Empathy in the Workplace

According to psychology there are three types of Empathy; Cognitive, Emotional and Compassionate. My brother, the PhD Psychologist, could explain this better than I can, but here goes…

Cognitive is about perspective, knowing what another person is feeling or thinking.  It lacks the emotional component of the other two types and so is easier for us rational humans to understand and use.

Emotional empathy goes a layer deeper and is that sense you have about feeling someone’s pain or suffering. It’s the feeling you get when you see the advertising for starving children or displaced persons, then you go on with your normal activities.

The final layer is Compassionate empathy, where we not only feel the pain, but are compelled to act upon it. Mother Teresa is a model we could use to demonstrate the extreme of compassionate empathy.

Empathy is Crucial
The philosopher Martin Buber warned against the “thingification” of people–the corrosive depersonalization of relationships. Buber’s message for us today cautions against indifference to how others feel, even suffer, and using social skills for purely selfish ends. And it commends the stance that empathizes and cares, and that takes responsibility for others as well as for oneself. This is the essence of humble leadership.

Buber termed interactions in which one person feels no empathy for the other person “I-It” interactions. This stance views the other not as a multifaceted person, but as an “it” who only serves a function. The emotional indifference and remoteness of an I-It relationship stands in direct contrast to an attuned “I-You” (or “I and Thou” as Buber called it). I-You relationships necessitate empathy, or “feeling felt.”

Study after study has shown that listening is critical to leadership effectiveness. So, why are so few leaders good at it?

Too often, leaders seek to take command, direct conversations, talk too much, or worry about what they will say next in defense or rebuttal. 

Additionally, leaders can react quickly, get distracted during a conversation, or fail to make the time to listen to others.  Finally, leaders can be ineffective at listening if they are competitive, if they multitask such as reading emails or text messages, or if they let their egos get in the way of listening to what others have to say.

  by Christine M. Riordan

Calls for empathy in leadership are trendy and ill-informed

Trying to develop empathy where there is none can be dispiriting, exhausting and unsustainable

Leaders: Work to understand and care for your employees by using the talents you already have

Business needs a better, more accurate conceptualization of empathy -- right now -- because the emphasis on empathy as the sole means of effective leadership can hurt people and organizations.

BY TODD M. JOHNSON
JUNE 10, 2019

But you can’t improve EI without empathy. What is empathy? It’s the ability to understand how others feel, and it happens when two parts of the brain work together. The emotional center perceives the feelings of others and the cognitive center tries to understand those feelings.  

Research has shown that empathy makes people better managers, workers, family members and friends. Not only that, but practicing and improving empathy and EI actually creates strong human bonds that are critical to sustaining a humane and successful future. So where do you start? Here are 3 tips to improving empathy and EI in your workplace and life.

WHY IS EMPATHY IMPORTANT?
Why is empathy important? The question bears weight in every facet of life, from our personal and professional relationships to our day-to-day small business operations. Mastering how to show empathy often makes the difference between keeping relationships or losing them.

Given the benefits of empathy in other parts of life, it’s no wonder so many of us are left wondering, What are the benefits of empathy in the business world? As Tony Robbins says, “We all differ in how we perceive the world, and it’s this difference that must guide our communications with others as we seek to understand their perspectives.”

This same truth applies to workplace communications, and we must treat everyone we come into contact with on the job with dignity and respect. As we build this framework of understanding into our business interactions, we begin to value the transformative impact of empathy in business.

Why you should use empathy to improve your business
Empathy enables you to feel and understand another person’s emotions. It helps you understand other people and their problems.

If you want to improve your customer experience, you need to understand your customers. And your team. You need to understand how dealing with your business makes people feel.

Once you know and understand that you can apply those insights to every aspect of your business, from staff training to developing new products and services.

You’ll be able to anticipate a customer’s needs and desires, so that you can take care of them before they hit a ‘pain point’ in their customer journey. It’s empathy that enables you to build brand loyalty and real relationships with your customers – and team.

1. Empathy fuels productivity and performance.
An empathetic outlook has been found to significantly improve productivity. A comprehensive study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that empathetic interventions could dramatically increase productivity in a wide range of environments.

2. Empathy increases happiness in the workplace.

3. Empathy fosters collaboration.

John Eades, CEO at LearnLoft

Empathy is pigeonholed as a 'soft skill,' but in fact it's crucial for motivating others.

