What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
After the smartest self-driving car, the fastest internet infrastructure, the most comprehensive knowledge repository, and the most affordable healthcare system are all built, what will be left is the relationships and interactions we have with each other.
Which investors are investing in that?
A colleague I had lost touch for nearly a decade reached out to me few weeks ago.
We had a wonderful chat.
What struck me was that he felt hesitant to reach out because he hadn’t kept in touch for a long time.
Let me be clear.
If you’ve entered my life at one point in time, no matter how long we’ve lost touch, you’re still in my life.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Losing touch is one of the most natural things that can happen in life. There’s nothing wrong with it.
This is even more so if you wish to ask me for a favor. Please ask me for favors. I’d love to help if I can. I feel alive when I’m contributing to other people’s lives. If I can help, you’re doing me a favor.
I thought I was empathizing.
I wasn’t.
It was nearly 20 years ago.
I had a dear friend who was suffering from bipolar depression.
At the time, I had recently graduated from college with a degree in computer science. I prided myself in being an excellent problem solver. So I was determined… to solve my friend’s problem.
So What did I do? Well, I started by reading books, articles, papers, you name it, I read them all.
After gaining enough understanding of the theory of depression, I went to a local support group looking for some practical advice.
What I learned there was that the best way to help my friend was to try and empathize with her.
What this meant was that the next time my friend got depressed, I was to sit down with her and listen to her carefully. Once I could understand how she’s feeling and why, I was to express this understanding back to her. According to the people at the support group, if my understanding was correct, my friend will feel understood and that’ll make her feel better.
I was surprised.
It sounded too easy to be true.
…
But then I tried.
…
The whole time I was trying to empathize with her, she kept yelling, screaming, and bawling. Telling me that I did not understand.
What was I supposed to do? I kept changing what I said, over and over and over again, hoping… that I would eventually get through to her.
But I couldn’t.
Nearly half an hour went by and I was just sitting there with all my energy drained, exhausted and unable to figure out what I was missing.
But then… something occurred to me.
I suddenly remembered that, earlier in the day, I had said something to her, which, in hindsight, was hurtful.
So I told her that.
And like magic, she stopped yelling and screaming, as she sat there sobbing… while I finally… empathized with her.
…
What I realize now is that everything I’d been telling her up to that point was framed in such a way that it was all. her. fault, and I had nothing to do with it.
This was not because I had malicious intent. In fact, I had great intentions. I cared for her well-being. I wanted to help. This is the very definition of compassion!
Yet, in hindsight, I learned that despite best intentions, compassion actually lead me to frame the situation as a problem to be solved. And in doing so, 3 things happened to my mindset. 3 things… that lead me to unintentionally do more harm than good.
Now, what do I mean by this?
First of all, I played the role of a problem solver. In doing so, I subconsciously distanced myself from my friend, to the point where I felt sufficiently divided from her.
Why did I do this? Because I was there to help her. Not the other way around. I was concerned for her wellbeing. Not mine. After all, my friend was the one with the problem, not I.
How can a problem solver possibly be a part of the problem? How can the helper be the one being helped? They can’t. It makes perfect sense for us to be divided.
But of course, in the end, I realized that I was, in fact, a part of the problem. My distancing blinded me to this.
Second of all, in treating my friend as someone with a problem, I subconsciously elevated myself above her, to the point where I considered myself to have the superior authority to judge. Judge not only her problem as bad, but also my understanding of the problem as right.
Why? Well… Because I spent months studying depression. I may not have been the world’s expert, but I was surely a better judge than she was!
But of course, in the end, I realized that I was not a good judge at all. She was feeling the way she was, not because of depression, but because of something hurtful I had said. That’s not something I knew enough to claim authority. In other words, I didn’t know enough to elevate myself above her and judge.
So she was not wrong to reject my understanding. In fact, if anybody was wrong, it was me. I was wrong.
Finally, I held onto my distance and judgment. Not only that, but I also held on to a solution I had come up with even before entering the conversation.
Guess what solution I had imagined for my friend?
She. just had. to. cheer. up!
What a beautifully simple solution, right?
I held on to this solution, because I also held on to the judgment that my understanding of her was right.
But of course, in the end, I not only realized that my solution was wrong, but that the actual solution was completely new and unexpected. Yet, it was also so very obvious, simple, and even logical in hindsight. So much so that I could not understand why I hadn’t thought of in the first place. So what I had to do was actually let go of my judgment and solution, not hold on to them.
In the popular media, there is significant misunderstanding around what it means to empathize. Most confuse it with feeling what other people are feeling (That’s called emotional contagion.). Many people, like I did, also confuse techniques like active listening as being analogous to empathizing. It isn’t.
