Empathy Isn’t Agreement: The Leadership Skill Every Flower Shop Needs

Episode 342: Can empathy really make your flower shop more profitable? In this episode, Lori shares the key lessons from her leadership presentation at AIFD Symposium and explains why empathy isn’t just a personality trait, it’s a skill that can be learned and strengthened.

Lori and Vonda unpack the biggest misconceptions about empathy, including why understanding someone’s perspective doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. They explore the difference between sympathy and empathy, how empathy builds stronger teams, and why business owners need healthy boundaries alongside genuine care.

The conversation also dives into practical, real-world situations every flower shop owner faces: supporting employees through difficult seasons, handling challenging customer interactions, creating loyalty through authentic leadership, and avoiding burnout by practicing what Lori calls “professional empathy.”

Along the way, Lori shares a deeply personal story about losing her brother and the friend who showed her what true empathy looks like, not by fixing the pain, but simply by being there.

You’ll also hear:

• Why empathy is a learnable leadership skill
• The difference between sympathy and empathy
• How empathy improves employee engagement, creativity, and retention
• A simple 10-minute leadership technique for difficult employee conversations
• Why boundaries are essential for empathetic leaders
• A preview of the three types of empathy: cognitive, compassionate, and somatic

And before the leadership lessons begin, Lori shares an exciting personal milestone: after talking about it for two years, she’s finally taking her very first pickleball lesson, a small but meaningful step toward practicing the work-life balance she encourages others to pursue.

Whether you lead a flower shop, manage a team, or simply want to become a better leader, this episode offers practical insights that will help you build stronger relationships and a healthier workplace.

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Here's what we know. Unempathetic salespeople that ignore important matters will lose customers.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Welcome to the Business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your hosts, Vonda LaFever and Lori Wilson.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

And we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination. Kind of like us, Vonda. Good morning, Vonda. How are you? I am really great, Lori. Yeah. We're going to talk about empathy today. Okay. And before we do that, I have a request that I'm going to bring to my boss. I need to leave a little bit early from work today.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

No problem. Because what? I need you to ask me why.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Why, Lori? Why do you need to leave work a little early today?

SPEAKER_03 1:12

I finally, after two years of talking about it, have signed up for my first pickleball lesson.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Woohoo! I'm so excited from you. 4:30 today.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I'm gonna leave about 30 minutes. I'm so excited. Oh my gosh, that is awesome!

SPEAKER_03 1:30

I'm a little nervous. It's funny because at Symposium, we were sitting in on Kate Penn and Celeste's SAF webinar. Ellie and I were in there, and we're just talking about opportunities in our industry to build into your community. And we're talking about things that we want to do better. Really, nothing to do with their slides. But I talked about work-life balance, which is something I talk about all the time and I never really do. And I was like, I almost hate to bring this up because as I say it, I know the person, a person in this room that's going to hold me accountable. And Ellie was looking at me like, yeah, you know what I'm but I was like, I really do need to do a better job of doing something I want to do outside of work. And so this is a little step towards that.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

That's I'm so excited for you, Lori.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Oh, I know. My biggest issue is so I told my husband, and he's can I come? I was like, No, you have golf, you have the country club, and I want to do this by myself.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

And he already knows how to play.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

So you just you just do it for you.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

I love that's when I was like, I'm gonna go. It's a group lesson, so I won't stand out. So anyway, we'll see. We'll see. I'm excited. Yeah, you'll have to check back and let us know how it went. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I don't know. I may hate it. Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I don't think you'll hate it.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

No, no, it'll be good. All right. So I did the empathy class, leadership, empathy, all the things. I can't remember the name of my class at symposium. It doesn't matter. It was empathy.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

That was it. Yes. And I had some good questions afterwards. I have to admit, I was coming to your class and then got pulled away, of course. Got pulled away.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

You would I you were like whack-a-mole. Pop in, pop out, pop in, pop out. I would see you walk in by, look, and walk past.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

And I was like, and Randy too. Yeah. We both wanted to sit in on that class, and then there were things that were like, nope, can't. So Audrey.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