You might think that everyone understands that business leaders need to be empathetic, but in fact only 40 percent of leaders surveyed were proficient in this social skill, according to DDI research.

What's more, Businessolver’s 2018 State of Workplace Empathy study revealed that 70 percent of women polled rated their managers as empathetic, compared with 85 percent of men also rating their managers that way.

I’m not surprised by these findings. Leadership positions in the business world are predominantly held by men, and men are still expected to hide their emotions. Not only that, but a wide swath of research shows that white, heterosexual men make up the demographic with the fewest friends. Members of this group also experience the least emotional support in the friendships they do have. All of this is hardly conducive to leading with empathy.

By Jon-Mark Sabel

In the pursuit of metrics like productivity, efficiency, and constant growth, we often forget about the importance of their less tangible counterparts: trust, relationships, and community, Ayelet Baron argues in her article “Why Empathy is Key to 21st Century Business.”

Forcing employees to segment themselves into emotional “personal” and hard-hearted “professional” selves is actually harmful, and carries over into departmental relations.

“When one department, such as marketing, needs to fight another department, like sales, for budget and headcount instead of finding ways to align and integrate around the shared purpose of the business. Imagine what could happen if sales and marketing had a joint purpose and did not need to battle each other. The opportunities and gains would be significant,” Baron explains. She provides three questions to consider in order to integrate empathy into the workplace:

The following is excerpted from “Applied Empathy: The New Language of Leadership” by Michael Ventura. Copyright © 2019 by Michael Ventura. Reprinted by permission of Atria, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Empathy is a squishy word. Sometimes it’s confused with sympathy or misinterpreted as “being nice.” That isn’t empathy. Empathy is about understanding. Empathy lets us see the world from other points of view and helps us form insights that can lead us to new and better ways of thinking, being, and doing.

The words business and empathy are rarely used together—in fact, for some of us they might even sound oxymoronic, but there are incredible benefits to taking on others’ perspectives in the context of our professional lives. Empathy is not some out-of-reach mystical power. Instead it is a skill that each of us can make a part of our daily practice and ultimately bring into the organizations we serve, applying empathy to:

Storytelling is the way to unlock empathy in any situation. We will teach you how.

Understand the science behind verbal and nonverbal communication to conduct more effective workplace investigations.

The Empathic Investigation means taking an authentic, mindful approach to

The business benefits of empathy
For companies that embark on genuinely upping their empathic muscle, there is evidence that says that it pays off in terms of shareholder value.

A 2016 study showed that the top 10 of 170 companies graded on the Empathy Index (created by Belinda Parmar) increased in value (defined by market capitalisation) more than twice as much as the bottom 10.

It turns out that they also generated 50% more earnings. But I’d argue that the stronger motivation is that empathy is a powerful and most needed life skill, one that helps improves our lives in every facet, inside and outside work.

A business that is run with genuine empathy will garner a special word of mouth, among employees, partners and customers, that will pay back in spades the effort it takes.

Empathy-driven businesses
The more you understand the people dealing with a problem, the better position you are in to sell your solution. The more empathetic they see you are, the more likely they'll listen to you, and eventually buy from you. This approach is nothing new. You can see this being a movement and a backbone of digital transformation of well-known brands.

Empathy for better results in the workplace
Most professionals operate in very competitive workplace environments that promote a survival-of-the-fittest mind-set where almost everyone is frozen, heads down, legs pumping, running to keep up. Empathy is often the last thing on anyone’s mind. “I don’t want to understand your pain, I just want to deliver my own bit of the work and pass it on to you”.

However, empathy in maintaining personal excellence can turn a chore into a source of immense personal and professional fulfilment. Taking a step away from your own seemingly overwhelming reality to experience another’s frame of reference may be just what you need to find clarity. Rather than reduce your own productivity, it has the potential to elevate you to a totally different and far more advantageous frame of reference. That is why team work improves productivity significantly, especially for teams that have found incredible synergy.

June 19, 2019

Mercy Faleyimu

Benefits of Empathy
There are important benefits of empathy.

Identity: Empathy affects our own identity. We tend to understand ourselves through the people we spend time with and we derive our sense of self from the types of people with whom we have the closest relationships.