Empathizing isn’t something we do, it’s something that happens. It is an event and an experience, when we enter a state of feeling as if we’re connected or at one with an “other.” Reflecting on my mindset at the time, I now clearly see that I was entering a state that made it harder for myself to empathize with my friend. I thought I was empathizing, but I clearly wasn’t.
This isn’t to say that there’s nothing we can do. There are plenty of things we can do. Listening actively is one of them. It’s just that merely listening actively is not always enough.
Looking back, something that greatly surprised me was that once I empathized with her she thanked me.
Why was this surprising?
…
Because it was not what I thought was worthy of her gratitude.
…
It took me a significant amount of reflection before I became aware of the fact that my compassion was tied to my own need to make a contribution to her life. Reflection also helped me become aware of a belief I had, which was that to contribute to her life I had to problem solve.
Since I was unaware of how my own needs and beliefs were tied to this, I was so surprised that she didn’t appreciate this. In fact, after several trials, I started to feel indignant of how ungrateful she was of my efforts to help her. Why? Because she was not appreciating what I thought she should appreciate.
In hindsight, I am now more surprised that what I called “caring” meant little more than trying to persuade her. I wanted to get her appreciate what I appreciated. I was trying to manipulate her! Seen this way, I realized that the way I was expressing my compassion and contribution got in the way… of actually contributing to her life.
Such… is what I call the “irony of care.”
…
Now, let me be clear.
I do not wish to criticize the problem solving mindset.
A problem solving mindset is most certainly appropriate when faced with a problem like so:
1 + 1 = ___
Why?
Problem solve away if these conditions are met. It is only when these conditions are not met that you need an alternative mindset.
…
Now that I’m in my 40s, it’s been almost 20 years since the time of the incident with my friend. Yet, I still find this event to be a gift that keeps on giving.
In my work, I frequently work with CEOs who have no choice but to frame employee growth and engagement as a problem to be solved. I also work with employees who have no choice but to frame executive leadership as a problem to be solved. They both inevitably find out that problem solving is ill-suited for the situation. How do they find out? Usually, when the employees don’t grow much or leave and the executives start to burn-out or become even more agitated.
I recently gave a keynote at Cleveland Clinics’s Patient-Experience Summit, where I learned that doctors had framed patient-care as a problem to be solved. The patients, of course, had framed these doctors’ approach to care as a problem to be solved. As a result, not only were patients not getting any better and leaving to other hospitals, but the doctors were burning out as well. They had both learned that problem solving is ill-suited for the situation.
To judge any of these as good/bad or right/wrong misses the point. This is merely what happens naturally when we individually do not have the freedom to choose an alternative mindset to problem solving in the relationship that is giving rise to the problem solving mindset. It is also a natural byproduct of an environment that doesn’t make it any easier for people to empathize with each other.
Learning to choose an alternative mindset or designing an environment that makes it easier for people to empathize with each other is a difficult challenge. Perhaps a way to get us started is to ask ourselves and each other the following question and to answer it in an honest way.
Why do we believe the problem solving mindset is appropriate to our situation?”
• • •
Photo credit to Nicdalic
There has been seven instances when you almost died.
Seven.
…
It started with the Korean war.
The war broke out on June 25th 1950. On January 4th 1951, citizens of Seoul made a retreat to Busan. You took part in that retreat as a recently-born infant.
There was an unspoken rule for taking babies on this retreat. If the baby made too much noise, she was to be abandoned. Why? Because it would give away their position to the North Korean army. Kind of a difficult request for an infant, I think.
Well somehow… somehow… you didn’t make much noise.
You lived.
Having never gone through a war, it’s impossible to imagine what it must have been like. From what you shared, there was little food to go around. Your mother and her 3 children were mostly starving. So much so that she had difficulty breastfeeding you.
You eventually became so skinny that your limbs started to curl out of malnourishment. Given war time difficulties, the hospital couldn’t give much help. Your parents did their best to feed you what was available. Unfortunately, you didn’t show any sign of improvement.
The mere sight of you must have been too much for your parents to bear. They also had two other children to feed with a fourth one on the way. As difficult as it must have been for them, they eventually made the decision to give up on you. So one night, you were left outside in the cold with the expectation that you would die before sunrise.
…
Well…
You didn’t.
You didn’t die.
You. Just. Wouldn’t. Die.
Your parents were surprised. They took you back. They kept feeding you. You didn’t get much better, though. You grew up as a very skinny child.
You lived.
When you were a 5th grade student. A motor cycle hit you. You flung in the air before falling to the ground.
You lived.
When you were in college, you ran into a fortune teller. The fortune teller took one look at you and said, “Tsk… Tsk… You will die at the age of 38.” As much as you were mortified by such random and cruel expression of premonition, these few words would eventually return to haunt you.
It started with an acute pain you felt in your lower abdomen. You were 38. Our family was living in Cairo, Egypt.
