1. What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
I am a hightly empathic/empathetic person. It is both my greatest strength and greatest weakness. It has helped me understand others' perspectives, which is an invaluable skill to be able to utilize in almost every area of my life. I am able to see problems from many angles because of this. I can also understand how a situation might be effecting those around me. It has helped me be a great teacher and reach kids that no other teacher is able to reach. And often, because of empathy, I am able to connect that student to other adults who are better able to help them than I can - because I also understand the teachers and staff I work with. I love when that happens!
2. How does empathy help you build better software?
The point of software is for people to use it! If I can understand the needs and perspectives of peole who will be using the software I am working on, I can make it work for them in the best possible ways! At least that is what I hope. I just applied for the Turing Diversity Scholarship. It has got me thinking about all the people on the margins - like those difficult students I love working with! Surely there are ways to make computer/internet/technology more available to people who wouldn't normally access it, AND in ways that would benefit their lives. Like foster kids, maybe! Especially kids who are aging out of the system and so desperately need basic life direction. I am about to go off on a tangent. I think I actually may need to hold back on those facets of my empathy for a little while and focus more on here and now for school.
3. Why is empathy important for working on a team?
Ah! Here is where I need to focus all that empathy ... on the people I will be working with for the next seven months! As a mountaineering guide, we learned the 5 stages of group development. It has been one of the most helpful things I ever learned in any school - besides my high school typing class! The 5 stages of group development are: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjouring. I have only ever been with a handful of groups that could reach the Performing stage, mostly because there weren't enough members of the group with empathy for the other individuals. In the Forming stage, the loudest voice is the leader, while of the group tends to hold back and take a wait-and-see approach. In Norming, the group begins to recognize who has real leadership ability (very rarely is it the loudest person), and they also begin to recognize their unique role within the group and what they are each able to contribute towards achieving the group goals. It is the Performing stage when something magical can happen. This is when the leaders are clearly recognized, all voices are heard by those leaders, and usually by the whole group. And most importanly, everyone begins to recognize not only their own role, but the role of everyone else within the group. Everyone is able to acknowledge their own strengths and weaknesses as well as what others bring and how to help them step into their strengths. And perhpas even more importantly, everyone also covers and bridges each others weaknesses. It takes a lot of individual inner work, along with humility and honesty. Basically, it is when empathy and compassion meet at the highest levels within a group/team of peeople. It is absolutely my favorite moments of all of life when I get to be part of a group that does the hard work and reaches that Performing stage. Only being a parent trumps it for me, really.
4. Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
With new teachers! Starting at a new school is so overwhelming. There is so many intricacies of day-to-day happenings at a school that everyone takes for granted. Very soon after they started and would get that wild-eyed look from being overwhelmed, I would find an opportunity to hang out with them and cover as much of those intricacies as possible. School leadership rarely remembers to go over that sort of stuff with new teachers, not because they don't care, but because there so many other essentails they have to make sure a new person knows. One of the great things about doing that for each of the new teachers was that I often earned their respect as well as their willingness to help me out in the future when I needed it! Another thing that I am good at is helping older teachers who struggle with technology. I think part of it is my age ... I'm old enough to remember life without computers or cell phones, etc. in our homes. But I'm also young enough to have started using those green-screan Apple computers in my elementary classrooms (I actually got in a fight with it, because it asked me what letter a picture of a cow would start with. I put "m" of course, because my dad called them moo-cows. I thought computers were pretty dumb (but I wasn't allowed to say that word!!)). I think the other reason I am able to help older teachers is because I get their point of view. Using technology typically comes very easy to me, at least since I got over that dumb Apple computer that thought moo-cow should start with a c! Because of my empathy, I am able to use my skills with technology to connect with their thought procosses and move through a computer very slowly - literally every click of the mouse - until they understand what to do. I have had amazing teachers, who are some of the best in their profession, cry in front of me because they feel utterly stupid when they cannot fathom the technology that their younger colleagues navigate with such apparent ease. It is very rewarding to be able to help them stay relevant at a job they excell at, while also helping restore their self-esteem.
5. When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in profession settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
Ok ... this may sound like a cop-out at first, but it is actually really hard for me to NOT be empathetic. Nearly impossible. I have people around me who help me remember to put myself first, because I am the last person in the world that I offer my own empathy and compassion to. So, really, I find it hard to be empathetic to myself, in a professional setting or anywhere else. I am really hard on myself. It is something I have been working on in all areas of my life, and probaby will continue to work on till I leave this life. I recently got advice to "feel uncomfortably good." Basically it means that it is okay for me to not take on too much or to not feel constantly burdened and overwhelmed, like I have to be the steadfast one for every person in my life - family, friends and co-workers alike. In the end, this is not helpful to colleagues. I believe it starts to seem to others like I am controlling and don't trust others to do what they are supposed to do. This isn't what I'm thinking though. I'm actually really afraid that I am letting everyone else down and not doing enough, which is rarely what I'm actually doing. Usually I need to take a step back and let go and relax ... and give some of that empathy and compassion to myself.