turing empathy

gear-up.md

What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?

Empathy has been one of the best things in my life and more recently one of the most troubling. I am thankful for empathy bringing my father and I closer together before his death in 2014. We were always so similar that we fought and I had this idea that I had to "win". As I grew older and learned more about his experiences and began to understand his motivations, I realized that there was a friend here. He loved to teach and as a teacher he took any opportunity to do so. I asked him questions and leaned in when I had previously tuned him out and felt angry. Empathy gave me a close relationship with my father and has helped me ease everyday for my mother.

How does empathy help you build better software?

These are largely team based projects and learning to listen and engage with your teammates through empathy can help speed up deliverables, and discover needs and uses previously unthought of for the product. Getting into your end user’s shoes so to speak can highlight what the real needs of the product are or where it’s falling short.

Why is empathy important for working on a team?

Everyone of us brings a wealth of experiences and perspectives to the table. Taking an empathic approach to how they see things, what is going on with them, and being aware of dynamics within the team will help everything run smoother. Personally, for the majority of my career I’ve been a harmonizing person within a team. I check in with people and anticipate needs as best I can.

Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.

At my previous position we had fairly high turnover in my department. While I always had a full plate so did my teammates. All of our work was interconnected so communication and open exchange was important, if someone fell behind or something fell through for a project we worked together to find a fix and then began to manage the emotional fallout. We had weekly meetings and talked daily about new frustrations/blocks, and it was an open floor for posing solutions.

When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?

From my experience I have struggled most when I am unhappy at work. I am so focused on my own problems I have created an unfriendly office space on occasion. I’ve started to develop approaching the correct channels with how I am feeling and being more considerate of my coworkers environment. Are there issues? Yes! Do I need to make other people uncomfortable so my problems are given the attention I feel they deserve? No!

I have been in survival mode for so long I had forgotten about empathy as itself. I still practiced it, but I hadn’t been taking that moment to pause and really lean in.