I will admit that in the past I was not a very empathetic person. If there was a scenario that I had not personally experienced, I simply couldn't understand the emotional reactions another person was having. I've since grown and after realizing how I may have made others feel, I have conciously made efforts toward being a more empahtetic person. Since doing so, my relationships have matured and I feel like I truely know the people in my life. Empathy allows me to truly understand the people around me.
Software development is problem solving. Everyone has different problems and everyone has their own solutions. Being empathetic can allow you to see someone else's point of view and frame a problem in a way you didn't see before. Having a different perspective can really change the outcome of a project on many scales. If I am designing a website that caters to the elderly, I am not going to make the page in 8pt. font. If I make an app for music lovers, I will include music that I personally dislike, knowing that not all users have the same tastes as me. Empathy can inform design and development in many ways.
Sharing ideas, addressing issues, and finding solutions. I may work on the same problem for hours and get nowhere. All it takes is someone with a fresh perspective to point out an issue that I've been overlooking the entire time. The beauty of collaboration is that everyone on a team comes from different backgrounds that alter the way they perceive problems and how to solve them.
I have previously worked as a butcher. When I began we were getting what are called primal cuts. These are larger cuts that contain smaller cuts within them. We would process these and it worked well for business. After a management change, we switched to a whole carcass program in which we would receive whole animal quarters. At first I was not receptive. This was going to take longer, costing the company more money, and giving us less time to complete other tasks. While learning how to break down whole carcasses, I understood why we switched. Not only did this process give us all better understanding of the anatomy, but with that understanding came ways in which to further utilize every part of the animal. Bones were now turned into broth instead of placed in the trash. Oxidizing cuts could be cut into stew meat or ground and sold as ground beef. This system set us apart from all other meat departments in town and worked very well.
When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
Probably when understanding is not reciprocated. I always try to be open to different ideas but when my voice isn't heard, it becomes more difficult to want to hear others. I don't think that being empathetic means one cannot be assertive. In these scenarios I simply need to explain why my idea may work and look at the pros and cons of each idea to meet somewhere in the middle.