Dr. Lidewij Niezink, who has been studying empathy for nearly 20 years, co-founded Empathic Intervision, "An embodied practice of empathy for people working together to identify opportunities and co-create solutions to challenges.” In this episode, she shares the 5-step process: Self-empathy (intention setting); kinesthetic empathy (connection with others); reflective empathy (mutual understanding); imaginative empathy (diversifying perspectives); and empathy creativity (actionable outcomes).
  

This week, as President-elect Joe Biden’s transition to the White House gathers pace, Ben speaks to academic and author Claire Yorke about the role that empathy played in the 2020 election campaign. They talk about empathy as a dynamic in campaigns, but also as a tool for governing, and take a look at examples elsewhere in the world of political empathy in action.

The pandemic makes most things harder. Staying healthy is harder. Connecting with others is harder. Making ends meet is harder. I’m sure each of us could add to this list from our personal experiences. But in addition to these familiar challenges, 2020 has put something else further beyond reach as well, something we need deeply: empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share what others are feeling. Perhaps ironically (or tragically), the extreme polarization and isolation we are experiencing in society makes empathy difficult when we need it the most. In the very moment that COVID has made empathy a matter of life or death, we’ve allowed our politics to close our ears to one another.

So, what does empathy look like in the workplace? It’s admittedly tough to define what is essentially a human trait or quality. From a psychological perspective, empathy centers on the ability to recognize and understand other people's thoughts and feelings — you know, walking a mile in each other’s shoes. Empathy helps us connect with others.

This training guides you to become a certified Empathic Intervision facilitator. You will be able to establish an Empathic Intervision habit within your organization, in other organisations, or with diverse groups. You will facilitate teams to use empathy to identify opportunities and co-create solutions to challenges.

In Empathic Intervision, colleagues come together to explore situations, questions and problems with an intent to learn from each other, improve expertise and co-evolve new insights to tackle professional difficulties.

Empathy is a competency. Training and practice can improve our empathic muscles. To train empathy, we developed the process of Empathic Intervision. In order to master it, one needs to distinguish the different aspects involved. During an Empathic Intervision, we train five distinct but interconnected aspects of empathy with five behavioural consequences:

Brad Parscale Trumps former spinning bootpolisher claims Trump lost because he lacks empathy https://youtu.be/Xld_IPuZeQY

Former Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said during his Fox News interview Tuesday night on “The Story” that he pushed for President Donald Trump to show more public empathy about the coronavirus pandemic, which Parscale believes would have resulted in a landslide win.

Parscale said, “One, two percent — suburban men and women we lost in the suburbs, Philly suburbs, Atlanta suburbs I think that goes to one thing, a decision on COVID to go for opening the economy first is public empathy. I think a young family with a young child who were scared to take them back to school wanted to see an empathetic president and an empathetic Republican Party. I think that and I said this multiple times, he chose a different path. I don’t think he was wrong with this, I love him, but we had a difference on this. I thought we should have public empathy.

I think people are scared. I walked around people and watched them walk around me, not like two years ago because I’m Brad Parscale but walk around me because I have a mask on, and they don’t want COVID. I can see waitresses standing a little farther from the table. People are scared. I think if he would have been publicly empathetic, he would have won by a landslide. He could have leaned into it instead of run away from it.”

Dear friends,

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the U.S. election being a Referendum on Empathy. This week's blog explores Empathy's Role in Reconciliation. My latest Youtube video is also devoted to Bridge-building through Empathy, featuring Ron McCLelland, a pastor and spiritual director. I hope you take a few minutes to consider the overarching message in both.

There’s much more to explore in this month’s newsletter. Enjoy!

"Empathy is a central element of Design Thinking and UX. It’s fundamental in crafting design solutions and creating products that are useful and meaningful. 

Empathizing with our end-users allows us to understand the people we’re designing for, learn about them, and meet their physical and emotional needs. Today, we’ll take a look at what empathy is, its importance in the Design Thinking framework, and the most valuable sources of empathy. "

Adam Fard 

What is empathy?

