1. What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
Oh man. Empathy begets openness, which begets self-understanding, which is the key to understanding others. When one can be honest with oneself, the mysteries of human interaction begin to unfold, in my opinion anyway. Empathy helps you begin to rid yourself of unhelpful tools, such as judgement, anger, resentment, etc. (especially unhelpful in the workplace) and develop underutilized ones. Empathy has helped me see outside of myself, helped me see both the good parts and the tough parts of myself, which has helped me better understand my peers, friends, loved ones.
2. How does empathy help you build better software?
Empathic centered design taked a look at the product use case in its native context, rather than what we hope the use case will be. This is a major benefit not only to the end user, but also to the company, saving in the end both hours and saving on the budget (the idea being that empathic design will result in less 'fixes' and more features favorable to the people actully using the product).
3. Why is empathy important for working on a team?
Well, first empathy has been shown to actually enhance our ability to recieve information. Secondly, you're likely worling on a team with other people - which means you need to be able to work with all the complexities of human emotion and interaction. One way that empathy can greatly enhance productivity simply by avoiding the pitfalls of interpersonal conflict.
4. Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
I would argue that every single instance where I managed to thoughtfully apply empathy was benefited from it. This is a bit far out from programming, but my time in the hospital benefited greatly by any degree of emotional intelligence. Empathy could often solve some seemingly immovable roadblocks. As a therapy aide, I often found myself as an impromptu mediator between the physical therapist I was working with, and the often irratable and pained patient. On many occasions the patient had no idea they were to begin therapy and were understandably frustrated, especially given the pain that often ensued. The PT often didn't care to hear any of it, hearing it daily. For those particularly quarrelsomer patients, I'd remain after the treatment and hear their frustrations. A simple fix was just calling ahead - some patients wanted an hour notice, some more, some less. But this gave everyone time to prepare; this also provided time for nursing to get in and distribute pain medication beforehand. All it took was listening.
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 think both in and out of professinal settings, it is very difficult to be empathatic in the face of anger, especially if it is combative. I've faced this in work and at home, and recently with a room mate. I know there are different ways to get there, but I tell you that meditation, particularly mindfulness meditation, has been a HUGE help in my ability to be empathetic even in the midst of a particularly high tension situation. With enough practice, you begin to see yourself outside of yourself, and you begin to see yourself in other people. Judgement begins to become an altogether useless tool when you can understand or even relate to the plight of just about anyone - any one of us could've easily been in their situation.