When you got to the hospital, you were diagnosed with a chronic case of appendicitis. The kind where slow and acute symptoms of pain occur over time instead of rushing in all at once.
You were told you needed an operation right away. As much as you understood the urgency, you refused. As a foreigner, you felt more comfortable waiting until you were back in Korea before receiving an operation.
Now…
Imagine you were your son. (That would be me.) How would you be feeling at this point? Worried, perhaps. Imagine yourself accompanying you on a flight to Korea. What would you be doing with you? Cuddling up next to you to comfort you throughout the flight, perhaps.
Not me.
Apparently, I was mesmerized by the view outside the airplane window. As we got close to our layover in Singapore, I must’ve noticed that there were fireworks happening on an island nearby. I’ve been told that I asked you if we could go see it. You said “yes.”
We went out, hopped on a cab, went over to the cable car dock, took the cable car, crossed over to the island, watched the fireworks, took the cable car back, hopped on a cab, and returned to the airport.
…
Things a son will make their chronic-appendicitis-patient-mother go through to watch some goddamn fireworks.
…
We eventually arrived at a hospital in Seoul. The doctor opened you up. He said you were lucky. Your appendix had already ruptured in various places. He said you could have died had you waited one more day. Well, you didn’t.
You lived.
But, it wasn’t over.
Later that year, you developed a severe case of hemorrhage. By then, our whole family had returned to Seoul for good. You were still 38.
The hemorrhage was so severe that you were bleeding out into a bucket. Turns out, it was a delayed effect of too much use of force during my child birth.
You lived.
At the age of 52, you went through craniotomy for aneurysm. You had to write a will. The risk of death was too high.
You lived.
At the age of 56, you had uterine cancer, and went through hysterectomy.
You lived.
…
There are many things you have helped me learn to appreciate.
One of them is the grace of luck.
You often talk about the critical role of technology in your life. For example, many of your illnesses could not have been helped a generation prior. The technology just wasn’t there. There is much to be grateful for when you recognize this coincidence.
The other is the value of “living as we are born.” (My rough translation of a Korean phrase: 생긴대로 살자).
“Living as we are born” isn’t to eschew change or development. After all, we are born with a natural ability to change and develop. In fact, the phrase is not meant to be taken literally at face value. You use the phrase to merely point to what you have learned from living through multiple near-death experiences.
As an outside observer, it’s easy to feel inspired by someone who has lived through several near-death experiences. At the same time, what I know is that the person who has gone through them live with physical and emotional scars that never disappear. The moment we notice these scars, we are instantly reminded of our past wounds without prior warning.
This is not easy. Not easy at a all.
What you have learned from these experiences is that life is fragile and precious. So you do not wish to waste time shaming yourself in comparison to others who were born to a different set of circumstances. You also do not wish to waste time living up to somebody else’s expectations on how your life should be.
You say you’re lucky to have repeatedly faced your own mortality. You say you may have otherwise learned these lessons too late. Although, you are quick to add that learning these lessons was only the beginning. The beginning of a life-long practice.
Thank you, mother, for living the way you were born.
Photo credit to an unknown photographer
There is an important difference between empathy and empathizing.
Let’s start from where we left off in part 1.
In part 1 of this series, I defined empathy as follows:
Empathy is a word invented to explain what makes it possible for us to move from not feeling connected or at one with an “other” to feeling so. The feeling may last a brief moment or a prolonged duration of time and the “other” may be either a piece of artwork or another person.
Please stay tuned, as this definition will continue to evolve as the series unfolds.
To be clear, I did not define the word to claim authority over it. “Then why did you do it?” You may ask.
First of all, I did it to reduce misunderstandings. In Chinese, the word for “name(名)” is made of two characters 夕 and 口. The top character depicts the moon(夕) and connotes “darkness.” The lower character depicts a mouth(口) and means “to make a sound.” Here’s one interpretation of the word. When it gets dark outside, you have to say your name out loud so others can know who you are. The implication being that when it’s bright outside and we can see each other, a name is no longer needed. I felt the same way about defining empathy. Given that I’m in the dark on how you define the word “empathy,”[1] I wanted to say mine out loud so you know what I am talking about.
More importantly, I wanted to make a distinction between an experience and a means to the experience. I wanted to distinguish between empathizing,which is experiencing connection or oneness with an “other,” and empathy, which is a means to having such an experience.
“Why make such a distinction?” You may ask.
We can know for ourselves when we are experiencing a sense of connection or oneness with an “other.” We can also know when we are not. In other words, an experience is something for which we can acquire empirical evidence. At the same time, such empirical evidence says nothing about what made such an experience possible. Empathy fills this gap by standing in as the what. Of course, a word isn’t the real means for having such an experience. It is a label for the means for having such an experience. So what we have in addition to empathy is many hypotheses.