Cooperation: Empathy also facilitates cooperation which is critical for teams to function effectively. In a new study, when empathy was introduced into decision making, it increased cooperation and even caused people to be more empathetic. Empathy fostered more empathy

Innovation: Empathy can expand your horizons and extend your thinking. By understanding an unfamiliar point of view, you can stretch and test new perspectives and ideas—a process key for successful innovation and important to ensuring your thinking doesn’t stagnate.

Influence: 

To create your empire, you need first to understand what your customers value. Over time you can generate a wealth of data that can be used to define the strategy of your product and enhance the customer journey. You will usually find a common thread between all your customers, they came to you for X problem, and you have Y solution.

The issues may all be unique, but the answer is nearly the same — your product. To build this approach, you should focus on the following:

1. Build a relationship — Empathize with the customer’s needs and understand what customers wants. Use that data to capture customer insights and share across your organization.
2. Customize the experience —

EMPATHY SHOULD BE AN INTEGRAL PART OF ANY BUSINESS

Empathy is a crucial part of any leadership toolbag, and we can use neuroscience to teach our brains to better connect with people around us, personally and professionally.

Leaders who value diversity and self-reflection will create the conditions needed to allow employees to thrive. We must all learn that there are consequences for our actions, and even the top echelons of leadership should be reminded of the importance of empathy in the workplace.

In Tim Cook’s 2017 MIT commencement address, he warned graduates, “People will try to convince you that you should keep empathy out of your career.  Don’t accept this false premise.” The Apple CEO is not alone in recognizing and emphasizing the importance of empathy — the ability to share and understand others’ emotions — at work. At the time of his remarks, 20% of U.S. employers offered empathy training for managers. In a recent survey of 150 CEOs, over 80% recognized empathy as key to success.

Research demonstrates that Cook and other leaders are on to something. Empathic workplaces tend to enjoy stronger collaboration, less stress, and greater morale, and their employees bounce back more quickly from difficult moments such as layoffs. 

Andrea Goulet is determined to change the way that the tech industry talks about empathy. After teaching us how to conquer technical debt, the CEO of Corgibytes returns to the Review to explain why empathy is technical skill, and how engineers can leverage this powerful tool in their practice.

Here, Goulet dismantles three common myths around empathy to help founders and technical leads understand and develop empathy on their teams.

Myth #1: Empathy is just a feeling.

The software industry’s long-held reluctance to embrace empathy is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what, exactly, empathy is. “Most people believe that empathy is just a feeling,” she says. “And it definitely involves feelings. However, that conceptualization of empathy is really limiting.”

In her quest to build a case for empathy, Goulet stumbled upon Indi Young’s Practical Empathy, in which the author, a researcher who started her career as a programmer, delineates not one, but six types of empathy. “That sub-categorization really struck me. I thought if something could be divided into six subsets, then it must be pretty dense and technical,” says Goulet. 

Myth #2: Empathy is irrelevant to building software.

Myth #3: Empathy can’t be taught.

After adopting a corporate culture of empathy, Ventura shares, “What has emerged is this really supportive culture where people genuinely have each other’s best interests in mind and work to help each other through challenges that emerge.

It was never in the playbook, but it has become the north star — and we’re really happy about that.” For leaders wanting to become more empathic, don’t fear: Like Riess, Ventura believes that empathy can be taught. “I’m a firm believer that … [the] cognitive aspect of empathy is very trainable.”

By helping leaders develop critical active listening skills, build a greater understanding of individual team members and create a more supportive work culture, L&D professionals are well positioned to help leaders become more empathic and, as a result, drive lasting organizational change.

Sarah Gallo

Ways We Can Help Employees Strengthen Empathy

We can realize that human interactions matter most. Technology continues to make it easier to communicate more efficiently. But employees need opportunities to interact with their peers and management directly to strengthen empathy. 90% of employees think that the most empathic thing a CEO can do is meeting with them face-to-face in small groups or one-on-ones.

We can understand the importance of diversity. Regardless of your thoughts on affirmative action, there’s something to be said for diversity. 91% of minority respondents see a diverse workplace as a sign of empathy. Diversity of people means diversity of thought. And that enhances creativity, improves risks assessment and strengthens an organization as a whole.