The Power of the Pre-Emptive Thank You Wave: Unlocking Pre-Emptive Empathy in Conflict

On today's Conflict Skills Podcast, we explored the power of the "preemptive thank you wave"—a communication technology I developed to assume the best in people before conflict even starts. By showing empathy and gratitude ahead of time, you can transform interactions, unlock opportunities, and get better outcomes in business and life. 

Whether you’re dealing with customers, teams, or strangers, try preemptive empathy. It’s a mindset shift that opens doors you didn’t even know existed. 

Want more tools for effective conflict resolution? Hit subscribe and join us next time 😊.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Risky street crossing stories

03:19 Teenage pranks and consequences

08:32 Mindset shift to preemptive empathy

11:14 Impact of mindset on brain activity

13:32 Trying to cancel a hotel booking

17:22 Impact of Modern Communication Tech

Transcript

0:04

Hello and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator, Simon Goode. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful to you, please consider pressing subscribe. Well, in the episode today, I'm going to be talking about what I think of as a new communication technology that I invented. And I invented this many years ago when I was a university student. Actually, I'm not 100% sure that this is something that I invented, and I'm not 100% sure that communication techniques are technologies anyway. But why not? It's certainly been the way that I've been thinking about it over the last few years. The situation that I was in when I came up with this idea was that I was out drinking with my friends. In first year of university, we used to do these informal pub crawls. So we would drink a few beers at one pub, go to the next place, go to the next place kind of thing. The rules were very different in terms of lockout times and all of that kind of stuff. And back then, actually, we were living through probably the problems that led to all of those lockout regulations, like constant fights. And every pub that you would go to, it would be pretty wild kind of things. In the early days. I ended up joining a band a year or two later and we would play at a few pretty wild pubs around Newcastle as well as down in Sydney. I mean, I'm not trying to paint this as being massively glamorous. A lot of the time you're out drinking, it's just so awkward. There's so many moments I look back on with immense embarrassment and shame. And I just think about what a tool I must have seemed, even while I was so proud and thinking that I was such a legend. Anyway, so we would be stumbling and walking from pub to pub. And in Australia, at the pedestrian crossings, first you get the green person walking like so you can start. Then the red stop walk person comes on and flashes a few times and then finally it just goes solid red. So the flashing middle bit, I think it's supposed to be, if you've already started walking, then you can continue, but don't begin. Don't set off from one side of the street trying to cross over to the other. Now if you're with your friends and you've had a few beers and you want to get to the next pub as soon as possible, you will always start walking on the flashing one like that. You shouldn't walk, you're always going to try and make it. You might sprint across or you might jog and you're probably laughing and being cheeky and rude and all of this kind of stuff as you go. Frankly, even if it's already turned red and it says don't walk, as long as there's no cars coming, sometimes you'll just end up going ahead. I shudder to think about how many times I almost died in alcohol related just stupidity when I was a high school kid as well as gone through university, to be honest. Anyway, all of those various different regrets aside, one of the things that I used to do when we were pushing our luck was so if we came up to cars that were stopped at a red light, now they were almost about to go, they knew that the pedestrian crossing was just going to stop and we wanted to rush out in front of them. Well, sometimes. Never me, of course, but some of my friends, other people would moon the cars or be cheeky to them in some other kind of way, like just being absolute idiots as a teenager. And when we would be rude, when we would either ignore them and just run across and jump over a bin or something like that, you know, just jump up and hit a sign really loudly or hootering, hooting and woohoo, like all of that stupid kind of stuff that you might do, and swearing, like it probably was quite vulgar at times as well. Anyway, when we would do naughty things, when we would push our luck or when we were rude and disrespectful, often the drivers would give us the finger or they'd yell something out or they'd beep their horns when we were being silly in front of them or something similar and we didn't care. Like when you've had a few beers, you don't realize that all of these other people are watching you and you're not thinking about what effect this has on the other people in the cars or what consequences this might have for you as a result. In fact, I think when we would get across the road, we would often realize that the bouncers at the next pub were watching us be wankers. And, and so they would often say that you've had too much beer, you're not coming in boys, you've had too much to drink kind of thing. So sometimes we were rude, the cars would beep or give us the finger and then often the bouncers wouldn't let us in as a result. I'm not naturally. Like when you've had a few beers, you do often do and say things that are much ruder than usual. But I still didn't like, like giving cars the finger or something that, you know what I mean? Like when my friends were doing that kind of stuff, I might be laughing and if I'm honest, I probably didn't really reprimand them or anything, but I kind of didn't like that that was going on. So what I often would do is like a conciliatory kind of gesture, like I would hold my hands up or something similar, like saying sorry about that kind of thing. Anyway, I ended up almost beginning to have to say sorry about that to the cars ahead of time because I knew how my friends were going to act. Because pretty much every single time that we crossed the road and I began waving before any of us had done anything. And I can remember one time I said to my friends, this is awesome, guys, you should try it. It's the preemptive thank you wave. And you know, they're probably ignoring me just being silly anyway. But I can remember explaining