What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
Most people that know me consider me an empath, and I think empathy was a large reason why I originally went into the design field. I felt like my inherint ability to keep the user or the consumer in mind made me a natural for design-based work.
How does empathy help you build better software?
I think empathy really can be a source of inspiration for creating more exciting, cutting edge software. A lot of the time software has a high learning curve, or can be difficult for the people who really could benefit from it's power to access it readily. I think by tapping more into empathy, we will be able to create more intelligent software that can help marginalized, high need groups.
Why is empathy important for working on a team?
I think it's important for a team to continually work and draw attention to empathy, because it is easily looked over. There is no initial gain from empathy, often times you have to give to be empathetic. I think that thought of giving versus receiving often puts people off. However, generally it takes is a few moments of noticing a situation to realize there are multiple low-cost ways that you can show empathy and can help resolve issues.
Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
I had a colleague hurt herself skiing the day before a major meeting. I felt a sense of responsibility to assist that colleague, because I have hurt my leg a few different times throughout my life and understand how debilitating it can be to be injured. For most people, if they tell us that they've torn something in their leg, for whatever reason we don't understand the emotional turmoil of someone dealing with an ailment physically. I think my ability to empathize with that colleague ultimately helper her, and helped the company.
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 in professional settings to be empathetic just generally. In my work experience, my bosses were very cut and dry. So from the top down, I felt like empathy wasn't valued, therefore it was wrong for me to exhibit it sometimes. I think that going forward, regardless of where I am working I need to address moments with my boss that I felt like having more empathy would be beneificial to the company, it's employees, and it's customers by showing them tangible benefits whether that comes in the form of less sick days taken by employees or a higher ROI.