EMPATHY- Is It Really Hard To Develop at the Workplace?
Meaning-noun the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Books to refer- EMPATHY, WHY IT MATTERS AND HOW TO GET IT?- Roman Krznaric; WIRED to CARE: How companies prosper when they create widespread empathy by Dev Patnaik
Empathy is an emotionally driven behavior and can be used to develop an important organizational skill- your EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT. If channelized properly, this could be used intelligently to operate and make an organization`s multi-model system highly functional. You can become resilient if you can strike a balance between your Empathy and decision making. As a leader, empathy creates a binding force in the team which thereby calls upon for more productivity, agility and understanding among its members. We are social animals who have evolved to have empathy as an emotion. But do we effectuate this emotion before acting upon our decisions, is the question we need to ask today.
We often confuse Empathy with Sympathy. While both of them are concerned with the understanding of other`s situations, being empathetic is about acting upon or reaching a conclusive decision after putting ourselves in the situation of the other person. Sympathy is simply about showing affection and feeling sorry for someone`s loss. We can act out of sympathy too but on an organizational front, this would mean keeping aside all the practicalities and rationale of the work forefront. You would go to any extent to help someone, keeping your job at the edge.
In the recent turn of events, we all have been very vocal and aware of Mental Health. Quoting a very common condition included in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as an occupational phenomenon. It is not classified as a medical condition.
Burn-out is defined in ICD-11 as follows:
“Burn-out” is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
- feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
- increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
- reduced professional efficacy.
Now, as an empathetic co-worker or Leader, you need to take an understanding of the above condition very closely. At the workplace, there can be a subtle difference as to how we consider our decisions in given conditions. Concurrences on the organizational front need to be derived by taking into account every analysis of the individual’s roadblocks and situations. The probing question is How?
We need to induce Empathy building techniques in our work culture. This is imbibed via Design Thinking- Creating sense and knowledge.
Design thinking nurtures the idea of welcoming perspectives, creating curiosity to understand the needs of others, respecting individuality and reflect on every situation. You can study the evolution of empathy in organizations that made them successful. This article gives insights to few such economical effects and real-life organizations that broke prejudices. https://www.emergenetics.com/blog/the-real-world-benefits-of-empathetic-leadership/
Following practices have ensued in nurturing a well-knitted empathetic environment at work:
- Building Curiosity- To step into someone`s shoes is living in an imaginary world. You can only relate to someone if you take an understanding of their day to day life. This means doing more than nodding and exchanging glances but taking up a conversation now and then with your colleagues.
- Reflect on situations- When someone tells us a story that led to their actions, we often draw the strings around our own set of perceptions about the person. This entails decisions that might require a second thought. You need to work on the details and be more relative to make a thoughtful decision. Hold that gut feeling and introspect!
- Respect Individuality- We all have our way with things. We cope up with certain situations in different ways. You can channelize someone`s shortcomings once you start valuing their actual routine.
“You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” — John Steinbeck.
Empathy at the workplace is developed with a conscious organization led approach!
The in-depth study of all the psychological and sociological nuances of Empathy can be found on https://hbr.org/2018/12/the-secret-to-leading-organizational-change-is-empathy