it to the few of the friends at some stage. Like it's this preemptive thank you, thanks in advance. Thank you so much for letting us cross ahead of time. Thank you so much. I know you're about to go. Appreciate it. Like that little gesture. And it was non verbal. It was like these people were in the car and we were crossing in front of them at midnight or something. But I'll do a little thank you, like thank you very much, I appreciate it. Sometimes I'd put my hands together in front of me and bow a little bit like, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I might mouth the words thank you or something or give them a salute or give like a military salute or give them a thumbs up or. I mean, it was still funny and silly and, you know, probably cheeky, knowing me, if I'm honest. But it wasn't like you're below us. It's not like making fun of them and it's not thinking poorly of them. In fact, I think what I was doing was assuming the best in people and this concept of assuming the best in people. And then when you have that mindset, all of the subtle differences that probably makes in how you communicate and then the response that you get back from the other people. Now I remember, guys, you should try this, the thank you wave, preemptive thank you wave kind of thing. And then I just let it go. But a lot of the early experiences that I had in those years, like when I was at Unique or when I first finished uni and I was. In the early career, I butted heads with a lot of people. Like I rubbed people up the wrong way. I know that I was a polarising kind of figure in a lot of the teams that I worked with. Some people really liked me, but others naturally didn't. And even working with clients, I would have a mixed kind of response in those early days. And as I've got more experience, I think I've developed my skills and what you might be called clinically, so to speak, like working with the actual families and clients that I deal with. But my mindset has also shifted. Instead of assuming the worst in the people that I meet, I often try to assume the best and I communicate that ahead of time. It's almost this concept of preemptive empathy. I know that you might be feeling this and so this is a way that I'm looking after you or being positive about it. I'm grateful for it. I'm going to say thank you for it, something similar. So if I can project. I'm sorry, you're in the middle of something. I really appreciate you taking the time to look this up for me. When you go to the front desk of a hotel, the staff there really like you. I'm sorry, I know that you're probably flat out. I'm really grateful for this. It makes a big difference for me. Thank you. I know that you're doing your best to help. Whereas the other approach that I often used to take in those early years was more like, you better not try and cross me, you better not be out to get me. I don't know if I can trust you kind of thing. And I was suspicious and probably also like puffing my chest up a little bit like, don't you know who I am? We're paying X amount of dollars for this hotel room, like, you should be respectful to me or something similar. And either of those responses, whether it was I was like self conscious and nervous or anxious or something similar that often got a negative response or the arrogance, like, I'm such a legend, big ego kind of stuff, also got a negative kind of response and I never knew why. I used to think that other people are much more smooth or more natural and I'm not the kind of person that can do this. And it wasn't actually learning a new technique or changing something in terms of the practice of how I communicate. I actually think the difference that has come over the years has been a similar mindset shift towards this sense of preemptive empathy. Pre emptively assuming positive intentions in the other people. And when something goes wrong, like there's a problem and you need to talk to someone and make a complaint or whatever, make it very specific to this local issue. It's not because they didn't try, it's not because they're incompetent. This is something that will come up from time to time. This might be a product of the difficult system that they're working with. This might be a result of some of the pressure that they're dealing with. This might be something that their boss has told them that they have to do and it's not necessarily something that they agree with. This might be the fifth time that someone's asked them to do this thing that I'm now asking them for. And potentially they're feeling a little bit fed up or a little bit frustrated. Just that little sense of like, hey, I get what this must be like for you. Like, I know that we're keeping you waiting when we're crossing in front of you at the traffic lights. And some positive message that goes along with that, either thank you or something like, I'm not judging you, I'm not criticising you, I'm not taking this personally, I'm not putting pressure on you, so this must be what it's like for you. And then some kind of a positive. It's kind of an intention that I have, isn't it? Like, I'm going to try and help you if we can. I'm going to try and have a good relationship if we can. I'm going to smile at you when I see you and be happy. I'm going to do my best to do that, regardless of what else is going on for me. And when you're able to do the same, I'm going to notice it and thank you ahead of time. So I wonder about that preemptive thank you wave. This idea of assuming the best in people and what difference that makes in terms of the response that you get from them. But do you think that this is a technology? That was the other thing that I mentioned in that intro. If we change our mindset, what is that? Is that a decision that we've made? Is that a habit? Like, if I decide to change my mind, if I decide to think about the same situation differently, what actually changes in me? If we were wired up to an FMRI machine, what would I notice in terms of the difference of activity in the prefrontal cortex? And we can only evaluate that down to some level of detail Right. Like it's this neuron's connected to this neuron using these axons and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like we can use microscopes and drill in and drill in and drill in, but at the end of the day, it's just going to say these two cells had an electric signal between them. So if you're changing the way that you think about other people, the way that you think about the security guards or the cars, I wonder what happens, like, what changes? And the reason that I've started to think