Why Empathy?

Welcome to the Empathic Insights Collective. We're a group of managers and PMs dedicated to helping organizations uplevel by incorporating empathy into their company culture.

So why empathy? How does it translate into business value?

We believe that our humanity lies at the heart of all interactions, including business ones, and we forget that at our peril. Practicing empathy allows us to bring this humanity to the forefront. When people are made to feel like people rather than cogs in a machine, when they feel listened to and understood, when they feel a sense of ownership over their work, they will be more engaged, more flexible, and willing to invest more of themselves into their work.

When an organization deals with their customers from an empathic stance, they will inspire loyalty and engagement. It's quite amazing how merely taking the time to listen to an upset customer will lower the temperature, allowing more constructive discussions to take place.

So what is empathy, anyway?

Here's the dictionary definition, courtesy of Mirriam-Webster:

In essence, empathy is the capacity to make someone else feel heard and understood. And that's powerful. Those who can make people feel heard and understood inspire loyalty and trust, and a leader needs those things to succeed.

Prove it

"Sure," you say. "Employees are human beings too, and feelings are important, and blah blah blah. How does that translate into business value?"

There's actually a wealth of studies pointing to the positive impacts of empathetic leadership. Here are a few standout ones:

1. According to a study published in the Harvard Business Review, employees who feel their employers care about them as individuals are more likely to stay with the company long-term. Such companies also show a higher level of customer satisfaction.
2. In a survey conducted by BusinesSolver, a provider of benefits administration solutions, 93% of employees said they are more likely to stay with an empathetic employer, and 82% said they would leave their current employer for a more empathetic one.
3. A report by the Center for Creative Leadership found that empathetic leadership is positively associated with employee engagement and retention.
4. A study published in the Journal of Business and Psychology found that employees who perceive their leaders as more empathetic are more likely to engage in "citizenship behaviors" such as helping others and going above and beyond their job requirements, which can lead to increased productivity.

There's a lot more.

Empathy at all levels

Empathic leadership isn't constrained to people managers or organizational leaders. Managing up requires empathy too, whether you're an individual contributor or not. Empathy will make you more effective in working with your peers, in communicating with your customers, in resolving conflict, and with helping achieve consensus. Understanding and showing compassion for the person you're dealing with, no matter their role, will make you more effective in achieving your goals, as that understanding allows you to position your argument in a way that avoids an oppositional stance, a "me vs. you" mentality.

At this point, I'm feeling ready for some rubber hitting the road. What does this look like in practice?

Managers are people first

One of the key attitudes I've found in working with new teams is an assumed imbalance in the power dynamic. It's as if they look at me and see "I can fire you" tattooed on my forehead, and that fear influences all their communication.

I recently had a 1:1 with a direct, let's call him Bob, who I've managed for just about a year, one who's been strongly indoctrinated in this attitude. During this whole year, Bob has been very careful with what he says during our time, focusing on the status of his projects and on showing me how he's excelling at his job.

It has taken ten months of proving he can trust me with his feelings for Bob to open up:

"I don't want to sound as if I'm not enthusiastic," he said, "but I'm not sure I actually want to get promoted."

That's a breakthrough, believe it or not, because for the first time in our time together, Bob talked to me as if I were a person, rather than merely his manager. There was still some holdback as evidenced by "I don't want to sound...," but at least we were making progress.

Now, I would be a fool for thinking any less of Bob for not wanting to climb the corporate ladder. You'll see more articles on this topic in the future, but for now, the key point to remember is that, contrary to common knowledge, a hunger for promotion isn't necessarily an indicator of engagement or potential. Some people just want to enjoy the work they do, and we're here as empathetic leaders to support them, because people who enjoy their work typically excel at it.

Now think of how much stress could've been saved on Bob's part if he hadn't taken ten months to come clean? If he didn't have to constantly censor what he said to me? If he saw me as a person first, and a manager second? This is going to be harder for employees who have previously had a negative relationship with their manager, but that means we must work all the harder to get over that barrier of distrust in order to bring the best side of our employee forward.

How about your manager? Is she a real person in your eyes, or a walking pink slip? Are you able to engage with them on a human level? Are you able to put yourself in their shoes, understanding their stress, their uncertainty, their own struggle to be successful?

My experience with empathy

Over my 28-year software engineering career, I've led multiple teams, starting in Microsoft, then Outreach, then Adobe, and finally at Amazon. Early on in my career, I got some fantastic advice from a senior Microsoft leader that really stuck with me, around my priorities as a manager. I've since adopted these priorities as a guide to optimize my time. They are, in priority order:

1. Happy Team
2. Customer obsession
3. Deliver the best quality product that you can. (In software engineering terms, that'd be "Don't ship stupid bugs.")

I've taken this to heart, and I believe that has been key for me to form and manage happy, engaged, and high-performing teams.

I've had employees tear up at our one on ones. I've had employees yell. One came in, enraged, demanding, "What do you do when someone you're working with is an idiot?" He could've just simmered to himself, but because he trusted me with his feelings, I was able to learn more about the situation and take appropriate action.

Conclusion

Empathy works. Compassion produces business results. We at Empathic Insights Collective are dedicated to exploring the concept of empathy in business settings, and how it applies to management, career development, and optimizing teams.

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