Empathy: The Bedrock of Collaboration

My Founder’s Corner column examines the various challenges founders face in their journey of startup, growth, and scale. Through my work with companies around the globe in tech, entertainment, education, social impact and numerous other industries, I highlight themes that affect all founders, but there are nuances particular to the women founders I work with.

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If we’ve underscored anything in the past year, it’s that humans need more than an annual review and list of objectives to feel seen and understood at work. When a good chunk of the global workforce was required to make the shift to working and learning from home, it changed the human work dynamics we thought we’d largely figured out. “Thought” being the operative word there.

What we can now see is how our newly complex, multi-layered lives require a lot more of us, both mentally and physically, in running the gauntlet of a full day. For many people that daily schedule includes juggling online meetings, doing actual work, managing children’s online schooling, counteracting Zoom fatigue, and developing a higher tolerance for interruptions like children and dogs running through the room, or mid-day deliveries.

Whew.

This has all developed a deep need for empathy, because now we see what the lives of others look like when the facade has disappeared, and life and work become one. The impact is so intense, the New York Times has created an interactive series around working moms to illustrate how they’re bearing the brunt of this new pandemic schedule. (So, FYI, if you’re the person complaining because a baby has entered the chat, you are a jerk.)

Here’s a compelling detail, however: When it comes to the women founders I work with from around the world, this multi-tasking is normal. It is now at an all-time high and stress level, of course, but I’ve often coached founders by phone while they breastfeed, or we work around 5 other things happening, because it’s what’s required. For us, the pandemic was one more level of juggling. It’s why I’m all over them to ensure they set firm boundaries.

Because of all these intense new dynamics, it has never before been more important to ensure we’re operating from a place of empathy for the situations of others. Now, if we’re trying to be of service to humanity in our work, or to the world somehow, we probably land fairly high on the empathy-ometer to begin with.

But what if we don’t, and are unaware?

It’s worth checking in to see if the problem we’re trying to solve in the world is merely us imposing our solution on others (the seemingly obvious but actually lazy way), or listening for what is needed. This distinction is critically important if we want to have any lasting measure of success. It’s easy to see, in the world of doing good, a lot of imposed ideas that contribute to the problem rather than the solution. Just spend some time in the world of non-profits and developing economies, and you’ll see plenty. This article isn’t designed to call anyone out, but rather to remind you how important it is for your quest to check in with yourself and see where you fall on that spectrum of listening.

And because it is Black History Month, it’s worth spotlighting that nowhere can misguided empathy be more detrimental than in conversations about race and creating an equitable world. Examples that come to mind are asking Black women to speak for free during this month to “highlight” them, or asking them to spearhead an initiative at work for Black History Month that has nothing to do with their jobs. There is some radical empathy missing there. Thankfully, author Terri E. Givens has written a guide to this complicated conversation, and I’m eagerly awaiting its February 25th release date. Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides* explores “moving beyond an understanding of others’ lives and pain to understand the origins of our biases, including internalized oppression.”

There is much work to do in this area for us to improve the state of humanity, and I believe Givens’ book will provide an excellent framework for it. And if we do this work at the level of our own inner bias when it comes to racism, such inner clarity can illuminate all the other areas of our lives. There is only winning in this formula, and if we want to leave the world better than we found it, this is perhaps the most important step in getting ourselves out of the way so change can happen.

This nurturing of the bedrock of collaboration can lead us to a future that works for everyone, and that is something to live for.

With love from NYC,

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Photo: Steve Halama

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*Affiliate link. Proceeds from purchases of this book will be donated to Black Girls Code.