#02 Empathy - Step into other person’s shoes!

Here's the second article in the "Empathy" series by one of my dear friends. In case you've missed the previous one, please do start from here: https://bit.ly/2zo2gw6

Quoting Barack Obama:

“There’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit, but I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us!”

Barack Obama, 2006, addressing University’s graduating class

Empathy has been a very close value for Obama and he even writes about it in his book - The Audacity of Hope.

Obama wished to include the trait – ‘Empathy’ for a Supreme Court Judge post. It triggered a lot of debates and even some of his own party members stood against him for using the term. His intention of using the term was to find an individual who understands how law impacts the daily life of common people. But it turned out that there is a lot of misconception associated with the term - Empathy. 

Even though, many individuals claim they are empathetic, but we never see them demonstrate it. They reason it out stating excuses that it will make them look weak, or they are here to do business and they cannot let emotions rule the brain.

It’s sad that such misconceptions around the term makes us avoid embracing it in the workplace too. We fear that we might become vulnerable to emotional decisions and appear weak and most importantly lose the race in this competitive world.

On the other hand, we take pride to create / design our products by stepping into the shoes of the end users – the buyers. Actually, Facebook takes a revolutionary step by building their Empathy Lab. They planned to build empathy into their engineering. So, they use the Lab to experience how any visually impaired individual uses their product. It makes a complete business sense to do so and there is a huge investment for the same. But the question is why can’t we invest to create a culture where we openly empathize with our colleagues, peers, subordinates?

A freelancer working from home or working from the workplace as a contractor is too contributing to the business goal. Even though they don’t get paid on the last working day of the month nor get paid leaves unlike full time employees but may be entitled to an occasional early day off. Is it so difficult to do the same? After all our employees or the people who work for us are like the brands of our company. Their experience inside the company will speak about the culture of the organization and what kind of talent we will attract and retain.

An advanced research conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL?) proves that performance corelates with empathy. This means if we want to retain or engage your employees then we have to be more empathetic. Daniel Goleman too cites Empathy as one of the keys to effective leadership.

Then, why don’t we all embrace and practice empathy at workplace - not the pseudo empathy but the real empathy! Ending with a quote from my favourite book by Harper Lee:

 “You never really understand another person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it,”

Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird

As a real individual, are you up for the challenge to step into the shoes of the other person?