about the preemptive wave as a technology is that it opens the door for us to do new things that were frankly impossible before. Like, I know that if I go up to the hotel staff at pretty much any hotel that I go to these days, that they're going to like me, that I can probably expect them to look after me. And if something goes wrong, I'm pretty sure that they're going to just help as best they can. We've had lots of instances over the past few years where I've needed to. Like, one time I was on holiday with my wife and son. We went up to the Gold coast, it's like four hours north of us, and we just wanted to go home. We were missing our home, we were missing our dog. We live in a nice house in a nice kind of area in Coffs Harbour already. So we had to check out. And I'd made the booking through an external website, booking.com and we were cancelling early. Like, we'd booked two or three more nights, but we just wanted to go. So I went down to the front desk knowing that I didn't have any legal rights, if you know what I mean. Like, obviously we'd placed the booking for the full amount of the time. And I knew that the fact that I booked through an external website meant that it was very unlikely that they were going to give me a refund. I find that when you book through those other websites, the funds often get held up differently. So I've never had much luck doing reschedules and that kind of stuff. I find if I book directly with the hotel, they're much more flexible. So it's like I've taken the cheaper rate by using the third party website. So I knew that was probably going to be working against me here as well. And then I was going down on the day that we wanted to leave, hoping that we could go back upstairs and check out. So it was a short notice kind of thing, right? And I can remember going up to them and saying, g', day, Luca. I'm sorry, I know you're in the middle of everybody checking out at the moment. It's probably rush hour. I just had a request. I was wondering if I could run by you. So that little bit of preemptive empathy, hey, I know that you're probably in this challenging situation right now, and then I give them autonomy. It's like, I'm not going to assume that I can just railroad you. I'm not going to give you the sense that here we go on the roller coaster and we're going over the scariest bit of the track here. You're the one that's holding the driver's seat. So then obviously they would say, yeah, sure, what's up? I might say, look, we originally had planned for this. This was what we originally had in mind. Like we were going to stay Friday and go to this museum or something. As it happens, we haven't actually been able to get tickets. So we were wondering about the option of going home instead. I just wanted to talk to you about what our options might be. So, again, it's not putting pressure on, it's explaining the issue in the situation that we're in, but kind of thinking through how this could be received or what implications might this have for the people that we're dealing with. And. And I think I even said at the time, we did actually book through booking.com or something. I don't know if that makes any difference in terms of the refund policy or what might be possible. So I'm labelling ahead of time. This might be an issue for you. I know that this is something that's an additional complication. I know this might be a spanner in the works potentially. Now, they were going to discover that anyway. So what difference does it make for me saying it? Well, I think I'm being honest. I'm being transparent. I'm letting them know this is information that might be relevant. So in a sense, like, we're in this together. I'm collaborating on you to see if we can come up with a win win kind of solution that's possible here. So I know that I'm interrupting you. I know this is an unusual request. I know it might be that we're pushing our luck because it's short notice. I know that because we booked through the external site, that might be an additional challenge. So it's like, so this is the spot that we're in. And the effect of explaining the issue in that kind of a way is that it's very pragmatic. It's not them. It's not because of something they've done. And you haven't made assumptions about what you expect from them either. And I sometimes would even do a little bit of a preemptive thank you. Look, I don't know if anything's going to be possible, but thank you so much just for looking into it and seeing if there was something that you could do. Preemptive thank you. Right. And I'm grateful for this. If you do decide to help us, if there is something you can do to help us, thank you. It makes a difference. So why is that a technology? Because it's a different way of communicating that opens up new possibilities that were impossible before I got checked out. They gave us a full refund for those nights they let us check out on the spot. And I think they even might have agreed to hold onto our suitcases until we came back to pick them up in the afternoon or something similar. I can't exactly remember, but I got a really good outcome. Was that a different technology? I kind of think so. If in the old days we had to send letters and then when you could use the phone you could communicate more clearly, quick, more instantaneously, you could hear the tone of voice, you could hear the nuance in the non verbal aspects of the communication, zoom and teams and all those things. They're a new technology that are a new type of communication and they open up new opportunities that were impossible before. So what about the preemptive thank you wave? Do you think that that would qualify as a technology or. Well, if you agree with me, thank you so much in advance, I really do appreciate it. Well, I'd love to hear from you. If you're interested in more of these philosophical, light hearted, reflective kind of episodes, let me know. Or if you prefer more of the evidence based scientific way of thinking about conflict and psychology, etc. That's perfectly valid in terms of my perspective as well. If you've got an idea for a future episode, a question about something, or you'd like to get in touch, you should shoot me an email. It's podcastimongood.com if it has been helpful or useful for you, even interesting, I'd be very grateful if you would consider pressing like and if you would like more resources for dealing with conflict, hit, subscribe. But otherwise thank you very much, very much. Appreciate your time and taking the time to listen and hopefully see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast. Bye for now.