Squiggly sprint 24: Day 13 - Empathy
- Steve Morrell
- Sep 7, 2024
- 2 min read
Day 13 of the SquigglySprint, we are over halfway, and the topic is empathy.
In many ways, this topic feels to me like a big argument of “nature vs. nurture”.
On the one hand, some people seem to be naturally more empathic than others.
On the other hand, I firmly believe that everything can be learned. It’s just a matter of seeing the value in something that you are not very good at.
Listening to Helen talk about not being a naturally empathetic person, I think she put it well when she said “Often when I come to a conversation, I’ve not come with ‘I need to be more empathetic in this conversation’, that is never the first thing in my head.”
That is likely more where people are coming from when they “lack empathy”. It’s just not what they see as important in the now. They may have a business problem to solve, are rushing between meetings, or any number of reasons why it isn’t important. This usually manifests as the conversation not being about the person, but the task.
For me, the best way to improve on this is to build it into the structure of how you work, and hold yourself to it. Even if someone is more process based, this can appeal. It can also help when an individual is often empathetic, but they have other things on their mind today. For me, a lot of it is having tools that I can use to encourage good conversation with the person opposite. Even if one of us is struggling on that day, I often find that keeping things flowing will often open up the relationship really well.
A few ideas.
Build a point into meetings to check in on the other person. I’ve often seen this as red/yellow/green check-ins where everyone gets a moment to talk about where their head is at personally and professionally.
Have a prepared set of questions that you lean on. I have a handwritten note of MBS’ seven coaching questions on my desk at home to remind me of them, and just build a 1x1 template for it in our HR system Hailey to make sure I always have good questions to fall back on to bring the conversation back to the person.
Study Chris Voss and his negotiation techniques. A lot of them are scarily effective at encouraging people to talk.
I often find that just having the right questions to nudge the conversation, so it continues to interesting places is all one needs to learn about someone else. That’s ultimately where empathy starts.
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