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What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
Empathy is a part of every day in some way. It's helped me create and maintain personal relationships as well as professional ones. I use it to guide my decisions in how and when I interact with others.
I think it helps me notice what feelings I'm experiencing, and determine if I need time to work through those feelings or if I could use support from someone else. It also lets me know when I have the desire and energy to be productively social and engage with someone in a way both of us are enjoying and benefitting from each other's company.
Empathy also helps me shape my beliefs and motivates me to get to a position where I am better able to help the community around me.
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How does empathy help you build better software?
Empathy helps us build better software because ultimately, software provides solutions for human users, or is created for the benefit of humans in some way.
Using empathy gives us the space to ask for and receive information needed to create the software people actually want, and not just what we think is right. When we allow ourselves to put away our ego and gain from critiques from our teammates or users, we open ourselves up to further ideation and applications. We can also learn to give meaningful critiques (e.g. "Nice sandwich") so that our feedback is easier for others to receive, and teach others to do the same for us.
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Why is empathy important for working on a team?
Empathy is crucial for working as a team because we ourselves are human, and are working with other humans who have unique wants, needs, feelings, and circumstances. These differences can either be a source of digression or we can use them as opportunities to generate new and better work.
Our emotional states and abilities to manage them have an impact on those around us, and those around us affect us too. Treating each other with respect and kindness allows teams to be able to work together more effectively. People simply do better work when they feel welcome, heard, and valued.
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Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
In a past job, I was brought onto a team to help someone (let's call her Jen) diffuse her workload. After going over the assignments, it seemed to me there wasn't so much work to be done that a second person needed to be added on.
After a few months, the manager ended up removing Jen from the team and I was now in charge of this set of tasks. In the months following, I started feeling more and more burnt out, even though the workload had not changed.
Talking to Jen helped me and it seems she got some closure from having a chance to talk to me about this situation too. I literally had to be in her shoes to understand why she began to fall back at her last/my then current assignment - it had felt like work wasn't getting done because we weren't good workers, but talking to each other helped us realize the management style played a significant role too. Jen was now a lot more productive and energized in her new department, and I was reminded that I was capable of better work in the right environment. This helped motivate me to start making some necessary changes.
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When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
It's hardest for me to be empathetic in a professional setting when I'm dealing with someone who is unable to access their own sense of empathy. In this case, it helps to remind myself that they are human and may not realize how distressed they are, and how their own emotional state is affecting others and short-circuiting their ability to cooperate.
I think far too many arguments are due to a misunderstanding in or misalignment of what's being communicated. I can work on cultivating patience and understanding - it's easy to take on someone else's negativity and give that back in return. I can also work on clearly conveying my own thoughts, feelings and needs.