Page 16 - Demo

: How do you think of empathy differently now than you did pre-pandemic?
: I’m a rule follower and it’s always been hard for me to understand why people don’t follow the rules. I think, “This is what you said you’re going to do, so why aren’t you doing it?” On the opposite side of that, I’m a very caring person. I can’t get through a Hallmark commercial without crying. Anytime a dog dies or suffers, even in a TV show, I can’t even watch because I just immediately care so much. But mash those two things together – rule following and caring – and that’s kind of what 2020 has been like. When I see people not following the rules, I have to remind myself that it’s not because it’s personal. It’s because they’re in a different situation and something is happening in their lives.
Here is an example. I lead a high potential leadership program that we have here at Land O’Lakes. It’s one of those programs where we meet 6 times over a year and a half as a cohort. There is networking, development, trips, and speakers. Well, that all came to a halt when we couldn’t get together, so we had to move everything to virtual. There were a lot of questions, like “What should we do? Should we stop the program? Should we go virtual?” So, we reached out to several people in the program and it was just interesting to ask them questions and be curious about what they were saying. We had to really listen to them. We talked to a lot of young mothers that were in the program, who said things like, “I’m trying to handle this right now while I’m trying to keep and meet expectations for my job, and also be in this program. I don’t know if I can do all three.” So, we had to really change how we do things and adapt.
I don’t know if it would have been like that the year before or if our reaction would have been, “You know what? You signed up for the program. This is an expectation. Figure it out.” So that was a definite shift. I keep trying to
apply that thought process of being empathetic in other situations as well.
: Again, in one sentence or one phrase, what is empathy not?
: It’s not about making assumptions about what people are going through. You need to be curious, you need to learn, you need to ask the questions and get a better understanding, but don’t make assumptions.
In StrengthsFinder, individualization is a strength for me. That’s where you see each person as one person and can really hone in very quickly on people, but the downside of that is, I have a tendency to make assumptions quickly. Because I have that “superpower”, I go too far and put people into categories really quick. So, I’ve had to bring that to a conscious level, knowing that even though this is how I think that person is, I can’t make that assumption. I need to ask those questions and get to know them a little bit more, maybe
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