How to Feel About Empathy

“Empathy” is a word used often in people management and product management, but it’s hard to put our finger on exactly what it means.

Photo by Rowan Freeman on Unsplash

“Empathy” is a word used often in people management and product management, but it’s hard to put our finger on exactly what it means.

I was talking with a friend who said that the definition of empathy they’re most familiar with is “feeling what somebody else is feeling.” We reflected on how or if we could put that to work in our work as product or people leaders.

We agreed that earlier in our careers, it was pretty unusual for “feelings” to enter these conversations. Things seemed a little more “cause and effect” at the time.

My own journey with empathy took a turn some years ago when I got some coaching from a manager. It was very hard to hear.

A member of my team had made a decision that I considered to be a breach of trust. I’d come down pretty hard on this person. The situation got a bit intense and my manager got wind of it.

I was distressed to find that my manager’s view seemed more aligned with the team member than with me. They seemed unmoved by my expectations for trust and judgement.

“You could practice encountering situations like this with more empathy for your colleagues,” they said. These words really stung. I thought of myself as somebody who was concerned with people’s feelings. I felt misunderstood and undermined. Foolishly, I sullenly nursed the grievance for quite a while.

Today, I can see my manager was right. They saw something that I couldn’t see then: The reason the team member made the decision they did. It doesn’t matter what the reason was, it matters that there was one. We knew the team member to be thoughtful and responsible. If I had take an empathetic approach to the situation, I’d have given myself time to understand why they did the thing. I let everybody down in this situation and made it much worse than it needed to be.

In people management and leadership, empathy helps with understanding the motives and choices that your co-workers make. It’s related to CEO favorite slogan “Assume Positive Intent” — which is not a blanket pardon, but advice to learn collaborators’ mindset before you react to them. Also Stephen Covey’s “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Today I am working hard to try to understand what’s happening in somebody’s mind before I try to change it.

In product management, the term “empathy” broadly describes how well we understand our users. I’ve written before about empathy exercises, which are programs that put workers in the shoes of their customers, by having them work front-line support, delivery food, or work in other front-line roles.

The best product teams I have ever known had this in common consistently: They understand their customers very well. They believe that they represent their customers, both in the sense that individual team members can stand in for them in the product process, and that individuals can identify in themselves the same needs, goals, ideals and ideas that their users have.

If you are making a game for children, does that mean that your team members should include children? Ideally, in some sense, probably yes. Realistically, I want to go to the greatest lengths possible to understand that the interests of my users are well-represented on my team.

I have known many product teams that had very little direct connection to their users. Maybe they made software for doctors, a product that would be used only in a specialized environment, or a web site that would be used by an audience that was far more diverse than the team itself. Is it possible for teams like these to be successful?

Yes, but only by prioritizing empathy for their customers. The less representation that users have on your product team, the more work you’ll need to do to gain the empathy that will enable you to make good product choices.

Put another way: If there is nobody on your product team who is using your product every day, you should be doing a lot more research, surveys, interviews, and exercises to help your team build empathy. If everybody on your product team is using your product every day, you can probably get away with a little less.

That’s my very high-level take on empathy in people and product management. I hope you’ll share your thoughts.