Empathy doesn’t work

It’s an answer — to the wrong question(s).

I’ve had great leaders, coaches, and role models.

They were loved by their teams and inspired our best work.

They had roughly zero empathy — and we didn’t care. We knew what to do, why we were doing it, and we were committed to high performance. It was the best of times.

What is “empathy”

Empathy is defined as “the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling”. While this sounds good and is probably a great skill set for therapists — when you are leading at work, this is not what will make your team happy, high performing, and feeling psychologically safe.

Empathy is not what your people want.

Empathy is at best a bandaid when leaders have no idea what else to do.

I’ll wait while you get your pitchforks and torches.

We’ve been talking about empathy in the workplace for at least a decade. And in that time employee engagement has continued to decline. The more we talk about and train execs for empathy — the worse our people are doing. I get it — empathy sounds great and all — but it’s not working. Just because people like to eat candy — doesn’t make it good for our teeth.

Between Wagner & Harter’s seminal work “12: The Elements of Great Managing” and Lencioni’s “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, we have 17 lenses to look at workplace satisfaction and high performance. Empathy is not in the list. Instead we have: know what’s expected, good equipment, opportunity to do good work, recognition and praise, individual development is encouraged,opinions count, trust, commitment, accountability, and more. Zero empathy.

Why not empathy?

Because people want more. If my team is frustrated that their computers are slow and I give them an empathetic response of “I can imagine how frustrating that is to have a slow computer” — I’m not helping them. If anything empathy sounds condescending and dismissive. Who wants to work for a condescending boss??

Empathy is shallow.

I’m sorry but that’s just the facts. Teams don’t really want you to empathize with their feelings — they want to know how to make things better.

If you don’t have an answer — empathy is actually a negative. Just be vulnerable and admit your ignorance.

Teams want to be coached, to be motivated, to improve their performance. If this sounds like sports — yes, business is much like team sports. Leaders need to wrap their heads around this.

People want details.

When sports and business teams don’t perform well, smart leaders have the knowledge to coach the participants and improve their performance. They are preemptive to train and practice and prepare their people for stellar performance. These leaders understand the financial benefit of better performing teams.

Sports and business work the same way. NFL coaches don’t get their roles because of empathy. They get there because they know how to effectively up-level their team’s performance.

Your people want to know what it takes to get promoted — in detail.

Your people want to know their leaders are advocates for them.

Your people want to be able to speak up at work — and not fear reprisals.

Your people don’t want platitudes.

Horror stories

A friend of mine worked at a big company and after a few years he wanted a promotion.

He asked his manager how to get a promotion and was told “have a great annual review”.

The manager did not offer to coach my friend so he could earn his promotion.

The next year, my friend had a great review — but no promotion.

His manager said “maybe next year, keep up the good work”.

I almost cried.

Stop with the mysteries

Career advancement should never be a mystery.

If you can’t explain the steps, mental models, and skills to master — you don’t understand it.

In all fairness, people who can’t explain the steps are usually feeling ashamed and afraid that they don’t understand what’s happening. That must be a tough situation. And “tough situation” isn’t a valid excuse. You can learn mental models, skills, and how to coach your people.

Processes.

Good leadership is a process.

It’s trainable, learnable, practicable — like math.

Good leadership addresses all the things people actually want at work.

Empathy is not a part of a good leadership process.

We can do better

Parent, team lead, product designer, software engineer, first responder, and mechanic. Raised on islands, Bill has always looked at solving human problems before tech problems. His work has benefited Walmart, Google, dozens more brands down to local businesses. His successes are all because of the great teams he was priviledged to work with. Learn more at https://40pb.com.