Empathy At Work
A Survival Guide to giving grace at work for your team and most importantly yourself!
Work is hard ya’ll. Life in general… probably even harder when you stop and think about it.
As I reflect on these past two years, it feels like the very nature of how we work is evolving, or at the very least, is up for intense debate.
Regardless of where you fall on the issues themselves, I think we can all agree that change itself is challenging for any organization and likely your team as well. As our work lives continue to get more complex, it is critical to give yourself, and your team, as much grace as possible along the journey.
In this weeks guide we’ll try to explore the subtle art of giving grace in the workplace.
🌎 An Attitude Of Latitude
Workplace empathy is a hot topic right now and a competency that every leader should be well versed in. Articles like this one, or this one and even this one go into excellent detail on the importance of building cultures of empathy in your organization.
What I am interested in here though, is the specific act of giving yourself and coworkers a little grace in your everyday as a means to build empathy.
I know, I know… Where am I even going with this? I am not known to be a particularly deep spiritual well and while I’m likely out of my depth here this is my best appropriation of the concept.
Showing someone grace is about taking specific steps to understand as much as possible about their situation before you assess and react. You should make it a point to consider more than just the facts you’re being presented with and open yourself up to possibilities you might not be aware of.
It boils down to giving people space to operate and allowing people the necessary latitude to navigate their own challenges, which is something we as outsiders only have a limited view of.
🤔 Paradigm Shift
It’s important to note that giving someone grace and expanding their latitude to operate isn’t something you do for them, but rather, something you do for you. The goal is to expand your own understanding of a situation so that you can respond with empathy and compassion.
🔥 Why It Matters
Let’s get tactical. Why is this so important in the workplace? For me, when you have a team of people that readily display empathy toward one another two things always occur.
Accountability:
As a leader, I want a team full of people that are 100% accountable for their role. To be held accountable a person has to be empowered to own and drive what they are responsible for. Demonstrating empathy and giving others grace as they face challenges is the key component to empowering (and growing) as an individual.
Culture:
Foundational to culture is shared experience. One of the best ways to build shared experience is to foster a deeper understanding of those you work with. One of the best ways to increase understanding is to show empathy to others.
Being intentional about empathy and showing each other grace grows your organization and will quickly become its super power.
👩💻 Remote Impact
As much as most of us enjoy it, I think we can all agree working from home is interesting if not outright challenging. I’m probably stating the obvious to say that sometimes trying to operate professionally while stuck in your house can be downright impossible at times. Being kind and giving people latitude for their situations only seems like common sense at this point.
I challenge you to go one step further though. Consider leveraging the sometimes awkward nature of remote work to help establish culture. As an example, we have a team member that has a couple of VERY VOCAL cats that just howl pretty much every time he is off mute.
Thankfully, he is really chill with the whole thing so his cats have become a bit of an internal meme among the team on group calls. What it has done for us culturally though, is so much more than the laughs! By showing grace to the daily cat concert, we have set a cultural norm that we are here to support each other and work through challenges that being remote presents. Believe me when I say this makes all the difference. The next time our proud new developer-dad joined scrum with his baby in the background, he knew he was in a safe and supportive environment.
Strive to be intentional about the how and why you demonstrate empathy with the team. Always keep in mind the cultural norms you are looking to establish or reinforce.
😬 Mistakes I’ve Made
You know that advice on airplanes about putting your own oxygen mask on before assisting others? Empathy tends to work in the same way. It is really hard to be authentic when people see you are not treating yourself the same way you attempt to treat them. When those two messages don’t align, It becomes an unspoken double standard that only serves to undercut your empathy toward them.
As a leader, everyone follows your queues whether you realize it or not. I try my best to be mindful about giving myself latitude for my own mistakes and shortcomings in front of the team, the same I would if it were them.
📉 Anti-Patterns To Avoid
Sweet, so now that we’re all experts in giving each other all this new latitude at work, all bets are off on expectations and deadlines right?? Hardly…
Empathy is not forgiveness, nor is it absolution. It is understanding.
Demonstrating empathy is not a fancy way of saying you will look the other way when expectations are not met. Rather, it is a way for you to increase your own awareness of the situation as you react. Which, in turn, greatly enhances how you approach the situation and the person.
Not meeting a deadline is always a problem but would you react differently if you knew they were giving it their all versus not even trying? I know I would.
It’s about taking the time to understand the full picture, and yes, it takes more effort to do it that way!
🐦 Tweets On Topic
📚 Deeper Dive: Recommended Reading
This is probably the single best discussion on personal awareness and empathy that I have ever encountered. It’s an oldie but a goodie for sure.
🔗 This Is Water - David Foster Wallace
A great recent article about the impact empathy has on leadership.
🔗 No More Working For Jerks - NYTimes
🚀 Take Action Today
A couple of easy ways to get started building empathy at work:
Coach Don’t Criticize
Make it a point to support someone’s idea that you don’t instinctively agree with
Condition yourself to ask “why” as your first response to any situation
🎙Empathy Scrum Update
Accountability is everything and the heart of a good scrum update is about peer accountability and information sharing across the team. This section is about sharing what I’m working on in the hopes that others can relate.
What I’ve done:
Small thing, but I’ve tried to make it a point to reach out to team members one on one if it seems like something is off. Being remote and not having an easy way for teammates to “pop-in” to my office has changed the dynamic significantly. It is a very challenging aspect about being remote.
What I’m doing:
Being more mindful of giving myself grace in front of the team. Most specifically, I make it a point to handle home stuff if necessary while on calls. Answer the door, respond to my kids, whatever it might be. Shows that I’m serious when I say it’s not a big deal when others do it.
Blockers:
Remote fatigue. Demonstrating empathy is that much more challenging when everyone is already emotionally stretched thin so try to find creative outlets for the team to foster better personal connections.
https://twitter.com/adammgrant/status/1135522054864871430?s=21
