When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air.
Without exception, empathy is always appropriate.
To listen with empathy is the most important human skill.
Empathy takes time, and efficiency is for things, not people.
When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems.
Seek to understand rather than be understood.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives.