Empathic Encounters → Better Decisions
By Evelina Fredriksson & Johanna Hallin
Empathy is the ability to place yourself in the position of others, and to view the world from their perspectives. Unlike pity, empathy is not an emotional expression, but a skill. Business leaders who learn and practise this skill will be better equipped to embrace and process information that will help them tackle tomorrow’s challenges in a rapidly changing world.
The purpose of the empathic encounter is to provide a foundation for better decisions.
Many decisions effect those who are far from the centres of decision making — those who are living on the rubbish dumps and the bar streets — as much as they effect those sitting at the very table where the decision is made.
Still, most impactful verdicts are reached without having adequate information since the facts are generated in the narrow circles of those in power. The girls featured on the following pages are literally living in garbage so they have little to gain from preserving status quo and they hold information about risks that are invisible from the corner office. That makes them a priceless source of information for the business leaders of tomorrow.
The empathic meeting is a prerequisite for leadership that goes beyond mere displays of symbolic generosity towards those who have not been given a seat at the table.
Empathy is a skill that enables genuine commitment to global development and human wellbeing — and, in addition, leads to better business.
Shift to purpose-driven leadership
Empathy is also the key to making the shift from cause-driven benevolence to purpose-driven leadership. By mastering the skill of empathy, leaders can navigate through complex landscapes and ensure that all decisions serve the same purpose — to create value for all stakeholders at all times. By stakeholder we mean anyone who is invested in or affected by the business, for example shareholders, employees, consumers, people affected by the company’s pollution, marketing or security arrangements and so on. In this manner, leaders can move away from charity and siloed sustainability efforts, towards a holistic view of a person’s place in wider systems.
Srey — Tales of Urban Girlhood is drawn from the stories of girls in an urban disaster area. Encounters with girls who are literally living among waste — at the bottom layer of a global consumption culture — where the contestations and challenges of sustainable development are brought to a head.
Their stories allow readers and listeners to understand the intricate ways in which all human beings are intimately connected through commercial activity. Value chains — the sets of activities that an organisation carries out to create value for its customers — will have different characteristics depending on how much emphasis is being placed on the people involved at its various stages.
Reflecting on the connection between yourself and Srey
By reflecting on the connection between yourself and Srey — the girl at the bottom of the global value chain — you can arrive at a number of insights and conclusions that make a difference:
Begin by recalling a moment where you are facing a product. Perhaps you will think of something you recently picked up at a grocery store. It is carefully packaged in plastic. The plastic is what makes the food safe to eat and, perhaps, you will finish by sorting the plastic in a recycling bin in a modern and ergonomically designed kitchen in, say, Stockholm. Srey’s meetings with products of consumption happen in a geographic place that is radically different, both physically and culturally — not only in regard to physical location, but also in the global value chain.
Of course, the used packages that constitute the ground beneath Srey’s feet did not literally travel from your kitchen — yet this is a clear image of how the same kinds of products play different roles, and gain different meanings, in different lives. In many places, the value chain literally forms a global link between people. For instance, a piece of clothing is made in Southeast Asia and travels to Scandinavia to be bought and worn. And although waste is being exported across the world, a piece of clingfilm deposited in Sweden will not end up on the dump in Cambodia. Nevertheless, the type of products that you might find in an average modern apartment in Stockholm will also appear on that dump in Phnom Penh. A person will encounter these products in different locations in the value chain, depending on how much (or how little) power she is capable of exercising. In other words, the value chain is a reflection of power.
Instead of serving its purpose in the safety of daily life, the plastic that Srey encounters is on a rubbish dump. She supports herself by collecting, washing and selling this plastic. Parts of this plastic might be floating on water, concealing a deep hole which if she were to step into it — would end her story. The difference in access to safety is one of the most tangible expressions of power imbalance. Then again, it is obvious that the problem will not be solved by simply moving everyone up the chain, so that even more people will surround themselves with products that are yet to be unpacked. Rather, it is in the value chain itself — the activities that generate growth, where we need to create fundamental change.
The problem will not be solved by moving everyone up the chain, so even more people will surround themselves with products. Rather, it is in the value chain itself — the activities that generate growth, where we need to create fundamental change.
The girls’ stories testify to the way in which people are interconnected, through waste and transactions, but also through decisions based on inadequate information. This book sets out to examine how the empathic encounter can be put to work as a tool for bringing a brighter future into being.
Meeting Srey
Photography by Sotarn.

Chea Leakena, 13
Leakena is cooking for the family and selling drinks to the people passing by in the alley. She is also a sixth grade student. Her dream is to work at a bank, and then be able to help her family.

Chan Pov, 20
Chan Pov came from Kampong Cham a month ago. She joined her sister in a beauty salon in the slum of Borei Keila.
The salon is always full of customers; there is even a line of ladies waiting to get their nails, hair and make-up done. She likes the make-up best. The look called ‘sexy face’ is created using lots of eyeliner, blush and light powder.
Four years ago, around the New Year, she met a man in the Pagoda. He asked for her number, and then he called her. Chan Pov felt nothing in the beginning. It was just a phone call, and she knew nothing about him, but soon after that things started to change. They fell in love and married in the traditional way. Not much to talk about, she feels. Everything was the way it should be — she wore a pretty dress, the monks chanted, and they threw a party. She was only 16, but she never felt that 16 was too early — all she could think of was how much she loved him.
He is a construction worker. When he is not at work, he is home with her. Sometimes they go out together, but she likes it best when she gets to cook for them both.

Sreyneath, 25
SreyNeath runs an illegal lottery. The company franchising the lottery is paying her per gambler. Like everyone else originating from the area, she has a story about a home torn down by bulldozers. She has been working in the lottery for seven years. She dreams about having enough money to move up the value chain — to own a lottery, just like the one she works for now. That’s the way to get rich, she says.

This text is an excerpt from Srey — Tales of Urban Girlhood, a book on empathic meetings all the way out into the outer rims of the value chain.
- Published by Dokument Press
- Texts & Insights by Johanna Hallin, that is me, and Evelina Fredriksson
- Photography by Sotarn
- Design by Pondus

