How significant is empathy to you and your business?

I give a high level of importance to empathy. So much so that one of the company's fundamental core values.

Empathy is defined by Merriam Webster as

"the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner."

This value is deeply rooted in all that I do because of a very personal experience.

In my early 20's, working in the martech space, my job required me to work with a team of technologists to translate for them the needs of the leaders and the founders of the business.

There was a clash in personalities. I am naturally extroverted, and many of my team members were introverts. I was often caught leading them from my perspective, treating them in the way I would like to be treated, rather than behaving in the way they would like to be treated. And over time, this repeated experience resulted in me feeling like I was banging my head against a brick wall. I couldn't get my team to work together in alignment with their internal customer's needs.

I was left frustrated as I thought I was being empathic.

 Until one day, a coach made the following statement.

"You think you're empathic, but you're acting from your perspective, and that is kindness, not empathy."

To receive those words was a huge wake-up call for me - a metaphorical slap in the face. I realised that I had been self-focused. Since then, it has been a lifelong learning for me to try and understand how I can be more empathic to ensure I lead in the way my team needs her to lead: To shift my approach to match their needs.

Powered with empathy early on, I gained some really positive results. By standing in the shoes of others and then understanding their perspective on what they need, they became more willing to have an open conversation around the issues.

My empathy skill were made stronger by engaging a coach, Jacqui Pollock, who helped me during a challenging time with my 16-year old son.

Jacqui did a powerful exercise called 'Three Chairs' wherein I had to literally sit on three different chairs, each representing a different perspective: mine, my son's, and an outside observer.

This allowed me to understand where each one is coming from objectively.

With this skill, I was able to transform my business as I can now sit in the shoes of my clients and understand their problems from their perspective.

My perspective of the problem simply doesn't matter.

This enables the conversation to reveal the problem that keeps my clients awake at night. Starting from the real problem, we can then co-design a solution that impacts the business in a transformative way.

It is the foundation of all the services offered through Partners in Digital and Your Digital coach and the first step in every single engagement.

A conversation.

To understand the real versus imagined problem.

When we start from that point, anything is possible.

Where do your business and brand values come from?