Empathy: an under-rated core skill

There’s an argument from behavioural science that, when faced with an external stressor, humans and rats don’t look around to what is harming them: they look at each other .

The first time I learned about this was in a Tuesday afternoon team meeting in a glass-walled university meeting room. My first boss, Terrie Moffitt , was preparing the office team for the changes ahead. No longer a quiet research team of about thirteen lab, admin and academic staff, heads down in our little offices, writing and planning; nope, now we were about to embark on 4 years of field work.

Meaning? An additional twenty field work, management and lab staff. It meant that our young, female researchers would be visiting the homes of our participants, homes across the UK. So, ‘field work’ meant ensuring their safety at all times. It meant we’d be learning about active and previously unknown psychological problems of some of our families. Occasionally it meant learning tragic and horrifying realities of difficult lives.

In her years of leading research teams across the UK, USA and New Zealand, Terrie witnessed the same effect:

when there was a big change in the dynamics or workload, people blamed each other.

Office and field teams didn’t integrate - unless there was action taken by leadership. By giving us some hard data, Terrie hoped to remind us that stress is normal, but remember you’re part of a bigger picture. Work together to release the stress. Remember the humanity of your colleagues. We’re all trying to do our best in stressful circumstances.

Failing to learn the lessons from the rats

A few weeks back, I was in a bind. A piece of work hadn’t quite landed.

To understand why, and to get this project delivered, I needed to bring in a more senior stakeholder, who I’ll call Jo; their input was necessary to get the project delivered. I don’t want to go into project details, but there was a sense that, on top of the creative not landing, Jo didn’t understand what had landed in their inbox, they didn’t like the creative - and, just, what was ‘this’?

Trying to get hold of senior leaders is hard when you're freelance

My contact, who I’ll call Ray, didn't want to involve Jo. Wouldn’t allow me to bring them into a session to formally present the work.

Super fun at the best of times, but exponentially harder when you're freelance and I can’t knock on Jo’s door, and I don’t have that goodwill from signing the birthday card, bringing those brilliant cookies to the team meeting or singing that nuts cover of ‘Tainted Love’ at team karaoke (nope, just did that at the university job).

Ray and I had a good relationship, but I was worried - that biting-rat tension was sneaking up.

And that, as we know, isn’t conducive to great work. It was risking the relationships I’d been nurturing.

Proactively building relationships means solving problems well - quickly

Being freelance, I’ve had to proactively build my ‘team’, of collaborators, accountability partners and people who might share advice in a pinch.

And, faced with a project risking falling apart and unhappy clients? I was in a pinch.

Marketing guru Gareth Turner was kind enough to give me fifteen minutes of his time and a chunk of golden insight. His advice was so goddam amazing that, with his permission, I'm sharing it with you. You're welcome.

Remembering that other people are people

Ahead of our chat, Gareth set me some pre-work ??.

This wasn't what I was expecting. By nature/conditioning, I'm pretty adversarial (as a teenager I longed to be AnnaFromThisLife).

Gareth's advice reminded me to think about Ray. That lovely human who commissioned my work.

I thought about the warm words Ray used to me in person, and later over slack. I thought how their tonality had changed after Jo gave feedback.

How does imagining the inner lives of people help resolve conflict?

Sitting on the tube, notebook in hand, I closed my eyes. I could almost imagine Ray reading the feedback, how they may have felt. Maybe they felt embarrassed. Maybe they felt disappointed - in me, in themselves. Maybe they felt nervous for their next performance review.

I thought about how I feel when I get terrible feedback; how I used to internalise it.

Ray’s face, tired at their desk, was conjured in my brain. Sitting on the tube, I felt it: a physical ‘ooof’.

Are there limits to empathy?

Feeling a little uncomfortable for Ray, I wrote Gareth's next question into my notebook:

The key word here is"might". Empathy has its limits ; we can’t presume to actually know what’s going on in someone else’s head. That’s woo-land telepathy. Of course I have no idea what Ray’s feelings are or were. They might not be disappointed, or worried about their performance review. In that moment, I had no idea.

But by reminding myself to be curious and interested about Ray, Gareth was reminding me: what about that other person? What could that other, regular, normal, person be feeling right now?