When engaged with listening actively it is important to summarize, paraphrase, ask open ended questions and empathize. Most people do not listen effectively. A natural tendency is to provide solutions and share knowledge. It takes conscious thought to not provide solutions and share known information. A better approach when listening is to ask questions that lead the other party towards a solution found on their own part.  You have to calm the desire to share, be interesting, and demonstrate our own expertise.  

When you are with a friend and they have had something negative happen in their lives, you tend to be empathetic. 

Adding elements of empathy in your eLearning courses can help the learner form a better connection with the course and prevent disengagement. Read this blog to know how you can infuse empathy into your eLearning courses.

The Business of Empathy
Overview
The Business of Empathy a series that was produced in partnership with Facebook. The series explores how we can practice empathy for ourselves, for others, and based on what is happening in the world around us and why this is key for business. The insights shared from leaders at Salesforce, Pfizer, Getty Images, PepsiCo, Microsoft, and more, will serve as a framework to help us understand each other more meaningfully and highlight the opportunities we have to use empathy as a vehicle for innovation, education, and connection.

What does it mean to be a multi-passionate person? How can you use self-focused activities as a tool to figure out how to lead a life, personally and professionally with empathy?

In the eleventh episode of the Business of Empathy, Kiesha Garrison, Director of Communications and Culture Programs for Microsoft’s AI platform walks through her journey intentionally integrating her personal passions with her professional career and intentionally blurred these lines.

Tune in and learn:
- How to establish harmony amongst all of the elements that define you as an individual
- How to leverage accountability partners whether family members or friends as ta tool to approach each day with authenticity, empathy and courage
- How to become a signal gatherer within your organization to identify where the important cultural work lies

Empathy is the ability to recognize and understand what another person, animal, or even a fictional character is thinking or feeling. It is an attempt to identify with someone else's situation, perspectives, or experiences. Empathy is said to be about looking at things from someone else's point of view, rather than our own, and imagining ourselves in their place.

The word empathy has only been around for about 150 years. It is modeled on the German Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"), which is a translation of Greek empatheia "passion, state of emotion." The concept comes from art  theory, which holds that appreciation of art depends on the viewer's ability to project their personality into the viewed object.

by Karen Stollznow Ph.D.

Learn How To Put Empathy Into Action From Over 40 Visionary Leaders. Join Us At Empathy Flow!

Join us for a day of empathy, mindfulness, flow, humane tech, design thinking, and exponential impact. A day to reimagine the world filled with optimism, compassion, and hope.

Empathy represents the foundation skill for all the social competencies important for work. -Daniel Goleman

7 ways to create an empathy advantage:

You might not have natural inclinations towards empathy, but you can practice empathy as long as you sincerely serve the best interest of others.

1. Listen with interest.
2. Remember people’s names.
3. Learn about people and their families.
4. Ask, “How can I help?”
5. Say, “That sounds like a real challenge,” when people explain difficulties and obstacles.
6. Affirm emotions. “I can see how you might feel that way.”
7. Ask yourself, “What’s it like to be this person?”

Brad Parscale with Kimberly Guilfoyle, far left, and Ronna McDaniel, center, during President Trump’s State of the Union speech in February. “I think if he had been publicly empathetic, he would have won,” Mr. Parscale said of Mr. Trump. 

Brad Parscale, the former Trump campaign manager who was demoted in July, claimed in a Fox News interview on Tuesday night that President Trump would have handily won the election if he had expressed more empathy about the coronavirus pandemic.

“We lost suburban families,” Mr. Parscale said. “I think that goes to one thing: the decision on Covid to go for opening the economy versus public empathy.”

He added, “I think if he had been publicly empathetic, he would have won.”

Former Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said during his Fox News interview Tuesday night on “The Story” that he pushed for President Donald Trump to show more public empathy about the coronavirus pandemic, which Parscale believes would have resulted in a landslide win.

