Empathy is easier when everybody's doing it
/I broke up with my first boyfriend, Chris, during our sophomore year of college. A more honest telling is that he broke up with me.
To add awkwardness to heartache, we were both part of the same close friend group. I returned to school sad, preoccupied, and doomed to see him again and again.
My mom counseled me – “Not all break-ups have to be bad. There is a way to still be a part of your friend group and not make things terrible for everyone.”
A few weeks later, he asked out Leah, a friend and roommate of mine. She said yes, and I could have tipped into offense/anger/regret.
Again, my mom’s voice came to me over the phone line, “You don’t know the whole story or all of what is going on – give them the benefit of the doubt.”
As my relationship fizzled, another friend, Kelly, was ending things with her first boyfriend. But her mom gave her very different counsel – “Make him see what he’s missing out on! There is no way to stay friends. You have to look out for yourself.”
I remember thinking, at the time, we are receiving really different advice on how to navigate a break-up.
Communities of empathy
This wasn’t the first time that my mother advised me to think bigger than the dimensions of my own feelings. It was a sort of mantra of expectation in my household.
We were often engaging in what I can now see as perspective taking exercises. Like when she’d ask us, “And how do you think it made your brother feel when you called him stupid?”
I also remember her saying, “I want you to be givers in a world of takers”.
Now, I know there are pitfalls to blindly following this type of advice (you can be taken advantage of, become a doormat, and set yourself up for burnout). However, she created a family community where empathy was the norm/expectation, and that shaped me in profound ways.
I did choose to stay in that college friend group. Leah, the friend who went out on a date with my ex, is still a companion of the heart today (I’m so glad I didn’t take offense or chose to cut her off) and, years later, I got invited to Chris’ wedding.
Empathy as the established norm
I just finished reading an article from the October 2024 edition of American Scientific (linked here), “Being Empathetic is Easier When Everyone is Doing It”.
Here is a line that caught my attention –
Empathy is a socially motivated process, Zaki and other researchers say, meaning that people won’t necessarily empathize just because they know how. Instead—much as kids with athletic peers often want to excel at sports—people want to understand others when they enter into communities where empathy is the established norm.
The article is helpful, going through case studies and emergent best practices, but let me summarize three of the key findings for you:
Just because you know about empathy doesn’t mean that you will choose to be empathetic – you are much more likely to practice empathy if you are in a community where empathy is the norm/empathetic behaviors are rewarded
Too much exposure to the needs of others can actually cause you to be less empathetic (fatigue and burnout are real risks)
One of the most powerful ways to get people to reject extremism and to embrace the viewpoints of others is by really listening to that person’s point of view. When a person feels heard, they can expand their perspective more easily.
If empathy is unleashed in communities, what can you do to help your workplace/community?
I was talking this morning with a sales leader who manages a large team. “Lots of times, they (the team) complain about the people on the other end of the line. I tell them, ‘this might be your 500th call of the day, but it is that person’s first call.’”
He is calling his team to empathy/curiosity about what the person on the other side of the phone might be going through. Much like my mother asking me to consider how my words affected my brother, he is calling them to more.
A helpful question to ask, at work and in life, is –
What else might be going on here?
or
Why might that person be responding the way that they are?
This helps to keep empathy and curiosity top of mind.
If too much exposure to the pain of others causes people to shut off their empathy, what can you do?
This is a topic that we talk a lot about in my session on Combatting Change and Compassion Fatigue at Work.
Especially if you are in a role where you are exposed/tending to the needs of others, you need to have sustainable personal practices so you don’t burnout and lose your capacity for care.
An especially helpful practice is a meaningful ritual to signal the end of the workday. This is important because it is possible to be “on” all of the time – constantly thinking about the needs of others, checking your emails etc.
It is even better if this ritual is an embodied practice. Some people walk their dogs. Others close the door to their office, leaving their laptop behind until morning. I like to have a glass of kombucha to round out my day.
What is something that you can do to signal the end of your workday?
If one of the most powerful things you can do is really listen – what does that look like?
Undivided attention is one of the rarest commodities in the world today. How many times are you only partially listening, while multitasking? Or just enduring another person’s words while you formulate how you are going to respond?
This week, try to give someone your undivided attention. No phones present, no interruptions. Use phrases like “tell me more” to let them share fully.
Because building communities where empathy is the norm is the best way for your empathetic practices to flourish!