Scanning the faces of the other commuters, I thought about the all the lovely and committed people at this client. I've been working with them for some time, over two big projects; I thought about what those projects meant, the company’s rate of growth, and what that means for the staff.

Locating tension can help you resolve conflict

I thought about the tensions I'd uncovered as I surfaced gaps in the early part of our project. Again, I imagined Ray. What they might be feeling, right now. Why might Ray want to keep me from Jo? Maybe Ray had had other negative feedback from Jo that I had no idea about? Maybe Jo and Ray had had a disagreement about suppliers? Maybe Jo had made a stupid gag that had offended Ray?

Again, there's a high chance my intuition could be wrong. But that's beside the point.

In trying to be right, I'd stopped being curious.

There's a time to be definitive, but, when we're trying to avoid a conflict from arising or escalating, reaching into curiosity about the other can remind us: they're just people, too.

Fully baggage heavy people coming to work

I’m of the belief that most people want to do a good job; but as Ester Perel says, we bring our relational histories, our backgrounds and baggage to work. So, onto question three:

These words caused me to pause. In my tiredness, my frustration and focus on the words, I'd lost track of the human I was working with.

Delivering excellence can heighten tension

When we're committed to delivering excellent work, I believe that, for most people, it's because we care. We care that we hold up our side of the bargain. We care that other's time is well used. We care that we deliver.

In our desire to deliver, it's natural that we might forget that our contacts and colleagues might be feeling the same way, too.

Again I was pulled back to our first conversations about the project, and what I know about the company. I wrote out things such as ‘they want to deliver excellence’, ‘they want to be the person who’s transformed the brand’, ‘they want to be key in maturing the company’.?

That afternoon, Gareth and I chatted. He walked, I looked over my notes, scribbled more. We talked about ‘Ray’ and ‘Jo’.

We talked about the project. Why it was being invested in. Why the business exists. And how I could remind Ray that I’m there for them, to help them, and that I want the best for them and their business.

Helping each other to get to the end point, faster.

Gareth rounded up:

And, the next day? A friendly, productive meeting. Big smiles - I agreed that the creative wasn’t there yet. I asked if Jo could be brought in, could I present to them, could I hear their words? Ray agreed, and told me that they’d both been having bad days, difficult meetings. Stress.

Remember the human you're working with.

I’ve used this technique a few times since Gareth suggested it. And, every time, it’s allowed me to open up my thinking, remember the bigger picture (something a little tricker for ASC & ADHD people), and stay curious.

Now? We’re unified. Project almost delivered. And working together and pushing each other to creative excellence. Understanding the stressful environment we’re in, and helping each other through it.

Freelancers are the right people to help with transformations

As freelancers, we're usually brought in to provide expertise that isn't needed full time. Speaking for myself, I love that. I don't want to sit in status meetings and doodle in my notepad; when I'm working, I'm working.

But when freelancers aren't given some social time to get to know their clients, these conflicts are more likely to occur. We don't have lateral access to stakeholders; we don't hold that accrued, internal knowledge.

Mostly, that's a benefit: we deliver solutions that are independent, that are solution focussed and untethered by worries of losing our Christmas bonus; sure, we need to leave a good impression.

However, we can hopefully take our clients through the difficulty of change, without fearing kickback in the same way as employed staff.

Freelancing and conscientiousness, and conflict, and helping, and stress

There's a potential to argue that freelancers are more likely to be more highly conscientious than employed staff (disclosure: I raised this hypothesis with the author as we brainstormed that piece, and the author agreed it was a strong possibility). That trait could, potentially, lead to a higher likelihood of reporting conflict in resolving tasks.

But, as ever, effective onboarding and check-ins are a vital component of client/freelancer relationships. And freelancers shouldn't be expected to carry that responsibility alone.

Long term effects of great relationships.

And that research team? I’m off for lunch today with one of the statisticians. There was no wall between the field and research teams, because we were encouraged to remember the bigger pictures. Sure, there were tensions - there always are when you’re working with engaged people who work hard to make a difference. But, there are life-long friendships from that place.

When someone changes their stance with you, when the tension starts to grow or you're refused access to a key stakeholder, sure you might need to raise your voice. But, to start off with, ask yourself:

Have a think about the “why” for your contact – what are they thinking?

Why might they not want you to speak directly to the main stakeholder?

What are their fears / hopes for the project?”

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash