Working Hand and Hand
By: Nia Braccidiferro
Most people in our society tend to overestimate their empathetic skills. This has been a problem for a long time, but it has resurfaced recently because more and more companies have begun incorporating Design Thinking into their thought process. The first step of Design Thinking is to empathize. This could be with clients, consumers, co-workers or even with everyday people. Showing empathy towards others and applying it in your daily life could change someone’s entire day around.
The Greater Good Magazine at UC Berkeley, states that empathy is the ability to sense other people’s emotions and to sense what someone else might be thinking and/or feeling. It is important to harness and use this power because it helps encourage us to reach out and want to help people who are not in the social group that we identify with. Doing that allows us to meet and interact with people that we would have never talked to in the first place. Executing this way of life can be easily accomplished by actively listening to the person you are in conversation with, not jumping to conclusions, showing empathetic body language and paying attention to the facial expressions of others.
As humans, we empathize more with in-group members (people who have things in common with us/people we know) than out-group members. That is why we’re more likely to help a single sufferer than a large group of faceless victims. But there are strategies to combat this way of thinking. Roman Krznaric, an author at the Greater Good Magazine at UC Berkeley, wrote an article titled, “Six Habits of Highly Empathetic People”. In it stated many habits that can be developed to help a person become more empathic. He suggests that people try living in another person’s shoes for a period of time.
This encourages us to challenge prejudices and discover commonalities between one another and allows us to cultivate curiosity about strangers because it’s never clear what’s actually going on in a person’s life. I’ve learned over the years that everyone wants to talk to someone about what’s occurring in their lives but not everyone is willing to open up and listen to their stories. Conversing is a two-way street. Both participants must be actively engaging in the conversation, whether it's by listening attentively or by clearly elaborating on your current situation. Unfortunately, this doesn’t occur naturally for everyone.
The Unstuck Community uploaded an article entitled, “Empathy: The Single Best Way to Get Unstuck”. They provided multiple empathy lessons that can be easily incorporated into your daily routine. Unstuck suggested slowing down and putting yourself in a neutral state of mind. Once you have reached this point, ask yourself, “How might this person think and feel about this?” Exercising your mind in these ways helps to build an empathy habit. They also explained that to successfully transform these ideas into thoughts that come naturally, you must understand yourself first.
These suggestions aren’t strictly for a certain group of people. They can be used by anyone. In the New York Times article, “Design Thinking for Doctors and Nurses”, it explains how anyone can apply the Design Thinking process to their work, even doctors and nurses. Using this process at your job allows for creative, multidisciplinary thinking around solving an issue, whatever it may be. The article described how health providers are good problem solvers, who come up with fresh solutions to health care problems, including new pediatric pain scoring systems. With the right mindset, a person can be capable of anything.