Your Game Plan to Put Empathy Into Action

About the Episode

Maria Ross, of the Empathy Edge podcast, joins the Benefits Pulse again as our guest host. Rae Shanahan, Chief Strategy Officer at Businessolver, and Maria discuss how empathy and accountability must go hand-in-hand to create an authentic and productive workplace culture. And it’s not as simple as just saying you’re an empathetic organization. Listen to this episode to learn more from Rae and Maria about how you can help your organization drive authentic empathy and how you can hold your workforce accountable to creating a great place to work and grow. 

Read the full State of Workplace Empathy findings here: www.businessolver.com/empathy  

Transcript

Rae: 
Hi Maria, great to see you again. 

Maria: 
It’s always good to see you. And this report was so chock full of findings that we had to break this up into two episodes, which I love.  

In the first episode, we talked a lot about the trends that you saw, the themes that emerged. And today, I know we’re going to be talking a little bit more about now, what can we do? What can leaders do? What can C-suite do? What can HR leaders do to actually put empathy into action?  

Before we get there, I just want to talk about that there continues to be obviously a focus around empathy, not just from folks like us who’ve been talking about it for years, but from all of those who are in leadership positions.  

There’s a lot of agreement that empathy is a good idea and empathy brings all these benefits to the business. But why is it so hard to put it into action? Like what is the sticking point for CEOs and HR leaders? 

Rae: 
Well, I agree with you.  

I think one of the stats out of our report, Maria, was that across the board, 83% of employees, HR professionals and CEOs all agree that empathy is undervalued by U.S. organizations and is important.  

And then I’m gonna throw another data point in there before we talk about it a little bit more. And that is 55% of CEOs think they lead with empathy at work, but only 28% of employees and 22% of HR share that view.  

So I’m going to say that again, 55% of CEOs think they lead with empathy at work, but only 28% of employees and 22% of HR share that view. And employees rate their manager as the highest impact. 33% of employees see managers as key for building empathetic culture.  

And I thought that was pretty cool because when we think about, talked in the last podcast, that it’s great that CEOs are generating more awareness. It’s oftentimes not in the CEO’s kind of a persona that they can act empathetically all the time. They’re juggling so many things. 

So, as long as those HR, as long as those CEOs can be aware, because everything starts with awareness, then maybe we have a chance to really impact the culture by focusing on that, the leaders where I think sometimes employees or some employers will cut that out in tough times. 

Maria: 
Mm-hmm. Yeah. mean, like you said, at least they’re even acknowledging that it’s there and it’s important. And some of them are even acknowledging they want to be more empathetic, but they just need some help and some support.  

And we can talk about a little bit, we talk about C-suite a lot and we talk about leaders in HR, but we’re really talking about empathy across all levels. Because as I talk about empathy has got to flow both ways. So, are there any, is there anything in the report or in the findings that talk about empathy at different levels of the organization? 

Rae: 
Yes, in the report, but I think I want to bring in a couple of client stories.  

So earlier this year, we did an empathy podcast with clients, Microsoft and Cognizant. And, again, while they focus at the executive level, what they’ve really done is they put into practice some different types of learning sessions and culture sessions that are really focused on that middle layers of management.  

Because again, just like our study said, it’s those levels that really those employees look to for that empathy and just a great opportunity to foster that in an organization.  

Maria: 
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s got… No, go ahead. 

Rae: 
I’d add, I’m sorry, Maria, I’d add to that, you know, you are such a, as you said, an empathy super friend and empathy advocate that when I was going back through some of your materials, I came across what you have as the authenticity checklist and I think any organization, if they truly want to embrace empathy and make change happen, they need to do a true evaluation about the alignment in their organization.  

And hopefully you won’t mind, but maybe we can share that with people in addition to the study because I think you have five or six simple questions that an organization needs to ask.  

So, are we aligned on mission and values?  

What internal policies or practices are in place to foster empathy? 

Are we building a safe and trusting environment?  

Are we hiring right?  

And do we implement proactive and flexible customer service environment?  

And I think that those are a great way to gauge the vulnerability of an organization to admit when there’s an opportunity to improve. 

Maria: 
Absolutely. Yes, can, you know, hopefully we can definitely put that in the show notes for folks to download.  