For example, you may have had trouble experiencing connection or oneness with someone who said or did something that, to you, seemed stupid. But after you understood their situation, their needs, and the thought process they used to navigate their situation and fulfill their needs, you may have been able to experience connection or oneness with them. Based on this observation, you may come up with a hypothesis that says “To move from not feeling connection or oneness with an other to feeling so, we need to see things from that other person’s perspective.” This is one hypothesis often associated with empathy.
On the other hand, you may have also had an experience where you felt connected or at one with someone, yet you did not see anything from their perspective. Instead, it was something about the way they listened to you that helped you feel connected or at one with them. Based on this observation, you may come up with another hypothesis that says “To move from not feeling connection or oneness with an other to feeling so, we need to be listened to by them in a particular way.” This is another hypothesis often associated with empathy.
How about another one? You may have taken a mime class, where you felt connected or at one with another person while mirroring their behavior. Here, there was no seeing from their perspective or even being listened to in a particular way. Based on this observation, you may come up with yet another hypothesis that says “To move from not feeling connection or oneness with an other to feeling so, we need to mimic their behavior.” This is also a hypothesis often associated with empathy.
The point I want to make is that the list goes on.
In fact, I invite you to come up with as many hypotheses as you’d like. I also invite you to test them in different situations and discuss your findings with others doing the same thing. You may learn that there are different ways to hypothesize about the observations you’ve made.
This is why I find the distinction between empathy and empathizing valuable.
With the distinction between empathy and empathizing in place, we no longer have to take other people’s opinion on what empathy is as the gospel. We can think and decide for ourselves through experiments.
That’s not all.
Using the distinction as a common framework, we can also work together to accumulate a body of knowledge on what makes it possible for each of us to go from not feeling connected or at one with an “other” to feeling so.
Do you not find that valuable?
I hope you’ll join me in building this body of knowledge.
• • •
[1] Batson, Daniel. “These Things Called Empathy: Eight Related But Distinct Phenomena.” In The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. Edited by Jean Decety and William John Ickes. Cambridge, MA: MIT press, 2009. 3–15. 4.
Original article from Huffington Post / Photo credit to Christopher Michel
There are no perfect leaders, only real ones.
That might as well have been the name of the latest Dove campaign. Except, it wasn’t. It was called “There are no perfect moms, only real ones.”
Here it is.
As I watched it, I was reminded of all the Founders/CEOs with whom I’ve worked and continue to work. I was inspired enough to make the following remix of the transcript for them.
Although I use the words “CEO” and “Founder” in the remix, the same script can apply to middle managers or anyone who feels personal responsibility for the well-being of other humans.
Leader 1: Everybody has ideas on what it means to be a “good leader.” And most people feel like they have a license to tell you (laughs) what they think it means to be a “good leader.”
Leader 2: I’m a first time CEO and I’m just figuring it out as I go. Often times people who lead other companies, people who call themselves leadership consultants, people who used to lead companies, they all want you to do it their way. But I have to be that person that stands the ground.
Leader 3: What we do here is unconventional. Because our team is made up of people from significantly different nationalities using their second language to communicate with each other. I would say they have such a different set of challenges. They’re facing something unique.
Leader 4: We’re both our team’s CEO. You get people that are like “What do you mean you’re both CEOs?” We’re like “Yup. (laughs) We’re gonna be co-CEOs.”
Leader 5: I live to be the best version of myself, and I can be. Part of that is being a CEO. But I live to dance. I can do my art and not be any less of a CEO.
Leader 6: I found my startup without a co-founder. I’m happy where I am. I get to make business decisions on my own.
Leader 7: There are so many ways to be a leader. I don’t think I can be the leader that I want to be without climbing being in my life. It keeps me who I am and allows me to be a really good leader to my team.
Leader 4: There’s no one right way to do it all.
Leader 1: You are the only expert of your own team and organization.
Leader 2: Believe in yourself. Believe in your ability as a human being. What you can do is what you can do.
Leader 3: Do what fits your organization. And trust yourself.
This commercial struck a chord with me because I’ve found that feeling personal responsibility for the well-being of others to be one of the most anxiety-inducing experiences ever. For many Founders/CEOs, the pressure to make payroll each month is stressful enough. It goes without saying how much stress is involved in parenthood.
A common byproduct of feeling a sense of personal responsibility for the well-being of others is feeling like we should do things for them. (An instinct often fueled by compassion.)
Now, don’t get me wrong. There is nothing intrinsically wrong or bad about doing things for others. In fact, one could argue that it is one of most noble things we could do. What I find interesting is that there are times when we cross the threshold of “doing things for others” and unknowingly enter into the realm of “expecting things from others.”
