Empathy with a purpose

Have you seen the video of bus drivers in Mexico who were being trained to understand what it's like for cyclists to share the road with buses? Each driver was asked to take a seat on a stationary bike while a colleague drove a massive bus right beside them, missing them by inches. This way, every driver went through the exact experience that they tend to provide to cyclists when they are behind the wheel. You can watch the clip here. 

​This is empathy with a purpose. Not just empathy, like ‘I get you,’ but empathy that actually makes a difference. By making the effort to understand others, we can see a world outside of ourselves, adapt accordingly, and actually connect with others.

Hang on a sec… I thought this was a newsletter about resilience. What does empathy have to do with resilience?

At a basic level, empathy is seeking to understand a situation from another person's perspective. It comes in handy for day to day life, but also professionally, particularly if we need to think obsessively about the customer/client experience. Most of us are able to put ourselves in our customers shoes quite easily.

But how often do we put ourselves in our colleagues shoes?

That person that missed their deadline. The colleague who was a bit frosty when they walked in this morning. The leader who forgot to share a crucial piece of information that would have made our lives so much easier!

So annoying, right?

The truth is that we likely have no idea what they’ve got going on.

It’s easy to judge and become annoyed, but that only ends up affecting us. We’re the ones who get annoyed. We get in a shitty mood, and that adds stress, confusion, and potentially anxiety as we might overthink what their behaviour might mean, or we take it personally. Suddenly we’re in reactive mode, rather than resilience mode.

Practising empathy can help.

Real empathy has the potential to break down walls of confusion and allows us to attempt to understand what the actual situation is. It helps with communication, which helps with so many other components of our day.

So how do we do it?

I think there are three basic tools: a pause, an open-mind, and curiosity.

1. First of all, we can take a breath. Just that tiny little moment of pause will give us the best chance of responding instead of reacting.

2. With clarity, we can then try to come from a place of zero-judgement. This is probably the hardest piece of the trilogy, because most of our thinking is based on everything that we think we know about the person. We just have to try and let all of that go, just for a second.

3. Lastly, we can be genuinely interested in their world. Ask open-ended questions to see if they might open up and share something. They may not want to, and that is ok, but at least you have done what you can do.

Look, it’s also possible that sometimes people are just jerks and don’t want to be helped, but that is a different story for another day. However, from my experience, when you show genuine interest in others, people tend to relax and share their thinking. And only then can we start to get true understanding of what they’ve got going on. That understanding breaks down walls, communication flows, and everyone feels more in sync.

I teach workplaces and individuals the strategies we all need to improve our mindset, mental health, and communication. These are preventative ideas and practical tools, so that we can thrive when obstacles come our way. Book a free discovery call today.

Until next time friends, stay resilient!

Carre @ Resilient Marketing Minds