Empathy, Perspectives & Insight from Food

Welcome to the 58th Edition of Leading with Empathy. In this edition we share one of the most powerful tools from our workshops: The Perspective Taking Tool. We also launch a new episode of the Leading with Empathy podcast with the wonderful Rachel Golding (Mayes), PhD and some exciting opportunities to support you and your people coming up. Enjoy!

Exploring from a distance

The year 2020 was a strange one for most people around the world. Gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic, sickness and fear was widespread. Here in Australia, many people were feeling the additional impacts of movement restrictions, social distancing laws and heavily enforced lockdowns. This unique and peculiar situation saw people reacting in very unusual ways. Health care employees were under intense pressure, families were torn apart and conspiracy theorists had a field day with the uncertainty.

Amidst this chaotic time, there was one behaviour that I saw repeatedly being reported on the news that I thought was particularly strange. It was the great toilet paper hoarding of 2020. Footage of shopping trolleys overflowing, people scrambling for the last pack of dunny rolls hiding at the back of otherwise empty shelves and store employees desperately trying to keep people calm. Some even resorted to violence. I remember seeing a video of three middle aged women pulling at hair and throwing punches all over a few cylinders of two ply paper.

My initial train of thought when witnessing this behaviour was simple and judgmental: This is madness. I thought this was simply poor behaviour by people who were panicked about something they shouldn’t have been concerned about. Silly people doing silly things. Maybe you thought something similar? Maybe you think I was being harsh? Maybe you participated in this action and have some other views on the matter? In reality, my initial judgement lacked empathy.?

We all do this sometimes, don’t we? As discussed in chapter two, assumptions are our default and we use them quickly and efficiently to assess a situation and make judgements. While my assumption about these people being silly was quick, it wasn’t particularly useful. What could I do with this point of view? If I wanted to influence a change of this behaviour, what approach would I have? Tell people: “Hey, stupid person. Stop being silly.”

Do you think that would actually work? Probably not, right. If we want to influence people, particularly in a leadership position, it is critical that we seek to understand why people do what they do. I’m certain that if we were to ask people clambering over each other to reach the last roll, they wouldn't have said their motivation was lunacy. This type of judgement is fast and easy, but not very useful.

Empathy requires curiosity and exploration, but what if it isn't possible? In this case, spending time with the toilet paper warriors wasn't feasible and this is not an uncommon situation. There are many times when we may seek to have empathy but are unable to access the people needed to explore in person. This is where using a tool like the Perspective Taking Model can be helpful.

I designed this tool to be simple to remember, easy to use and flexible in application. The only objective of the tool is to help stimulate thoughts outside of our usual assumptions. It is not designed to give us the correct answer, but to get us to find many possibilities. Here is the model in full.

The first step is to write in the small square in the middle the perspective you are looking to understand. This will often be a perspective you don’t agree with, something you don’t understand or find it significantly diverges from your view. For the scenario I described above, I might put ‘Toilet Paper Hoarding’ into this box.

Next, I look to explore any rational reasons why someone might decide to hoard toilet paper and place these in the area labelled ‘Rational’. These might include ideas such as:

• They need toilet paper - they feel it is a necessity worth fighting for
• Shelves are empty - with limited supply it is justified to hoard
• Not reusable - it’s not like you can just use one piece for a few days to ration it out
• Can’t make own - well you probably can, but it would be very rough
• Not going to stop needing - you can’t just try to hold it for a few weeks, that will turn out very nasty

You might think these are not very compelling rational reasons, but this is not about convincing you. Your benchmark of ‘rational-enough’ is irrelevant. This is about looking outside the perspectives you already hold and exploring divergent alternatives. Some of them you may partially agree with or even see them as valid, if somewhat uncompelling, but that doesn’t matter. Someone who performs the act of toilet paper hoarding may see these as rational reasons and that is what we are looking to explore.

In the area marked ‘Emotional’ we complete the same exercise thinking about the emotive drivers of this behaviour. Again, don’t use your emotional drivers as the benchmark, instead look broader:

• Fear - they are scared of missing out and not having enough
• Embarrassment - what would people say if I had none?
• Greed - I deserve it more than anyone else
• Love - they don’t want their family to suffer the inconvenience of not having toilet paper
• Justice - an overwhelming sense of unfairness in them not having what is their right to have

Again, you might see all of these as weak reasons, but this is not about you. You simply recognise that these could be emotional drivers for someone and may be data points worth considering. For the Structural and Policies areas, we are considering other tangible drivers at the macro and micro levels. For example, the fact there was a global pandemic and supply chains were being impacted globally may have played a factor on their decisions and actions. Also at the localised level, there were purchase limitations being enforced and rapidly changing isolation laws that could have played an influential role.

On the right-hand side, we can explore the Cultural drivers that influence their decisions. Culture is a big driver of behaviour and if we were living in a competitive and individualistic culture, it could certainly shape our behaviour to prioritise getting my own toilet paper over the concerns of others. Finally, other people have a huge impact on our beliefs. It might be family members, friends or even television personalities that influence the panic buying of toilet paper. This gives us a model that looks something like this.

When stepping back and looking at this model now, there are a lot of reasons why someone might see hoarding toilet paper as justified in their circumstances. For any particular person who is hoarding paper, some of these drivers might be influencing them. Maybe none of them are and instead there are more beyond my quick exploration that are at play, sometimes we will never know.?

The objective of the Perspective Taking Model is not to land on the specific reasons for a particular person. Nor is it to change our own mind or to agree with the perspective. To clarify, I personally still see toilet paper hoarding as a misguided practice, but what I have done is created a range of new perspectives to consider. My rigid and instantaneous judgement has now been superseded by a range of possibilities I was initially blind to.?

More importantly from a leadership perspective, if I wanted to understand the specific drivers of a person who was toilet paper hoarding, I now have far more navigational marks to use for my questions. This is what the Perspective Taking Model really gives us, more starting points to explore individual beliefs. It doesn’t give us answers and when using any of these points to begin questioning, I should be very comfortable with admitting that my guesses within the model may be completely wrong. But at least we now have many more places from which to explore openly.

Cooking up Impact with Empathy

I loved this conversation on the Leading with Empathy podcast with founder of Dinner on the Table , Rachel Golding (Mayes), PhD . We speak about the journey from Occupational Therapy and an PhD to now cooking for families and creating huge social impact. Rachel is a brilliant human and I think you will love this powerful chat as much as I did.

Hard Feedback Masterclass

The next dates for the super popular Giving Hard Feedback Masterclass are now open. This has been one of the most highly-rated sessions I have ever run. Don't miss out!

On the road again!

July and August are shaping up to be more months of travel and I'd love to connect with as many of you in person along the way.

Here are some of the locations and events I'll be speaking, if they line up with a time to grab a coffee, share a meal or you'd like to book Daniel, please send through a note here: Check Availability .

11 July - ACE Community Colleges , Gold Coast QLD

22 July - Barwon Learning Centre , Moree NSW

24 July - Commonwealth Bank , Perth WA

30-31 July - School Business Managers Association QLD, Gold Coast QLD

7 August - Cessnock Principals Network, Cessnock NSW

8 August - Commonwealth Bank , Sydney NSW

16 August - SASSPA Conference, Sydney NSW

3-6 September - Mortgage Choice , Hamilton Island QLD

16 - 20 September - The Hatchery (Hub) , Canberra ACT

Keep in touch, I always appreciate hearing from newsletter subscribers

Daniel