Let me take my parents as an example.
My father’s interest lies primarily in playing sports. My mother loves playing sports, too. At the same time, her primary interest lies in history and archeology, especially around the topic of musical performance. Given this difference in interests, my mother has spent her entire marriage looking for a solution to a seemingly simple challenge.
“How can I get my husband to be interested in the things I’m interested?”
She tried to get him to watch historical period dramas on TV. She tried to teach him how to sing. She tried to take him to different historical landmarks around the world. She tried to get him to read history books.
All. Failed.
Then recently, my mother came to the following realization:
I need to stop doing so much for my husband.”
When asked “What do you mean?” she said she has always wanted her husband to change because she personally felt responsible for his well-being. When probed further, she said she wanted him to change for his own good. In other words, she considered her efforts to change him as doing him a favor. So when she saw that he was unwilling to change, she associated his behavior with a lack of appreciation for the effort she was putting in to doing him a favor. This naturally lead her to feel resentment. Well… she no longer wanted to feel resentment. Thus, the need to stop doing so much for her husband.
My mother also came to accept that my father is happy staying interested in sports and sports only. As much as he may come to value acquiring other interests in the future, he did not find it sufficiently valuable now. For now, what he valued more greatly was to feel accepted and appreciated for the way he was. (Can you spot the Gordian Knot?)
I remember doing the same thing when I was an employee. As an employee, I did my best to provide value to my employer. Not only did I do this, but I did my best to do them well. Very well, in fact. Although, after a certain threshold of “well,” I started to feel resentment. Why? Because I was not appreciated or acknowledged for doing these things well.
What’s obvious in hindsight is that the things I did extra well were things I valued greatly, not things my employer valued greatly. Since my employer did not value those things enough, it was no wonder the employer was not spontaneously inspired to appreciate them. In fact, my employer was probably frustrated with me for not doing the things he valued instead.
I do not wish to judge people’s lack of appreciation for certain things as good/bad or right/wrong. What I want to highlight is that when we feel personally responsible for someone or even some thing, it’s easy to forget that there is a threshold at which we stop doing things for them and start expecting things from them. When those expectations are not met, it’s quite natural for us to feel resentment.
I’ve come to call this the “resentment threshold.”
Being a leader can often feel like a thankless job. When we lead well, people often take it for granted. When we make a mistake, people sometimes criticize us until they can see us fall to our knees. Yet we show up to work each and every day, because there’s something tugging at us. There’s someone or something we feel personally responsible for. At the same time, it’s worth noting that this same personal care can also blind us as we cross the resentment threshold.
If you’re willing, I’d like to invite you to practice noticing yourself crossing the resentment threshold. Not to judge the crossing as bad or wrong. Rather, to stay with it for a while and to be curious enough to notice it repeatedly. If it helps, you may also ask yourself the following question.
What lessons are my crossing the resentment threshold challenging me to learn?”
• • •
Photo credit to Mark Bonica
We often forget that empathy is, first and foremost, a word.
Words mean different things to different people. Thus, one of the most difficult parts of writing my book has been to come to a resolution on what empathy is.
I browsed through what felt like a hundred different definitions of empathy. It all came down to a simple fact. Empathy is, first and foremost, a word. Not any word, but a word invented to explain an event.[1] An event observed and experienced by a philosopher.
The word “empathy” is a translation of a German word “einfühlung,” invented by Robert Vischer, a German philosopher. His goal was to explain how people can go from not experiencing a sense of unity (often referred to as “connection” or “oneness”) with a piece of artwork to experiencing it.[2] It’s like how Sir Isaac Newton invented the word “gravity” to explain how an apple can go from being above the ground to being on the ground.
Soon afterward, another German philosopher named Theodore Lipps entered the scene. He proceeded to expand the meaning of “einfühlung” to also explain how we experience the same sense of connection and oneness with another human being. A British psychologist named Edward Titchener then imported the word into the English language as “empathy.”[3]
As you can see, the word “empathy” has changed in meaning throughout history. I have no doubt that it will continue to do so. What will stay constant is the opportunity to feel as if we are connected or at one with an “other.” An “other” with which we previously felt disconnected, divided, or even at odds. Whether this happens for a moment or for a prolonged duration of time and whether that “other” is a piece of artwork or another person, the feeling is the same.[4]
I’m seeing popular articles being written to argue for or against empathy. They are well-intended. Those “against empathy” worry that we may do harm by being “for empathy.” Those “for empathy” feel the same way about being “against empathy.” Personally, I find arguing for or against empathy akin to arguing for or against gravity. Whether we like it or not, empathy is here to stay. What matters is how we leverage it and to what end.
