Empathy. Please have some Empathy.

Now this is going to sound cliche and monotonous but if someone ever says that it is, I’d respond back with the following question :

“How can something so cliche and monotonous be one of the most important traits we could have as an individual that has the potential to contribute to his/her fellow beings?” You give me an answer to that and I will maybe agree with you on labelling it “cliche/monotonous”.

By the way, this is not some dopamine driven Ted Talk but a reminder to everyone that we are a lot like than we may think. We may be different in how we look, the shit we’ve gone through and our perspectives may be diverse in many ways but at the end of the day, we are a lot alike. Different but also Similar.

There’s a famous South African philosophy put forward by Nelson Mandela called “ The Spirit of Ubuntu” which trickles down to various aspects of life known as the human spirit/experience. In an interview he described Ubuntu as follows :

“A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food and attend him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects”

and as Desmond Tutu described Ubuntu

“the essence of being human” where in order to be human, we have to learn from others on how to be human.

The reason why I talk about Empathy is because according to the South African traveler analogy, Empathy is innate in us, it’s how humans are meant to be but somewhere down the line, someone decided to shit on empathy and use it as a manipulation technique to some extent rather than for what it truly is and it seems like it’s being trickled down to everyone, even by generation. You and I both know it is the case.

So why? How the hell do I know? It can be the capitalistic driven economic conditions of the world? The f***ed up values of business leaders which again trickles down to the employees where they’ve been trained to practice “ money first, and everything else is second? (anything you practice, you get good at), or could it be something like the not so great childhood you had to go through which kinda sets the foundation to a negative view of other individuals? It could be all of the above or none but whatever it is, the problem still exists.

I like how Satya Nadella (The CEO of Microsoft) talks about empathy. He said that in order to meet unmet unarticulated needs of customers, the source which drives that innovation is built by a deep sense of empathy towards your customers.

Think about it. Design Thinking requires Empathy, Product Development requires Empathy, User Experience requires Empathy, Leadership which builds businesses that last a lifetime requires Empathy and yet here we are, in a world where it seems to be at a minimum.

Oh I’m no better either. I know moments in which I’ve been the completely been the opposite in terms of empathy. I have been selfish, negligent, ignorant and I’ve hurt people that I truly care about through such behaviour. But on a plus, those moments of weaknesses has helped me dig deep, beat myself up and tell myself to be better. To be more understanding with the people I love, to ask the right questions, to understand people better and what has shaped them to who they are, to have meaningful conversations which actually matter and to truly build meaningful relationships that last.

During a week long one on one T&D with the team, I remember talking about Empathy numerous times that week. For example, during that week the main goal of the T&D was about sales and conversions not in a numbers perspective but in a quality and value perspective.

I remember one of them had just called up a potential customer who dropped us a Message and the employee had just talked about the product and the process of purchasing the product and that was it. The prospect had been driving at the time in traffic but my employee was like “can I have 2 minutes of your time” and the prospect was nice enough to say yes. But the truth is, in terms of understanding how we can create value for the prospect through the product, it became a robotic general sales talk because you didn’t want to keep the prospect on the line for too long. Instead of doing that, if the prospect was asked for a convenient time to talk, we could’ve built a better connection with the prospect through conversation and understanding, a better first impression and value could’ve been provided a lot differently because at the end of the day, the reason the prospect dropped you a message is because they sense that the product could help them.

By the way, if that team member is reading this, you have come a long way now and super proud to see the progress you’ve made.

But you get my point, yes? Empathy is critical non-negotiable part of every aspect of our lives. From the big things to the little things. From my personal experience (and I’m not generalizing here), I only hope that the freshers to the job market develop a deep sense of empathy. I’m saying this because with Covid, the isolation put a limit to human interactions. Our interactions became the phones in our hands via our social media accounts but we all know that social media gives out a false sense of reality. Our understanding or judgement of people came through their TikTok videos and their Instagram Post and as more time goes on those false sense of realities start being inflated with truth and if that continues, developing meaningful workplace cultures and meaningful consumer relationships goes down the drain. It’s not their fault either so I truly hope that companies do their part to empathize with the freshers in the market and coach them accordingly.

So how do we do it? How do we develop a sense of Empathy for one another? Google has plenty of answers but if I were to give my personal perspective on this, I’d say the following,

1. Respect.

I learnt this from the meaningful relationships I’ve built both my platonic and romantic. I remember having a phrase with someone I love, we always said it to remind ourselves. It was something along the lines of, “Respect each other to listen to each others perspective even if it’s different and respect each other to communicate it you so that you can understand where they are coming from”.

As simple and cliche as it sounds, we both know respecting people is something work on and it’ll take longer to actually develop that since the world we live creates this insane insecurity of the world.

2. Read

Here’s why I say Read. I’ve come to realize over the years that in order to understand others, it starts with you first understanding yourself. The self help books come in handy for this. It really does. There’s this whole stigma around self help where only people struggling with some shit are the only ones that read it and I honestly see it as a bunch of crap. I read to solve problems, nothing more and I’ve solved many through reading. Developing your self awareness is a key element towards Empathy. For example, If you see someone having a problem with a certain circumstance and that awareness to understand what that person is feeling because you’ve felt it too at some point, you can guide them through that phrase. That’s the Art of Empathy, that’s the essence of Being Human.

3. Practice

Practice? You are probably are wondering what the hell I mean but hear me out. From what I’ve understood over the years especially professionally, empathy is like a muscle. You need to keep practicing it to be deeper into it.

For example, when someone comes and maybe unconsciously said something to hurt you, it’ll turn into this big ego trip and you’d probably say something similarly hurtful to even the score but what if you said something like “Everything okay? You don’t usually talk like this”. Easier said than done, trust me. My ego gets in the way and I’d even the score but again, Practice. Time and time again. Probably till you are dead.

Satya Nadella says the ability to understand yourself is a Lifetime’s Journey. Since, understanding others requires you to understand yourself which is going to take a lifetime, the Art of Empathy is truly a lifetime’s journey in the making.

But there’s another side to this, you can have too much empathy and from my personal perspective, thanks to the world we live in, that can also be used against you and I wish I could tell you what to do about it but I honestly don’t know and I hope I figure that out.

If you are reading this, this one was a little long but I hope you enjoyed the read. I hope we can respect each other to have a deeper sense of empathy towards each other. When done right, it creates meaningful connections which lasts.

I’ll end with my favorite quote,

“Empathy is the source to Success”

Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft)

Much Love,

Azfar