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: Are there times when you find it more difficult to be empathetic?
: I’ll tell you, what’s been very difficult for me is everything surrounding the recent election. It’s been challenging to think about being empathetic about some things that are happening. I try to think about how others are thinking and I’m trying to figure out how they can help me understand. Because I’m not quite getting it. Every week, I have a Zoom meeting with my family. Each Wednesday, we share how puzzled we are by the same things happening around us, because we all basically think alike. Unfortunately, we are not making any progress in our ability to understand.
: When empathy is aimed at employees, whether they are in a physical workplace or they are at home working virtually, what do you think empathy does for those who receive it? And what does empathy do for those who give it?
: From the standpoint of a manager or leader, you must have empathy, especially when people are now working from home. There are so many competing things in their lives, so you must understand what is going on from their perspective: how they are interacting with their families on a daily basis, if their kids are in school or out of school, etc. Luckily, all my nieces and nephews are working right now, but I just talked to them and they’re actually putting in more work hours at home.
It’s also important that people think about the bigger picture of how we are going to go forward in this pandemic. People are asking to have holidays with relatives and the scientists and doctors are saying to just hold off, and that’s really hard.
: Can you share some examples of empathy that has been shown to you in in these past several months?
: As I mentioned, my family has a weekly Zoom. It’s been an interesting experience, because it’s not that we didn’t see each other before (we all live fairly close), but now we see everybody each week. That actually changes our whole perspective on how we all feel about each other. That’s not to say we didn’t feel good about each other before, but I think this has actually brought us closer together. A strange outcome of the pandemic is that it’s brought many people together, even though we’re separated physically. I mean it’s brought me closer together with lots of different people all over the world. I think that’s a very interesting side effect.
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