When our primary mode of communication is through words, it’s easy to get caught up in a war of definitions. Yet, it is not the word “empathy,” but our ability to move from not experiencing a sense of connection or oneness with an “other” to experiencing it, that will make the most difference in our lives. No matter the route we take to navigate that journey or how difficult that journey may be, the fact that we can move there is what gives me hope for the future of our humanity.
I hope you’ll join me in not losing sight of this.
I invite you to discuss this further in our Facebook Group.
• • •
[1] Herwig-Lempp. Johannes. Explanatory Principle.
[2] Nowak, Magdalena. The Complicated History of Einfühlung.
[3] Titchener, Edward B. Lectures of the Experimental Psychology of Thought Processes, New York, Macmillian, 1909.
[4] Just to be clear, this is not to anthropomorphize pieces of artwork or to claim that they have minds like human beings. It simply means that when it comes to empathy, we’re talking primarily about our ability to have an experience of connection or oneness with an “other,” not merely our ability to analyze them. It is also not to imply that every single person on the entire planet can experience such connection or oneness. I have no way of proving that. There are also various individual differences in the kinds of “other” with which we can feel such connection or oneness. For example, many programmers feel such connection or oneness with computers. Not everyone can feel this.
Original article from Huffington Post / Photo credit to Vanna
It took me about twenty five years before I started to perceive my mother as a human being.
I’m going to go out on a limb and claim that I’m not alone.
We don’t always perceive people as human beings.
“Then how do we perceive them?” you may ask.
As a means to our end.
As a teenager, I often perceived my mother as a means to permission, money, and food. She was the means to me going out with my friends, buying things I wanted, or eating breakfast, dinner, and sometimes even lunch.
Horrible, I know…
Of course, I intellectually understood that I should feel gratitude towards her for giving birth to me and for raising me. Unfortunately, those were rarely visceral experiences. So most of the times, I perceived her as mere means to my end.
The same holds true in our perception of our leaders.
I was once an employee myself. In some ways, I still am to my clients. I have also spent a significant amount of time listening to employees inside organizations as their meta-designer. In this journey, I’ve noticed at least threeinter-related lenses through which we perceive our leaders as mere means to our ends.
1. As a means to our survival: “I joined this company, because I need financial security. I keep my leader happy to meet this need.”
2. As a means to achieving our goal: “I joined this company to make cool things that make an impact in the world. The leader will help me achieve that goal.”
3. As a means to our identity: “We have such an amazing leader! The leader is my role model!” or “We have such a horrible leader! The leader is my anti-role model!”
Instead of judging these lenses as good/bad or right/wrong, I want to highlight how they give rise to misunderstandings inside organizations.
1. So long as we perceive our leaders as an object of authority, we’re likely to interpret their suggestions as promoting compliance. If we end up feeling repulsed by these interpretations, we’re also likely to distance ourselves from our leaders.
2. So long as we perceive our leaders as an object of our aid or obstacle, we’re likely to interpret their decisions as short-sighted and selfish.
3. So long as we perceive our leaders as an object to be copied or rebelled against, we’re likely to interpret their communication efforts as a form of indoctrination.
Once again, instead of judging right/wrong or good/bad, I want us to recognize that these misunderstandings are born out of the inherent difficulties of seeing through the eyes of others. It’s too simplistic to judge them as a result of poor leadership.
It’s true that some less experienced leaders try so hard to be equal that they have more trouble seeing themselves as their team members see them. At the same time, experienced leaders can also have the same blind spots. What’s important to note is that we can all develop the skills required to better prepare for and manage these blind spots by learning to realize our empathy.
Now that I’m in my 40s, I find that things have changed since I was 25. I am more likely to perceive my mother as beyond mere means to my end. I also interact with her in ways that are mutually empathic. Is it perfect? No. I’m happy that it is simply possible.
It all started with noticing myself shaming or blaming my mother, then gradually learning to choose a different set of contexts with which to interpret her words and behaviors.
Are we also willing to do the same with our leaders?
Some are. Some are not. For those willing, here’s a question you can ask yourself to get started.
“If I were unafraid of getting fired or judged, and wanted to use all the creativity and critical thinking I had to help the leader clarify and achieve the organization’s goals instead of my own, what would be the smallest next step I need to take?”
To be clear, you may say you’d rather leave the company. That is your choice. I just hope you’ll choose a better alternative than staying stuck shaming or blaming your leader. That isn’t helping anybody. As the saying goes…
“Holding on to resentment is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else.”
May you let go of the hot coal.
• • •
Photo credit to Shawn Harquail
All of the CEOs I coach are also practitioners of a craft.
Some of them are sales agents or consultants, others designers or engineers, still others researchers. This is true of myself, as well.
They are also founders of their companies.
Most of us founded our company because we wanted to keep doing what we wanted to do. Then came a time when we realized that we could no longer do it alone. We realized that we either needed people to whom we could offload what we were doing or people who could do what we ourselves could not.
