and 1:1 work) and realized how much ease they brought to conversations about feelings. In 2005 she decided to offer the cards for sale. While working with conflict management in organizations and teams she tested further applications of the Gefühlsmonsters. Simultaneously her passion for successful communication led her to expand her knowledge through specialized books on the subject of feelings and regular professional development. What she had experienced as particularly helpful in team developments and coaching sessions led her to publish a blog in 2008, called ”Feelings for Everyday Life” at www.mediation-und-mehr.de, the forerunner of the Feelings Letter at www.gefuehlsmonster.de . In this book she summarizes the most important contributions from 12 years experience. Now Mrs. Höch-Corona runs the Gefühlsmonster GmbH, where she and her staff bring more ease to the dealings with feelings. In 2020 she founded the Gefühlsmonster Academy, where, together with instructors from various fields, she teaches participants how their work can benefit from the ease and even lightheartedness made possible by the Gefühlsmonsters. Also in 2020 her first book ”Leading with emapthy – Better team meetings and conversations with Gefühlsmonster Cards” was published. With case studies and step-by-step instructions this book teaches managers to develop a company culture that involves everyone and exposes diversity in such a way that important contributions can be made and heard by all. As an expert on feelings she guides executives to feel more confident with their own feelings and to feel strong and authentic in their interactions with their colleagues and teams. If you have any questions or suggestions you can reach Lilli Höch-Corona at [e-mail]

Book preview

Introduction

Each chapter of this book is about feelings; about pleasant, difficult, different and common feelings, past and present, inside and outside and surprising feelings.

Feelings have a tendency to come over us sometimes at the wrong moment. This can lead to problems especially with difficult feelings. Conversations about feelings help us to better process what we have experienced, to make differences and similarities clear and to develop new ways of working together. The Gefühlsmonster® Cards can facilitate these conversations.

I couldn't listen very well, I was too annoyed to do so – but I could still watch, and then I saw that my colleague was also feeling bad. These were words from a mediation client in one of my first attempts to use the Gefühlsmonsters in mediation. In the 15 years that followed, I developed many other techniques in conversation with our users and colleagues, such as how the visualization of feelings can facilitate the start of a conversation, stimulate a change of perspective and make group opinions visible.

With this book, I would like to contribute to making an exchange about feelings easier and, if possible, to help create a permanently improved basis for communication.

This will not be the case for everyone, just as it is not always a good idea to talk about feelings at every moment. The decision about this is up to you, the reader.

What you will find in this book is a collection of proven tools for group work, self-management, individual counselling and conflict resolution.

Our communication is complex – and we are all different. Our experiences sometimes determine our actions more than we would like, and what we experience is as different as the world we grew up in and live in.

Being annoyed causes the usual tunnel vision, makes us not see the paths we can take, separates us from people we actually love or with whom we work on important projects.

As one of the first mediation instructors in Berlin, I quickly realized that no technique, no matter how good, could be a foolproof guide for how to handle difficult situations. Besides all that we can learn about techniques and communication, we are always challenged to get involved as a person with what makes us who we are. At the same time, good techniques can give us ideas for constructive strategies, so that we can take people and groups one step further on their path based on our knowledge, empathy and experience.

How to use this book?

I explicitly encourage you to first try out those tools that appeal to you. The best practice examples at the beginning of each tool show what the technique is all about and help you to understand the next steps. If you feel like trying out a technique, this is exactly the right place to start.

I wish you good experiences with the techniques in this book – and many ideas for your own work!

Guidelines

A few words about the attitude with which we use the Gefühlsmonster® Cards:

Well, let's analyze it, said a seminar participant in a consultation with the person who selected Gefühlsmonster® Cards for her current situation. His words inspired me to formulate the following guidelines, which have proven themselves over the years in our work:

• The guiding question is: What does this card mean for you? In this way you will receive open answers and invite the other to say more about the