How to make empathy more contagious at your workplace

Although it can sometimes be misused, empathy is a generally valuable approach to take with other people—including at work. Often, when people are upset or frustrated, they first want to be heard and understood. On top of that, the valuable ability to read the room and respond appropriately requires understanding what other people are feeling. Despite the value of empathy, we often lead with action. When faced with a complaint from a colleague or client, we try to solve the problem or defend our actions rather than starting with a moment of engagement with the feelings being expressed. When giving a talk or trying to persuade, we launch into a well-rehearsed presentation rather than pausing to recognize and acknowledge the overall mood. A nice Scientific American article recently highlighted that a powerful way to promote empathy is to do it in a group. As this article points out, there is a skill component to empathy—you have to learn how to do it—but there is also a social component to it. You’re more likely to be empathic and to lead with empathy when you see other people doing it as well. That social support serves both as a reminder to engage empathically and also as a signal that empathy is valued by the organization. Here are a few things you can do to promote empathy in the groups you’re a part of: Make your empathy visible Many of the opportunities to show empathy happen in individual meetings or small groups. A particular person comes to you with a problem, and you engage with them. You find out how they’re doing and how the situation is affecting them before trying to fix it. The interaction goes well and the person feels like you have taken care of them. But, it doesn’t help the organization develop more capacity for empathy. If you’re a leader, it’s important to make sure that you also find ways to display empathy in larger groups. When there is a big announcement in an organization (particularly when that announcement has a negative impact on others or increases uncertainty), start by acknowledging the emotions people are experiencing. Validate that experience. Then, when you shift to talking about a path forward, root that recommendation in the emotions you observe. Connect that response to how people are feeling. By modeling your use of empathy in these situations, you’re helping to normalize that as an approach for the rest of your team. Build an empathy force You can also be strategic in spreading empathy through your team. Find a few other team members who also recognize the power of empathy and are reasonably skilled. Create a supportive network to seek opportunities to display empathy at work. An advantage of this explicit network is that you can also provide an additional voice in group meetings. If one person from the team starts with an empathetic response, other members can chime in similarly. In this way, other people in the room will see this desirable behavior echoed by several others, which reinforces its social desirability. Share stories with the team Stories are also a powerful learning tool. When you have a positive experience with a client or colleague that is rooted in empathy, find ways to share that story with others in the organization. These stories enable people to experience an event even when they weren’t present. A good empathy story has two key components. First, it can highlight particular tools of empathy like validating the emotional experience of someone else before launching into a solution. Second, you can bring the benefits of empathy to the foreground. Talk about how empathy helped to create a basis for conversation or to connect a potential solution to emotional reaction to the situation. If the result of the conversation was satisfying, make that a key part of the story as well.