What commonly happens in this process is that we get stuck in a pattern of first hyper-empathizing then not empathizing.
For example, what often happens when we hire people to do what we already know how to do? We assume they can do the job just as well as we do.
Now, of course, we intellectually recognize that they are different from us. We may also intellectually recognize that they have less experience than we do. But this does not always stop us from feeling as if they will know what we know or notice and do things the same way we do them.
This is an example of hyper-empathizing.
When we hyper-empathize, despite an intellectual understanding of the difference between two people, we are either unwilling or unable to distinguish ourselves from others at a more visceral level.
When we hyper-empathize with others, only to be proven that they are not like us, we often experience emotional tension. After all, our subconscious expectation has been violated. This may then push us to the other extreme: not empathizing.
We may experience a variety of unpleasant feelings when we make this shift out of tension. At the very least unpleasant, we may feel confused why they are not like us. When more unpleasant, we may feel contempt, thinking to ourselves…
“How incompetent or stupid do they have to be to not know what I know, not notice what I notice, or not do things the way I do them?”
To be clear, I do not wish to judge this good/bad or right/wrong. I simply want to highlight the fact that hyper-empathizing is very common. It happens to all of us. Wives do this when the husband doesn’t put the dish in the dishwasher. Husbands do this when the wife hangs the toilet paper under (or behind) the roll instead of over (or in front of) the roll.
At the same time, this is a slippery slope to micro-management. Micro-management is a source of tremendous stress for both the CEO and their staff. Sustained for the long-term, CEOs will burn out and staff will become passive and disengaged.
Hyper-empathizing also plays a role when the person we hired has skills we ourselves do not, but we still have an opinion on their skills.
And boy, do we have opinions.
For example, we may not be a software engineer ourselves, but we’ve heard that pair programming is an effective way to build software. So we hire a bunch of programmers and demand that they do pair programming. Oh, and to make sure they don’t misunderstand our intentions, we show them proof why pair programming is great. After all, we’re good leaders. We don’t make irrational demands. So we share research findings, success stories from our past lives, or things we’ve heard from our trusted sources of information.
When we do this, we often assume that since we are convinced of the value of something, the others will also be convinced. Now, of course, we intellectually recognize that they are different from us. We may also intellectually recognize that they have more experience than we do in their field of expertise. But this does not always stop us from feeling as if they will think or feel like we do.
To our surprise, we may hear our newly hired engineers express their concern about pair programming. Here, we, once again, experience emotional tension and we are often moved to not empathize. This time, we may feel contempt, thinking to ourselves…
“How closed-minded and fearful do they have to be to not accept data, facts, or science?”
Once again, I do not wish to judge this good/bad or right/wrong. I simply want to highlight that this is very common.
At the same time, if you demand they follow without questioning your authority, the approach can merely give rise to resentment and begrudging commitment. When people are carrying out a change initiative not only without a genuine sense of commitment, but also filled with resentment, chances are good that it will have a negative impact on the potential for the change initiative to succeed.
Moving from hyper-empathizing to not empathizing and getting stuck there is one of the most basic patterns of struggle I see in leadership.
The alternative is simple, but not easy. You have to have greater mastery over realizing your empathy so you can start by empathizing without hyper-empathizing. This can be difficult. At the same time, if you’re willing and motivated, you can learn it through deliberate practice.
Afterwards, you can also engage others in an empathic conversation so that you develop a sense of unity not merely a hierarchy of command. When we carry out a change initiative from a place of unity, there is a far greater chance that the initiative will succeed — despite disagreements. This is not magic. It’s simply because when a united group of committed individuals come across an obstacle, they are more likely to figure out a way to make things work. On the other hand, when a divided group of uncommitted individuals encounter the first sign of an obstacle, they are more likely to either give up or stay stuck blaming the people who gave the order. As the famous saying goes “See? I told you it won’t work.”
Once again, I know this is easier said than done. At the same time, if you’re willing and motivated, you can learn to do this through deliberate practice.
Here’s a question you can ask yourself to get started.
“How can I involve others in the decision making process in a way that sufficiently fulfills their need to be heard and understood even if the ultimate decision may not be to their liking?”
May you get unstuck from the pattern of first hyper-empathizing then not empathizing.
• • •
Photo credit to U.S. Army
One of the most clear patterns I see when coaching CEOs is this.
They all had one or more people who have significantly and positively changed the trajectory of their lives.
When I hear them talk about these people, I see their eyes light up with admiration and exuberance. It’s clear to me how much of an impact these people have had on their lives.
What’s interesting is that alongside these expressions of admiration and exuberance, I sometimes hear their expressions of shame or regret as well.