Parscale said, “One, two percent — suburban men and women we lost in the suburbs, Philly suburbs, Atlanta suburbs I think that goes to one thing, a decision on COVID to go for opening the economy first is public empathy. I think a young family with a young child who were scared to take them back to school wanted to see an empathetic president and an empathetic Republican Party. I think that and I said this multiple times, he chose a different path. I don’t think he was wrong with this, I love him, but we had a difference on this. I thought we should have public empathy. I think people are scared. I walked around people and watched them walk around me, not like two years ago because I’m Brad Parscale but walk around me because I have a mask on, and they don’t want COVID. I can see waitresses standing a little farther from the table. People are scared. I think if he would have been publicly empathetic, he would have won by a landslide. He could have leaned into it instead of run away from it.”

Donald Trump lost the election because he failed to demonstrate "empathy" towards the public during the coronavirus pandemic, his former campaign manager Brad Parscale has said.

Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Parscale said that voters in suburban areas abandoned Trump because he prioritised re-opening the US economy instead of demonstrating empathy as he downplayed the severity of the virus.

"I thought we should have public empathy. I think people were scared," Parscale told Fox News on Tuesday.

EDITOR: President-elect Joe Biden’s gift to America is the gift of empathy, one of the core elements of a democratic society.  Without this ability to take on the perspectives and feelings of others plus the ability to read, reason, and reflect, we lack the foundations of a democracy.  

As President,  Biden will help us restore the capacity to communicate and to feel with another, thus opening the possibilities of understanding who “the other” is and solving problems with them.  When we cannot comprehend the thoughts and feelings of someone different, we leave ourselves in ignorance and fear that leads to intolerance and possible violence. 

Creating empathetic content requires marketers to shift their focus – from making educated assumptions about their audiences’ transactional needs to cultivating a deeper, more holistic understanding of who they are.

Surprise—the people you lead expect you to care about them. If you don’t show empathy in the workplace, you are not demonstrating good leadership, and you may be hurting your company’s success, says leadership expert and executive coach Loren Margolis.

“Generational shifts have brought more empathy to the fore,” she says. Different expectations from Millennials, multicultural workforces, and mergers bringing workplaces together have pushed empathy to the forefront of what’s desired in a leader

We are asked regularly what we think about, and how we deal with, the ‘dark side of empathy’. An important question because empathy is not all about being good. It shouldn’t be confused with kindness or with sympathy.

Empathy is neutral. It can be used for good, or to hurt or manipulate. By understanding someone deeply, you could use that understanding to achieve many different outcomes — not all of them in the best interests of the other person you empathize with.

For this reason, a dose of empathy is as good as the motivations or intentions of the empathizer.

Accurate Empathy – Cognitive Phenomenon or a State of Being?
The core of MI is based on Carl Roger’s style and person-centered approach of reflective dialogue. “Reflective listening is a wonderfully useful skill, called accurate empathy by Rogers (1965) and ‘active listening’ by his student Thomas Gordon” (Gordon, 1970; Gordon and Edwards 1997). However, accurate empathy and active listening are two completely different contexts thereby producing different dynamics.

Carl Rogers was looking at accurate empathy as an internal process, of being in the flow with someone on an intuitive level.  His student, Gordon, is interpreting the meaning through a narrower focus, which reduces active listening to an external, strictly cognitive process. According to Rogers though, he describes his style as more of a “way of being” that promotes positive change. (Rogers, 1980, MI p. 381)

Studies show that the expression of empathy has far-reaching effects in our personal and professional lives. Businessolver released an Empathy Study earlier this year that showed nine out of ten employees, HR professionals and CEOs believe that empathy is important to an organization, especially when the company recognizes the importance of mental health. Empathy is increasingly recognized as a pivotal leadership tool in today’s global market, benefiting leadership effectiveness and workplace engagement.