And it’s really meant to be a conversation starter, whether it’s the organization writ large or your specific team. You can create a microculture within your team, even if you think your very large organization might not be doing the best job at empathy. You as the leader of your group can set the tone. And as you talked about and as the report showed, it’s really about how your manager is treating you that makes the difference to engagement and performance and loyalty. 

Rae: 
Yes. 

Maria: 
Okay, so let’s talk about the top behaviors that promote empathy. So let’s get real and say, okay, well, when we’re talking about a leader being empathetic, an organization being empathetic, what are the behaviors or the practices that they exhibit to show us that they are empathetic? 

Rae: 
You know, I expanded on our prior definition and I found some work by Teresa Wiseman and she says the ability to see the world as others see it, ability to understand another person’s feelings, ability to suspend judgment.  

I love the suspend judgment and the ability to communicate the understanding and understanding does not mean that you endorse it. And you know, I thought that the without judgment and then understanding without endorsing I think were really good and have things to keep in mind. 

Maria: 
Absolutely. think the minute judgment comes into play, there’s not going to be a connection there because the other person’s going to know you’re thinking something one way or the other about them.  

But if you can learn to listen with discernment and not judgment of just, let me understand what you’re saying so we both can have the same conversation, that ability to do that and not be scared of what you’re going to hear back is a marker of a really empathetic and quite frankly, high self-esteem leader, because they feel comfortable enough that they know they can accept someone else’s point of view without defensiveness or fear. 

Rae: 
Right, right. And I think those might be good things to keep in mind as we enter this interesting election season. 

Maria: 
Mm-hmm, definitely, definitely.  

Yeah, and to your point about her work finding that it’s not about endorsement, you and I have talked about this a lot, that empathy doesn’t mean you agree or even condone behavior or the decision. It just means that you are there for someone, you are factoring in their point of view, you’re thinking about, you’re intentional about how you communicate something that they may not want to hear. 

And you’re leaving space to say, okay, we both are approaching this challenge from different perspectives. How can we get the best out of both of our approaches in order to come up with a solution that moves everybody forward? 

Rae: 
Right. And you know, sometimes the opposite is a better way people for people to understand the definition of something. And so I don’t know, I don’t, if you remember, Brené Brown’s empathy short from about 10 years ago, it just sticks in my mind because, you know, she talks about empathy doesn’t start with at least doesn’t start with chin up, doesn’t start with get, get it together or get over it.  

Those are not empathetic statements. I think at one point in it, she talked about, want a sandwich? 

And, or at least you’re able to have children. And, and I think so many high achievers in society and that’s at leader. I mean, that’s at all levels, but they want to fix everything they want to, they want to come in and fix it. And so it’s our human nature to, when somebody shares a problem, it’s we want to help fix.  

The best way to promote empathy is just to listen and sit next or sit with somebody. 

Maria: 
Absolutely. There’s a great thing I quoted in my new book about this idea of when you as a leader are faced with an employee coming into your office and upset or frustrated or angry. And if they start venting, what you can do instead of, like you said, instantly fixing or instantly diving into what I call empathy hijacking, which is, I know the same exact thing happened to me and here’s how I dealt with it. And all of sudden the story’s about me, right?  

Is to actually ask the person, I want to hear you out. I want to listen.  

So A, is it not a good time for you? Then make some time to schedule. Say, this is really important to me, but I have to rush off to a meeting. Let’s schedule some time tomorrow to talk about this because I really want to hear what you have to say.  

The other thing is to say, do you want me to just see it? Do you want me to support you? Or do you want me to solve it? What is it actually you’re after?  

And instead of trying to guess, ask the employee, you know, maybe they just want to vent. They just want to be seen. It’s like, okay, bring it on. Like I will be your punching bag for a little bit so you can vent it.  

Or is it, no, yeah, I actually need you to collaborate with me and help me solve this. And that can get us out of the instant fixing mode, I think. 

Rae: 
Like you said, the empathy hijacking or our tendency to over kind of overuse empathy, right? 

Maria: 
Mm-hmm. Yes, yes.  

Overuse it. I love it.  

And I think that’s also an element of control, you know, and also especially for us as leaders. We don’t want our people to have problems or challenges and our instinct, which is lovely, is that we want to fix it for them and we want to make them quote unquote happy. But making someone happy is not the same thing as being empathetic. You might have to be empathetic with someone who’s not happy right now and there’s nothing you can do about it. 