For example, one CEO told me that his mentor went through a major bankruptcy and has since become impossible to locate. He regrets that he never had the chance to fully pay him back for the help he has received. Another CEO told me that he is making steady progress toward paying his mentor back. At the same time, he feels ashamed to admit that he’s yet to achieve enough success to do so.
These are painfully familiar feelings for me.
In college, I studied under a professor named Dr. Randy Pasuch. You may have heard of his famous talk titled “The Last Lecture.”
Dr. Pausch was a computer science professor and a virtual reality researcher. He once gave an inspiring and uplifting talk titled “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” The talk was remarkable not only for its positive message, but also for being delivered while he was suffering from pancreatic cancer with 3 to 6 months left to live. The talk went on to become a viral sensation on Youtube.
In college, Dr. Pausch significantly and positively changed the trajectory of my life by giving me a reason to study computer science. Some may find it strange to think that one needs a reason to study. But to be completely honest, without a clear reason, or a sense of purpose, retaining interest in computer science was a struggle. All that kept me going was a sense of pride and duty. The school I was attending was best known for its computer science program and I had promised my parents I would be studying computer science.
That was, until I took Dr. Pausch’s class.
What I learned from Dr. Pausch’s was that I didn’t have to be interested in computers to learn computer science. According to him, all I had to be interested in was connecting with other people through shared experiences. Experiences that may include such feelings as joy, sorrow, surprise, or even fear. For him, the computer was nothing more than a means to that end. It was a medium to facilitate the realization of our empathy.
And that resonated with me. Profoundly.
And just like that, I had finally found a reason to study computer science.
…
But then I lost touch with Dr. Pausch.
For 8 years.
As a matter of fact, a month before “The Last Lecture,” I sent him the following e-mail:
I don’t know if you remember me. My name is Slim from your BVW class from way back in 1999. I worked on the Van Gogh project. I’ve been working at MAYA design for the past eight years!
I now serve as the assistant director of engineering here, and we’re looking to hire some hardcore thinkers who are also genius makers.
I thought ETC would be full of such people! Are you the right person to talk to if I want to figure out how to lure that talent over? Are there protocols for doing such a thing? (i.e., hold an informal info session at ETC)
Any advice would be awesome.
Thanks!
Slim
To which he responded:
Slim, Good to hear from you, and *of course* I remember you — things like the Van Gogh world leave long memories!
I’m sure the ETC would love to have MAYA come and recruit — and there are definitely venues for that. Unfortunately, I’m no longer involved in the day-to-day of the ETC, so I’ve CC’d Drew Davidson, who can help you out with things.
Best wishes,
Randy
I don’t know if it’s obvious, but I had no idea he was ill. In fact, the subtext of my e-mail was me showing off to him that I had made significant advancements in my career since graduation.
Why was I showing off to Dr. Pausch? Because I wanted him to be proud of me.
I’ve come to learn that this is one of those silly things we do to those whom we love and admire.
Instead of just telling them that we love them or that they mean a great deal to us, we try to gain their recognition by bragging to them about something that is utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things like status, fame, or fortune. And because we get so blinded by our desires to be recognized by the other person, we fail to tell them what it is that we really mean to tell them, which is that we are grateful.
A couple weeks after “The Last Lecture,” I found out that he was terminally ill.
Guess how I found out?
By watching “The Last Lecture” on Youtube.
On Youtube.
A talk held just a few miles from where I worked.
How could have I been so poor at keeping in touch with someone I considered my hero? I tried blaming it on my shyness. I tried blaming it on my busy life. I tried all sorts of excuses before giving up, and quickly writing him a long e-mail pouring my heart out.
But upon hitting the “send” button, I realized that his inbox was probably overflowing with e-mails in response to “The Last Lecture.” It was unlikely that he would ever read my e-mail. He may never know how he changed my life.
Staring into the computer screen, I couldn’t help but ask “Why?” Why couldn’t I have told him sooner? How stupid does one have to be, to wait so long to say something so simple?
If your life was significantly and positively changed by someone, the question need not start with “How can I pay them back?” The question can start with something much simpler. “How can I communicate my gratitude?” You do not have to wait until you achieve “success” to do this. Let them know what it is they did or said that you appreciated. Let them know how that made you feel. Let them know why this was significant to you. Do it for them. Do it for yourself.
Thank you Randy. I cannot say enough how much I appreciated your honesty. When I heard you say that your interest in computer lies not in the computer itself, but in its ability to facilitate empathy among people, I felt a profound sense of resonance. You made me realize that I’m not the only person who feels that way. You gave me the permission to be who I am. To realize that it is ok to feel the way I felt. Once I felt comfortable being who I am, it completely reframed my relationship to my subject matter of study. To this day, my interest in computer science is strong. All because it helps me facilitate empathy among people.
• • •
Photo credit: Gabriel Robins