You get to sit on anything besides batch.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Main stage programs. We set in for most of them, and then towards the end, then we would sneak out for the end. We sit in on every single one of the main stage, but not at the breakouts, which we really wanted to. Yeah. But I think Audrey recorded it for me. So I'm very excited to be able to hear it.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

I don't know how good the audio will be on that.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Okay. I'm going to get the audio right now.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yeah, you'll get the audio here. And I did tell because two of our Flower Click members were in Sue McCleary's workshop, which was the exact same time as mine, which I don't blame them. I would have gone to Sue's if I wasn't in my audio. And so they were really bummed. And that's why Audrey recorded it, because they were like, How can we do this? And I told them that for our members only. I said, if it's not a good recording, I'll do a little small zoom and go through it at some point. Not anytime right now. Fair enough, right? You just need to So I'm going to do a quick recap with you. I love our audience. And we will talk about some other things. And what we're going to focus on here is how empathy really applies to a flower shop.

SPEAKER_04 5:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

The importance of that. And I did talk about that. It was just more of a bigger scale because not everyone at Symposium is a flower shop owner. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Everyone. But everybody either has empathy, should have empathy, or be taught empathy. Is that correct, Laurie? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

So my second slide was empathy is a skill, not a personality trait. So I will say I think I was born with a propensity for empathy. In my talk, I share how as a child, my grandmother and my mom, my aunt, they would enter when they would say, Oh, this is our little Lori. She wears her heart on her sleeve. And I was little and I would be literally be looking at my arm, like, what does that mean? Because I was such a sensitive is the other word they would use. Never use the word empathy. We I didn't know that word. They never used that word. That was, but it was just, I would cry if my brother and sister got in trouble. I would cry at TV shows. I would cry anytime I saw anybody else hurt. Oh, just my heart would constantly break. And so I know I had empathy at a very young age. However, it is not, it is something you can learn. It's a skill. You can learn it if you want. If you want. Just like we're not born learning how to communicate, right? Some of us have a natural propensity to communicate better. Maybe it's our the environment we grew up in. Right. I think that but it's a skill we have to learn. Some of us are maybe born with a propensity to be better leaders, more natural, but again, it's a skill. So empathy is the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

It's like a muscle, like a muscle memory kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

So you have to strengthen it to get better. Okay. So that's the first thing. And it's a myth that it's, oh, you're either born with it or you're not. It's a choice. The definition of empathy is if you look in the dictionary, I have it written down. It's the action of understanding, being aware, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of others. And I think it's so interesting that Webster Dictionary uses the word vicariously. Yeah. Because I talked about the three types of empathy, and there is one, somatic, that does you vicariously feel what the other person's feeling. I wouldn't say the other two you do. Brene Brown says empathy isn't showing sympathy for another person or trying to be a problem solver. It's understanding their viewpoint. That's all empathy is. It doesn't mean that you have to agree with them, rather, placing yourself in their shoes and understanding why they feel the way they do. So I think that answers some of the myths about empathy that we're gonna talk about later. I think we've assume if I see your perspective, that automatically means I need to be in agreement of what you're going through. And that doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

It just means I need to understand. That makes sense. Okay. Because I do think that's is a myth, is like if I'm empathetic towards you, I agree with what you're feeling and all that.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Empathy says I understand that you feel that way. I get that you're feeling that way. It doesn't say, oh, you're right. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Big difference. Yeah. There's a difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is when you're feeling for someone. Oh, I feel for that person. I really feel for them there. I acknowledge their pain. I offer sorrow, pity. I'm so sorry for your loss. I just somebody's dog died recently on Instagram. And I was like, oh, I am so sorry. But empathy is feeling with them. You're literally sitting with them in their mess. You're stepping into their shoes, emotional shoes, sharing their experiences, while sympathy observes from a distance, oh, that must be tough. That must be really hard. I'm so sorry. Empathy connects, climbs down the ladder in the hole with you and says, oh, I'm gonna sit here with you for a while.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

And so empathy, just the way you describe that to me, means empathy. I don't have to say anything. I just need to let them know I'm here for them. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