Rae: 
Right. Right. That is absolutely true. 

Maria: 
Right. So let’s talk about accountability because this is the thing that I get a lot. It’s the subject of my new book, The Empathy Dilemma. How do you balance empathy and accountability? And I found it really interesting that accountability was a big theme in this year’s report, in this study. So can you explain why? In what context? 

Rae: 
Well, and first of all, shameless plug because I think your new book comes out next week. So I’m not sure when we’re broadcasting this, but listeners should stay on the lookout because you’ve got very good actionable information in the empathy dilemma.  

But, you know, I can, take this back to a conversation I had with our CFO shortly after he started. He’s like, right. I get this empathy thing. I really do. I’ll tell you for a CFO, he is a very empathetic person, but he’s like, how do we draw the line between empathy and accountability?  

And I think that there’s organizations that over-index on empathy, and they could be kind of called a daycare. And they maximize the comfort of the employee and the relaxed pace. But are the true performers happy in that? No, they look over their shoulder and say, why do I keep working so hard?  

So then the opposite of it is, when they over-index on accountability. And then the culture is more of fear and focus on production. And again, that’s not how you’re going to maximize your organization.  

And I think it goes back to a couple of the words that you used. And it’s really about how do you have a shared sense of mission? How do you have mutual trust? Because to build that accountability, to build that combination of empathy and accountability, the foundation is trust. Having trust in the relationship between employees and their leaders. 

Maria: 
Yeah. Yeah, and it’s not something you can just, mean, with whatever your good intention, if there are issues with the culture, if there are issues with the environment and the psychological safety, no pronouncement of the next day coming in and going, we’re going to lead with empathy now, and I’m going to be an empathetic leader. No one’s going to buy it. And so you really have to repair these underlying structural issues. 

And really understand that it’s not just about this one thing or this one interaction. It might be more systemic than that. And it’s gonna take time and it’s gonna take time to build up that trust, especially in an environment where it hasn’t been there before. Because people are gonna be very, very skeptical. But if you’re open and transparent and vulnerable, and vulnerable doesn’t mean weak.  

Rae: 
No, it does not. 

Maria: 
It means that you are just open about, we’re trying to figure this out too, and I’m trying to be a better leader and we’re trying to create a stronger culture here. And we’re not gonna fix it today. We’re gonna fix it over time and we’re gonna fix it together.  

And so here’s some practices we’re gonna start with and they’re gonna feel weird and it’s gonna be strange and we’re just gonna live in the discomfort because where it will take us is such a more inclusive, productive, innovative workplace.  

And I think the more that leaders can just admit that they want to go on this journey instead of pretending that no one knows they haven’t been on this journey yet, the better off they’re going to be in the long run. And it’s not going to be a weakness. 

Rae: 
You know, Maria, you me think about when I meet with new hires, they all read a book by John C. Miller called Question Behind the Question about personal accountability. And I always tell them my favorite chapter is chapter 24, believe or leave. And it’s called an integrity test.  

And what I tell people is, you know what, if you want to find problems in our organization, you will. And it’s that moment of truth when you say, I believe in this organization and I know that they’re a learning company and they want to continue to improve, and you buy in, but those that say, found this problem, I found this… You have a choice to make and you can believe or leave.  

Because if you want to find problems, you will. And just starting out their career and understanding, that is the kind of the belief in our organization, I think is part of that vulnerability doesn’t mean, like you said, incompetence. 

Maria: 
Exactly. Exactly.  

It just means you’re vulnerable about what you’re good at and you’re vulnerable about where there might be blind spots or gaps and we’re honest about it. And that honesty is what’s going to build the trust. I’m going to trust you a lot more as a leader if you tell me, you know what, we’re not perfect. Then if you try to convince me we’re perfect and everything’s running to maximum capacity, I’m going to be a little bit skeptical of that.  

So the key to trust is just to be honest about what’s happening. So I love that.  

Another way that you can really put empathy into action, and I’ve talked about this a lot in my keynotes and my trainings and on my podcast, is this concept of one of the, maybe it’s not a low hanging fruit because it’s very hard to implement new benefits, but there are benefits and perks that employees actually deem empathetic.  

So if you are, as an organization, focused on trying to deliver these benefits to your people, they’re actually going to start to believe that the organization sees, hears, and values them and that it is an empathetic organization.  

