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informally through a cup of coffee over Zoom – especially with those who I might have a little friction with. There’s a reason for that [friction], so what do I need to learn about them so I can have a little more empathy for their situation, whatever it might be?
: When empathy is aimed at employees in the workforce/ workplace, what does it do for the people who receive it, and what does it do for the people who give it?
: Those receiving it feel very valued that you took some time to do something to reach out, and that could be individually or even as a company. To receive empathy really feels quite good and like they matter and their contributions matter.
On the other side – of giving empathy – besides just feeling better ourselves, we all get along better, and we can collaborate much better. It’s extremely important to relate to the people that you work with. Without that, there could be more disagreements. Giving empathy is not only about how you feel or how the receiver might feel, but it’s also the output of that.
: Can you share any stand-out examples of empathy that’s been shown to you, whether by specific people or your organization as a whole?
: I’ll give a specific example. Our learning and development team is a small but mighty one, and two years ago we had some serious challenges where
we just didn’t see eye-to-eye on some topics. It was a “my idea vs. your idea” situation where each of us thought we were right. By the end of the year, our director was exasperated and said, “You guys need to figure this out. You need to solve it.” So, at the beginning of last year, we chose to have the same goals. If I succeeded at “x”, the rest of the team succeeded at “x”. If they succeeded at something, we all succeeded. That created an environment where we really had to support each other and work together to figure out our goals. Throughout the year, even though we are virtual, we had to not only work together, but it started turning more into almost having each other’s backs.
We were constantly reaching out to help each other when something was happening.
Case in point, yesterday I sent out an email and got a response from someone outside the team that had kind of an undertone of an attack. Immediately, both of my team members reached out to me, who knew the nuances behind the situation and how I would react, and they both asked how I was feeling. They wanted to help, and it was just a great sense of “I’m not alone in this home office in a separate location from them.” I really felt like we were in it together. I don’t know if we would have really sincerely felt that a year ago. Now, we really do support each other.
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