Cultivating Empathy

From designers, to DevOps, to your favourite personality-driven work-place scandal, there are a lot of people talking about empathy and why it's so important at work. Perhaps you think it's a waste of time; or maybe you think it's important, but you don't really understand how to apply the technique professionally.

Usually when we say the word "empathy" there's an underlying "woo-woo let's talk feelings" undertone, but it's also a tool you can use to understand what motivates your team; to spot blockers before they become a problem; and to get a "health check" on the projects you oversee. Sounds useful when you read it from that definition, doesn't it.

This session will be broken into three parts:

Level 1: "Caring just enough." The basic human skills you know about, and use, outside of work. This section is most relevant to team members who want to promote a healthy workplace culture.
Level 2: "Thinking strategies." Using your team’s motivators to help them succeed. This section will be most useful to those who manage people and team leads.
Level 3: "Imagination." Learning to complain from the other person’s perspective. This section will be most useful to those who manage people and team leads.
Even if you still aren't comfortable with the "e" word by the end of this talk, you will have a better grasp on how to apply work-place appropriate, tangible techniques to produce higher functioning, happier teams.

Slides from operability.io.

Transcript

1. CULTIVATING EMPATHY Emma Jane Hogbin Westby www.gitforteams.com
 @emmajanehw
2. YESTERDAY... • Sit beside someone and work together (pair programming). • Distributed teams: be explicit in communicating your feelings, especially in text. • Trust is earned, not bought or given.
3. OUTCOMES • Improve team cohesion. • Engineer successful (human interaction) outcomes. • Improve capacity for diverse thinking. • Foster creative problem solving.
4. Actually, this talk is titled... A primer on how
 I taught myself to be more empathetic.
5. THIS IS A TOUCHY FEELY WOO WOO TALK. Sorry. Not Sorry.
6. Temple Grandin Normal people have an incredible lack of empathy.
8. DEFINE: EMPATHY The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
9. DEFINE: SYMPATHY The feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
10. PRACTICING EMPATHY Level 1: Care just enough to learn more about a person’s life. Level 2: Use thinking strategies to structure interactions. Level 3: Engage with the world from another’s perspective.
11. LEVEL 1. CARING JUST ENOUGH Difficulty — Beginner
12. Molly Ringwald Compartmentalisation is way overrated.
13. REWARDS & RISKS Improve team cohesion. Requires a time investment. CARING JUST ENOUGH
14. COLLECT STORIES. Learn about people by asking them questions. CARING JUST ENOUGH
15. STFU AND LISTEN. Listen until there is no more story. Respond. CARING JUST ENOUGH
16. REFER BACK. Follow-up on a previous story. CARING JUST ENOUGH
17. LEVEL 2. THINKING STRATEGIES Difficulty — Intermediate
18. The biggest mistake is believing there is only one way to have a connection. Deborah Tannen
19. REWARDS & RISKS Engineer successful outcomes. Improve capacity for diverse thinking. Perceived as manipulative. THINKING STRATEGIES
20. UNCOVER MOTIVATORS. THINKING STRATEGIES Unpack why a person behaves the way they do.
21. THINKING STRATEGIES Decision-Making validate values-driven experience crux trust your heart conclude Understanding clarify empathise tune-in scan express structure Creativity brainstorm challenge reframe envision flow flash of insight
23. CREATIVE THINKING brainstorm challenge reframe envision flow flash of insight
24. RECOGNISE
 CREATIVE LANGUAGE Can we try ... I know we’re done, but what about ... OMG! I just had this great idea ... Why do you think ... Is this the best we can do ...
25. UNDERSTANDING THINKING clarify empathise tune-in scan express structure
26. RECOGNISE UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE So what you’re saying is ... Just to clarify ... I think this is related to ... So I made this spreadsheet ... That must feel horrible!
27. DECISION THINKING validate values-driven experience crux gut instinct conclude
28. RECOGNISE DECISION LANGUAGE I’m ready to move on to ... I don’t know why I think this, but ... Last time we tried this ... The real problem is ... My gut tells me ...
29. CREATE OUTCOME- BASED INTERACTIONS. THINKING STRATEGIES Help me help you.
30. Emma’s
31. LEVEL 3. IMAGINATION Difficulty — Advanced
32. REWARDS & RISKS Foster creative problem solving. Potentially overwhelming.
 Can cause doubt for self-worth. IMAGINATION
33. SEEK TO UNDERSTAND. Complain about yourself from the other’s perspective. IMAGINATION
34. SEEK TO EXPERIENCE. Live your day through the other’s constraints. IMAGINATION
35. Bob Wiele The thinking process should be no more left to chance
 than the deliberate practice of a skill.
36. EMPATHY PRACTITIONERS
37. IN SUMMARY • Level 1: Care just enough.
 Improve team cohesion. • Level 2: Structure interactions.
 Engineer successful (human interaction) outcomes.
 Improve capacity for diverse thinking. • Level 3: Use another’s perspective.
 Foster creative problem solving.
38. Maya Angelou I think we all have empathy.
 We may not have enough courage to display it.
39. PRACTICE AND CULTIVATE
 EMPATHY follow-up:
 @emmajanehw
 emma @ git for teams.com gitforteams.com/resources/cultivating-empathy.html