So can you talk to us about, from the study, what are some of the top perceived benefits of empathy? What do they get from it? And also, not just how they feel, but what are some actual benefits? I’m using the word benefits in two different ways here. What are some actual employee benefits they get that they deem to be empathetic? 

Rae: 
Yeah, yeah. It is funny about the definition of benefits because it’s always in the eye of the beholder.  

So back to using empathy, we need to have to think about the perspective of people asking questions.  

But an employer can receive benefits of having an empathetic workplace by having improved job satisfaction, having more satisfied employees, and their clients because if you have satisfied and happy employees, they’re going to deliver better for your clients because we’re in business. We’re in business to serve our customers.  

And benefits for the employee can be a feeling that they’ve been heard. They can feel that they follow across. We have really kind of three main pillars that we break the benefits down into, and that is employees that we support, the professional, realizing that each professional is different. We are not a one size fits all, we’re going to, know, employees or not, and they have different needs and different definitions of benefits where they are in their life cycle. So flexibility was mentioned over and over and over again about. 

Maria: 
[Flexibility was mentioned] so much in this report. couldn’t believe, I mean, I know it’s kind of an outcrop of the pandemic, but it’s amazing how just a flexible work schedule is seen by employees as an empathetic work benefit. 

Rae: 
Right, right. And I think the things I struggle with, know, what I do, I’ll preface this. I do feel for organizations that they do need people that have to be present. It’s difficult to have a flexible nursing staff that can come and go as they want, right? Or if I’m on a line manufacturing a product, you can’t say, well, you can come on and off the line because they have, you know, that’s key. So. 

Maria: 
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. They can’t work from home. Yeah. 

Rae: 
I do understand in those environments, we really need to think about empathy in those environments where work schedule flexibility, ad hoc flexibility is not as achievable. But I do believe there’s still ways to have flexibility in those workplaces.  

But for those organizations that are delivering a service or people do not need to be at their desk in an office or behind a line, what is wrong with letting somebody have a few minutes here and a few minutes there, if they need to go run and take the kids.  

They bring their whole selves to work. We, you know, there’s the whole talk about bringing your whole selves to work. If you’re bringing your whole selves and you have to acknowledge that they have lives outside of work and let’s treat them like adults, deal with the outliers, right? Let’s, let’s, you know, there will be some people that have something going on in their life that makes them not perform consistently at that point in time. Deal with that.  

But give the others the flexibility. And my guess, if you give them the flexibility, you’ll get more in return. 

Maria: 
100% because then they’re going to feel, they get me, they have my back. I don’t want to let them down.  

And yes, like you said, there’s going to be people, there will be people that will take advantage of the system. That’s true anywhere, any place, anytime. But if you build your culture to, like you said, the outliers, you’re going to make your top performers miserable and they’re going to go work for your competitors.  

So, where can you find the opportunities to infuse the flexibility and ask your employees what they think is flexible in the context of, you know, what is flexible? It could be, I get a few more paid sick days. It could be, you know, hey, I’m at the office, I, you know, on Mondays and Tuesdays, I have to leave at four because of my kids, whatever, you know, gymnastics class or whatever it is.  

Give them those opportunities to tell you what they believe are flexible and then implement that and then watch how their performance and loyalty and engagement goes up. 

So, I love it. Okay. So let’s talk about the three pillars, because we talked about that in our first part of the series. Let’s refresh on what the three pillars the research identified in terms of supporting employees. What are those three pillars? And then we’ll dive into each of them. 

Rae: 
Sure. Sure. 

Yeah, I started to mention one of them.  

So supporting the professional, kind of like what I said, appreciate that that one size fits all and what’s fair to one person may not be or desired to one person may not be the same to another person. And I think that’s where leaders need to have what we call table stakes in our organization and having an understanding of these are the things that are expected of you every day. You can still have flexibility, but like for one thing, we’re a cameras-on organization. It’s not a negotiable thing to not have your camera on. It’s part of our benefit of being able to continue to be a remote workforce is that we say to be part of remote workforce, you need to be engaged and you need to be a cameras on, right?  

So establishing those table stakes in that employee-employer relationship can go a long way to supporting what I’d call the professional. 

Number two is supporting the whole person, kind of like I alluded to earlier. You know, there’s the whole concept of bringing yourself to work, your whole self to work, belonging and inclusion. And what we as an employer need to understand is we need to give people the space that they can bring their whole person to work. And, you know, again, that’s just part of that empathetic conversation.  