What I talked about here was when I was in high school, my brother was killed in a car accident. And I learned the difference very quickly between empathy and sympathy. I didn't, again, not aware of the words, but our community surrounded us, very well-intentioned people, just a revolving door. I remember looking out our front door or our window in the kitchen, and there was literally a line coming into my house the whole week leading up to that funeral, because my parents, they knew everybody in town. But people would say things to us, meaning well, they cared. God must have needed an angel, or he's in a better place. Right. Because you're like, are you freaking kidding me right now? Or the one that I would get a lot was stay, oh Lord, you gotta stay strong for your mom. And I'm like, what are stay? What about me? It was my but they weren't trying to hurt me, right? But they're on the outside offering sorrows, pity. I'm so sorry. They weren't sitting there, but empathy looked like my best friend Julia, who literally showed up in her pajamas. I think I don't even remember how she found, I don't even have a memory. She just was in my house and she never left the whole summer. She slept in my bed with me every night. She cried when I cried. She screamed when I screamed. She's making me cry. Yeah, I know. Kicked a wall when I kicked a wall, laughed, made dirty jokes when I needed, sat through hell with me. Yeah. When I I remember I had this moment, and again, grief does weird things when you're only 17 and you lose your brother and you don't really know what's going on. I remember I was terrified to go to the funeral because I knew it would be over after that. I knew the finality. This would be real. This was all real. And I remember we had this huge laundry room in my basement, and I was in there, and she came in and she was like, I'll do whatever. I'll do whatever. You don't go, I don't go. We're doing like she was just in it with me. Anything I decided to do, she was gonna be in it. And I think I did go to the funeral. I don't remember it, but I did go. But that to me, that's empathy. She didn't know she was given empathy either. She we don't know what the hell empathy is, right? And so Renee Brown shortened her definition of what it is, and basically it is you're not alone. Yeah. Knowing you're not alone. And that is the one my biggest slide I have in my whole slide deck is this that's a bottom line. Showing empathy and letting people know that they're not alone.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So I think you've used the example too of poo. I love that one. Of which one? Of Winnie the Pooh.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

And oh, I thought you said a poop. I'm like, yeah, that's trying to make you not alone when you poop.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

I am always with you. I would be with you. If you need help pooping, I'm your girl. Okay, there you go. I am your girl. I'd rather be alone in that one. Thank you. That's true. You would. You would. I get that. So yeah, Winnie the Pooh. That's Winnie the Pooh is the perfect example. And there are so many Winnie the Pooh quotes. I feel like I put some in our newsletter before. We have. Highlett just sits beside him and just there. Exactly. Exactly. So for you, my data-driven boss, why is this important in our industry? Obviously, it's important from a customer standpoint. Right. Absolutely. With sympathy, right? So our employees need to be somewhat empathetic, right? If you're talking to a family that's going through grief, if you're talking to a customer who is in an argument with their spouse, like all of these things matter, right? Here's what we know unempathetic salespeople that ignore important matters will lose customers. Right? When employees are consistently treated without empathy, they're less likely to stick around. I talk to florists all the time, flowershop owners of that revolving door. You do too. They don't understand why. I understand why. After talking to them a couple of times, but I can tell you why, but I don't want to offend you, but I can tell you why. It's you. More customers and employees see the lack of empathy in your business, they start speaking out against it. And the negative reviews, right?

unknown 16:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

Wow. It's tarnished reputation. I see this in a store that we have. It's not a flower shop, but it's a kind of a high-end athletics store here that we have. It's a nationwide one. But their return policy is horrible. And their employees are horrible. They're just anyway. I see this, and all over our city's Facebook group and people are just bashing them left and right. Now, I don't know if that's nationwide, but I know it's huge. It's your local. It's local. And I'm like, it is their complete lack of empathy. I understand they can't change their policies because it's a net, but they can be more empathetic. Yeah. They can train their employees better.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah. Yeah. Now it's hard to have a straight lane policy, right? So it's right, this is what we have to do, and this is what it is. But it's the story you've told before about let's try. Let's say at least let them feel like the customer feel like, oh, at least feel like you, yeah, you went to bat for them.

