After reading the articles above, create a gist on Github and reflect (4-6 sentences) on the following prompts.
1.What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
Empathy has played an important role in my life in being able to connect and better understand people. For the past five years I've worked in a restaurant and brewery where we have employees that come from every state in the United States with different backgrounds, as well as many different countries (Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Turkey, Jamacia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Spain, and many others). Having to work alongside this diverse collection of people would be much harder without being empathic, and trying to communicate with peers whose English is often their second, third, or even forth language. Instead of getting frustrated with someone who doesn't speak fluent english, having empathy for them, and putting yourself in their shoes is really beneficial for working as team so the restaurant runs smoothly and efficiently. Being able to empathize with people of various backgrounds has helped me become a better listener, communicator, and leader.
2.How does empathy help you build better software?
Empathy helps build better software in many ways. First, having empathy allows you work better with your software team in terms of communication by being able to actual listen to your peers and work with them. Second, by having empathy you can focus on the root problem, not just build/design software with built in design biased. Empathy can allow you or your software team to reframe the probelm to come up with a better soultion that fits the consumers needs. Also having empathic software design enables you to come up with new ideas and software that might not have been apparent at first. Lastly, empathic software design can help prevent future issues and mistakes that could cost money and future resources.
3.Why is empathy important for working on a team?
Empathy is important for working as team because it allows you create healthy communication channels. Becoming more self aware of your emotions and feelings and how you project them on others, allows you assess your feelings and practice ways to get better about dealing with negative feelings on yourself and others. When working as a team there should be a steady stream of feedback and peer review. Using empathy in these feedback channels helps when taking or giving criticism so that you're working as a collective team to improve and emphasizes value creation to be more effective. Empathy enables someone to become a more active listener, by fulling listening to when someone is speaking and allowing for someone to speak by giving space.
4.Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
As mentioned above, working in a restaurant/brewery with people from different backgrounds and from many different countries has taught me to be more empathic. As a mangager, often I will have colleagues who are upset about the way a customer treated them or the another employee acts towards them. Most of the time English will not be their first language, sometimes they speak 2-6 different languages, so often times it's difficult for them to express what the probelm is, or they won't say anything at all because they're afraid to speak in a language that isn't comfortable to them. I have learned to empathize with them in these situations, and have gotten better at reading a person facial expressions and body language to check in on them. If I notice someone looks distraught or upset I try to communicate with them and resolve the situation. I often empathize with my colleagues, because I can't imagine myself in another country, struggling with the language and how scared and out-of-place you must feel.
5.When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
I find it most difficult to be empathetic in a professional setting when working as a team or with others when I think there is a clear 'right' or 'wrong' answer and the person(s) don't agree with me. Sometimes it's hard to try and put yourself in their shoes when you've already come to a conclusion about the situation. In these scenarios I need to not only be more empathic to these person(s) but need to take a step back and become more open-minded. I also need to work on being a more active listener in these situations, and allowing for the person(s) to have the space they need to speak.