Part of our study showed employees like to be known as people. They want to know about, many want to share about what’s going on in their lives outside and it’s okay to listen. Right.  

And then the third thing is, you know, supporting their community. You know, I put the phrase down that altruism is, is alive and well, you know, people want to feel a part of something bigger and, know, give employees a chance to showcase, their talents and give employees the opportunity to showcase, you know, their, backgrounds, their histories and you know, having it’s very free to do a it’s easy for an employer to say, Hey, let’s do a Latino cooking show to share with employees. Let’s do let’s let’s talk to new moms and let new moms have an have an environment.  

It’s, again, allowing them to coexist with life and work. 

Maria: 
Exactly. And integrate that, not balance it, because work-life balance is a myth, as we both know.  

Yeah, I just I want to bring up something on that because this is such an important point. I’ve made, I talked about some of these tactics and strategies in my new book that just identically aligns with what your research found.  

And this is why Businessolver’s thought leadership is something I go to over and over and over again with my own work.  

But there’s a way that you can do team building and bonding that actually benefits not just the professional development of your people, but the community at large. So you sort of get like a double win. They’re developing a professional skill. They’re actually a triple win. They’re bonding as a team, but they’re also benefiting the community in some way.  

And there’s a woman named Terri Schmidt who runs a company called Stronger to Serve, and she helps businesses create team building experiences that go beyond just, we’re all getting together for happy hour. Can you create a team building experience that builds professional skills, which is beneficial to the organization and helps your people give back to their community?  

So they’ve created these really unique experiences you can choose from that actually teach a skill and then you apply the skill through a community project. So it’s just this wonderful way. And to your point, it’s kind of supporting the whole person. 

It’s supporting the professional from a development standpoint and it’s supporting the community. So I love it’s like a triple threat. 

Rae: 
Well, it’s interesting you say that this year for our Foundation we did just that.  

And this morning in our What’s Going On Show, we had a woman that runs a nonprofit in Louisville come and share what it meant to have a Businessolver team come and help support her operation.  

So we did six, we did six, or we’re doing six week long volunteer events in different cities across the country. And employees are given the week off. But then, you know, we believe that it’s about giving back in attitude and actions. So part of supporting the community, we’re doing these different events and Solvers applied and then they come back and I mean, it’s the emails that I get back from people about what they’ve learned and how they’re going to continue to give back is just so heartwarming.  

So it sounds like something very similar, but it’s just been a fantastic experience. And sure there’s an expense on our side, but the expense is minor to what we’re able to do in the communities and the experiences that employees are able to get. 

Maria: 
Right. Well, look at all the benefit you get. I mean, you build brand awareness, you build community connections, you build, you know, it’s just, it goes on and on and on.  

Yeah. Okay. So as we kind of wrap up here, what is, what would you say is a key takeaway from the report in terms of not just concept, but an action, a game plan action that your viewers and our listeners can take? 

Rae: 
You know, this is going to sound very simple Maria, but go read your book. No, kidding!  

Maria: 
Why thank you! 

Rae: 
Because I think you’re going to hit on some really good things. you know, the biggest thing is I’ll say two positives. Again, we’ve have the most awareness of the impact of empathy. And I am a firm believer. The awareness of something is the place to start to make a change. And I think it’s even down to, we think about Jelly Roll in his ‘I’m not okay’ song that, you know, is garnering a lot of attention. and, and I think we are just at a, really pivotal time to embrace empathy, embrace, you know, as, as, Brene says, embrace the suck a little bit and, and, and, and take a step back and just say, how can we number one, just listen. 

Maria: 
Yeah, first place to start is to put your own ego aside and just listen for a while.  

Love it, so much great stuff.  

Well, this has been so insightful and so fun as always to talk to you about all these issues. Thank you for having me as a guest host. I really appreciate it. And thank you everyone for stopping by the Benefits Pulse. Stay in touch by signing up for email or following Businessolver on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram to get the latest episode information.  

So all of the links, we’re have all the links in the show notes, right? And on businesssolver.com slash benefits dash pulse. Have a great day and remember to check out more episodes of the Benefits Pulse. 

Rae: 
Thanks Maria. 

Maria: 
Thanks.