SPEAKER_04 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

That's the empathy part. The other one is why it's important is diminished productivity. If an employee's going through something, and you as the owner, you see it, you know they might be dealing with something, and they can't talk to management about it or they can't do anything, it affects their performance, which affects your whole company.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Right. So in my case, Lori, so I'm a flower shop owner, and I see my employees going through something. They're just like they're like very spacey, they're elusive, and they're kind of short on the phone with people. All of this is going on, and I'm observing this. Now, there's a fine line with me being wanting to jump in and find out. It's a sensitive area for me as the owner to go to that person and go, hey, Lori. I know you, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but Lori. Yeah. Can we have a just a little talk? Can we? Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

I just want to see. I, and that's a very good question. And that's what Marlon was asking. Magnificent Marlon was asking about in some way, not only asking the personal part, but like how genuine do we have to be? Because sometimes I'm like, I don't want to know that problem. I just want them to finish designing because we are on a time crunch, right? Yeah. And that one, that honestly, it is difficult. And what I will say is authenticity is key here. And I think just knowing so you and I, because we're very different, we would respond to that employee very differently. For sure. So what I did in the class, because you can do more things when you're live, right? I did an example where there was a girl sitting there and I went over to her and I did it two ways. And I walked over and I said, Hey, I know there's something going on. I'm sorry. I hope that you can get it figured out, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you need help getting your work done, let me know. And walked off. I said, How did that make you feel? And she said, You acknowledged it, but I didn't. And I said, Okay, what if I came back over, put my phone down? Because the whole point is I had my cell phone too. This is a huge that makes me unapproachable because I'm all so busy here. Right. I sat down next to her.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

I said, give me your hand. Because this is what I would do.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

And I said, Listen, I only I have 10 minutes in about 20 minutes. I would love to sit with you for those 10 minutes because I know something's going on. If you feel comfortable sharing with me, I'm all yours for 10 minutes. And we'll do whatever we can to work through this. Are you comfortable doing that? Or do you want me to just give you your space and work alongside you to help get these projects in? Because these projects, we have to have them done by three o'clock. But I want to make sure you're okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

You are the most important. You see the difference. Give them a timeline.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

And what did she say? Did she was like, oh, 100%? 100%. Yeah. And so what I would add that I didn't talk about there, what I would add to that is you need to make sure when she comes in, say, so glad. Set my 10-minute timer. I'm all yours. Because you truly don't have 30 minutes. No, no, no, you don't. But now if she comes and tells you, my husband has terminal cancer, he has two months to live. Like, depending on what the issue is, you can turn that timer off, right? Sure. But that gives you control, or it's my friend was mean to me. Whatever.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Because the goal is you need her to get back to work, but you need to also show you care.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

There's got to be some kind of statistic, too, that says after you after a person does that, after you've spent that 10 minutes with her, how that changed her productivity, her outlook, and her loyalty.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

She's indebted to you for. Forever. Right. But talk about creating boundaries, not barriers. That's a boundary. Right? I got 10 minutes or 15 minutes, whatever you're whatever you have. And I wouldn't do it right that second. Yeah. Because she needs to form in her head. She has 10 minutes. What do I want to say in that 10 minutes? Yeah. I love that, Lori. That really that's you're giving them just you and me. No phone. I'm ready. And that's it. I put in to CC, my chat GPT, what does it mean if you inauthentically doing that? That was Marlon's question, right? Because that was Marlon's question. And it's valid. I think we even brought it to you, and you're like, yeah, that would be me so many times. It's depends on your heart. Only you and God know the difference. But it's either manipulation. I will act this way because it gets a better performance, or it is professional empathy. I'm not naturally empathetic, but I am practicing and working on it. Yeah. Only you professional Lord know. Empathy. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I believe the person will know. And that's even the harder part. Because as I talked about when we talk about cognitive empathy, narcissists are empathetic. And they use it to twist and manipulate you.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

So anyway. Interesting. I will do a dive on professional empathy because I think that's what sometimes as a business owner you have to have, Lori, because maybe you've had that 10 minutes, and then you have to do another 10 minutes, and then you have to do another 10 minutes. And but you can schedule that for later.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

You know what? Let's check. I'm going to check in with you tomorrow. We'll do another 10 minutes and we'll see how that goes. And that's okay. As a business owner, hopefully, yeah, you are managing your time well enough. That is part of your job to build into your team. Right. And I'm talking about an employee that is not normally like this.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Okay. Okay, because that's the difference because I'm going back to my days in the flower shop, going constant.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

There's always something wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

That's what I'm going back to. And I'm like, that's professional empathy to me because I do have to understand what's going on with them. I do have to be empathetic. But I also was like, oh, this is a constant.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

You have to use professional empathy there too.

