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: Again, in one sentence or one phrase, what would you say empathy is NOT?
: I’d say it’s not just giving a free pass. What I mean by that is, sometimes in the past, I thought that showing empathy to someone meant that I just excused a behavior or brushed over something like, “Well, that’s just because they’ve had a difficult experience.” Now, I look at it more like empathy is wanting to reach that place of understanding, but also help that person grow. It’s not just excusing a behavior and attributing it to being the sum of the experiences they’ve had or to being because of how they’re currently feeling. It’s wanting to come back to it later. Maybe take a step away or step back, but then come back and continue the discussion at another time, maybe when things have calmed down or there’s been some time for reflection. I’m a big fan of having time to process things.
: When empathy is aimed at employees, what do you think it does for those who receive it, and what does it do for the people who give it?
: For those who receive it, they feel more enabled and empowered to bring their authentic selves to work. For the people who give that empathy, I think it opens the lines of communication and, maybe in some ways, makes things easier. If people feel like you’re trying to understand them and relate to them, they’ll be more open, honest, transparent, and ready to come to you if there’s an issue – at least more readily than they would if they felt like they were just going to get brushed off or if they felt like you weren’t coming from a place of trying to understand them.
: Can you share any examples of empathy that has been shown to you in recent months?
: Absolutely. I’ve worked from home in the past. Back on one of my old teams, I had one day a week that was a work-from-home day, but I’d kind of gotten out of that
habit and had gotten to where I was in the office all the time. I really got to where I didn’t enjoy working from home that much, so when we made the switch to remote work in March of 2020, it was kind of a shock to the system, especially full time, and my manager was just great. We did all kinds of stuff, especially in the beginning, to try and keep our team close (we have a really small team of five). We did lots of fun things, like having themed Zoom backgrounds for all our team meetings. We’d get to share something about ourselves, so that just helped us get to know each other a lot better and it kept us in close contact. Even though we were separated, we would have this time each day that we would get together and share any difficulties we were having.
There has been a lot of flexibility given throughout the pandemic, but it was really helpful in the beginning, when I was struggling with being away from people and being relegated to the “catch-all” room, as I call it, in our house to serve as my office. The whole team is super understanding and reminds each other to get out and get some sunshine, go for a walk, and take time for ourselves, and that has continued throughout this time.
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