SPEAKER_04 25:04

But where you gotta be real careful with empathy.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

I don't think you would struggle with this though, because I do believe you are mostly cognitive empathy. But somebody like me before therapy, and I learned how to deal with know which kind of empathy to use. Somebody that's chronically needing the attention or the emotion, we can tend to rescue them all the time. And they just do it. Yes. And we're not helping them by that. We're not helping them grow and be independent and learn on their own. Right.

unknown 25:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

So I hear what you're saying. That's exactly where I was coming with that. It was like, yeah. No, no.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

I'm talking about an employee that is wow. She usually gets this many designs done in an hour, and she is really slacking. That's weird. What's going on? Something's going on, and she's very quiet today, or she's very like that type. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, understand. Yes. Clarity is everything, Vonda. Yes, it is. Thank you. So, anyway, myths. Empathy is something you're born with. We already tackled that. Empathy is just one specific thing. No, it's multiple things. Empathy requires you to adopt the other person's beliefs. No, we talked about that. Empathy doesn't belong at work. No. There's a bunch more we don't have to go through there. How do empathetic leaders impact employee engagement? I have a bunch of sources on this. 87% of employees say that mutual empathy between leaders and employees increase efficiency in the workplace. 87%. The exact same number, 87% also say it boosts their creativity. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. 76% of employees who have empathetic managers are very engaged at work. When leaders make genuine employee recognition a priority, employees are 60% more engaged. Now, I want to go over to this next slide that says when asked, over 80% of the employees said they don't feel like they get enough recognition at work. 80%? Yes. Wow. Over 80%. But when leaders make genuine employee, not hey, good job.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Right. Yes. Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Wow. Yeah, and there's a whole bunch of others. And 42% claim their company never follows through on their promises. Only 28% of employees agree that their leadership genuinely cares about their health and well-being. 28%. Yeah, you're giving me a lot to think about, Lori. I think we'll have to start with cognitive, our next one. So let's. But the last slide here are just quotes from books that I've read and podcasts that I've listened to. And I like this one from Kelly Thompson. She wrote Closing the Confidence Gap. And it says, empathy must come with boundaries, so that all parties remain resilient without feeling the resentment of burnout that comes with overstepping and overfunctioning. Okay, empathy must come with boundaries. Okay. So that all parties, meaning you, the one giving empathy and the one that's the recipient, they remain resilient without feeling the resentment of burnout that comes with overstepping and overfunctioning. So what she's talking about, which we'll talk next in a is people that have compassionate empathy, somatic empathy. We tend to let me just take this cup from you and do it. Right. And you just sit there in the bed. Let me do all of your work for you. We tend to rescue and we tend to enable. Okay. If we don't manage it well. If we don't and then we're gonna burn out, we're gonna resent because if they are really unhealthy, they're gonna keep coming out as they're like, ooh, they'll do our homework. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

That type of thing. Okay, so there are how many different kinds of empathy?

SPEAKER_03 30:10

The ones that I talked about, ones I feel there might be more. Yeah, the ones that you would three cognitive, uh-huh, which is more intellect, somatic, which is the feely one, and compassion. Compassionate empathy. It's the one that like literally drives you to do something.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Think of Mother Teresa, drives you into action. Okay, so next podcast, we will cover at least one of those, maybe a couple, so we can go into it so you can get more in-depth into empathy and the different rich ones. And so at the conference, I had people walking around going, I don't head, heart, and hands.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Yeah, that's how you this is cognitive, somatic.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

This is compassionate. Okay. So I just saw people coming out of your class doing that, and I'm like, what is heart is that all about?

SPEAKER_03 31:05

Yeah, that was the little school teacher and me going, how are they gonna remember this? How are they gonna remember this? Yeah, that was funny. So anyway, all right, lesson one done. Okay, thank you for it. Yes, thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoy spending time with you. If you did, make sure you hit that subscribe button or add the business and pleasure of flowers to your Google morning routine or your flat routine on a laptop.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

So please come back and join us.