The power of empathy for organizational success is not just proven in all the data. Neuroscience backs up our human need to connect and form relationships. But why does empathic communication lead to better business results, improved wellness, decreased burnout, and better workforce retention? We explore that today with Dr. Helen Riess.
Persuaded by the belief that empathy can transform healthcare, Dr. Riess founded Empathetics to meet medicine’s most pressing challenges. We talk about whether empathy can be taught or if it’s an inborn trait, the evidence for how empathy improves measurable outcomes, and what shifts we need to make to more fully bring empathy into work. Dr. Riess shares how the brain works on empathy and how it looks different for different people of all abilities. Finally, we discuss the importance of getting people into the right seat to lead with empathy and why self-regulation skills are critical to leadership success.
To access the episode transcript, please search for the episode at TheEmpathyEdge.com.
Listen and discover:
- Why empathy is a key survival trait of the human species.
- Effective shifts to bring more personal compassion, kindness, and empathy to the workplace.
- The best ways to start your day for effective, empathetic leadership.
- Advice for dealing with people at different stages and levels of empathy.
- Why practicing empathy at work spills over into other aspects of your life.
“Neuroscience shows that when the brain is at rest, we’re not doing nothing. The default mode is all about working out relationships. It just shows how critical human relationship and connectedness really is.” — Dr. Helen Riess
About Dr. Helen Riess, Founder and Chief Medical Officer, Empathetics
Dr. Helen Riess, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is renowned for her groundbreaking research into the neurobiology of empathy. Dr. Riess has shown that empathy can be taught and learned. Her work has reshaped how healthcare professionals connect with patients and colleagues, fostering trust and greater patient and clinician satisfaction. Her award-winning research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals.
Persuaded by the belief that empathy can transform healthcare, Dr. Riess founded Empathetics to meet medicine’s most pressing challenges. As Chief Medical Officer, she translates her research into programs that help healthcare teams navigate the communication demands of modern practice. Her empathy training programs improve wellness, reduce burnout and employee turnover and improve workforce cultures.
Her best-selling book, The Empathy Effect, has resonated globally. Her TEDx talk, “The Power of Empathy,” has nearly one million views. A Founding Member of Newsweek’s Expert Forum, Dr. Riess continues to champion the transformative power of empathy to improve healthcare for everyone.
Connect with Helen:
Empathetics, Inc: empathetics.com
Instagram: instagram.com/helen.riess
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/helen-riess
TEDx: The Power of Empathy
Book: The Empathy Effect: empathetics.com/empathy-effect-book
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books
Learn more about Maria’s work: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
Threads: @redslicemaria
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. The power of empathy for organizational success is not just proven in all the data. Neuroscience backs up our human need to connect and form relationships. But why does empathic communication lead to better business results, as well as improved wellness, decreased burnout and better workforce retention. What’s behind it all today, we explore that with Dr Helen Riess, someone I’ve been wanting to have on the show for some time. Dr Riess is a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and is renowned for her groundbreaking research into the neurobiology of empathy. Dr Riess has shown that empathy can be taught and learned. Her work has reshaped how healthcare professionals connect with patients and colleagues, fostering trust and greater patient and clinician satisfaction, persuaded by the belief that empathy can transform healthcare, Dr Riess founded empathetics to meet medicine’s most pressing challenges. As Chief Medical Officer, she translates her research into programs that help healthcare teams navigate the communication demands of modern practice. Her empathy training programs improve wellness, reduce burnout and employee turnover and improve workforce cultures. Her best selling book, the empathy effect, seven neuroscience based keys for transforming the way we live, love, work and connect across differences, has resonated globally. Her TEDx talk the power of empathy has nearly 1 million views. Dr Riess continues to champion the transformative power of empathy to improve healthcare for everyone. Today, we talk about whether empathy can be taught or if it’s an inborn trait, the evidence for how empathy improves measurable outcomes and what shifts we need to make to more fully bring empathy into work. Dr Riess shares how the brain works on empathy and how it looks different for different people, whether they’re neurodiverse or deal with certain impairments, or even if they don’t tune in to faces or tone of voice the way others do. Finally, we discuss the importance of getting people into the right seat to lead with empathy and why self regulation skills are critical to leadership success. So many insights today. Take a listen. Dr Helen Riess, this has been a long time coming. Welcome to the empathy edge podcast. I am so excited to talk to you today about things science, things brain and things empathy in the workplace. So welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. So as we do with all of our guests, I would love to kick off and find out how you even got into this work. You I know that you are, you know, a psychiatrist, and you know, obviously you’ve had lots of different avenues you could have dove more deeply into, and you’ve chosen to really dive deeply into empathy. So tell us how you got here.
Dr. Helen Riess 03:47
Well, as a psychiatrist, I obviously was drawn to connecting with people and understanding their stories, and I got into the empathy work really by listening to my patients talking about what was happening in their healthcare visits, because I worked in a big hospital, and I would hear some, you know, behaviors that were really concerning about people not feeling that they were connected, not feeling that their voices were heard, or that their problems were really understood. And that’s really what motivated me to see, can we teach this? Because many people think it’s just something we’re born with, and I have this inkling that since it seems to be easy to degrade empathy, there must be ways to upgrade it as well.
Maria Ross 04:34
I love that. Yeah, I often use that analogy about the empathy gym and everyone sort of having that muscle to a certain degree, but for some of us, it’s atrophied. For some of us, it’s really strong, and we’ve been able to be in environments where it’s celebrated and it’s rewarded and it’s modeled, and others not so much, and then carry that over into the workplace. You could have the most empathetic people, but if they’re in a workplace where the environment, the soil, isn’t fertile. Useful for them to practice that empathy. It’s sort of, again, that muscle starts to atrophy. So I I am dying to ask you the question that that I always get asked, and I am not a doctor or a psychiatrist. So let’s talk a little bit about the brain. And some research shows that we are born with empathy as an innate trait. It’s how our species has survived. It’s how we’ve been able to move forward and advance as a society. But we all know people that struggle to connect with their empathy. So which is it? What’s going on there?
Dr. Helen Riess 05:35
Well, it’s both. So you know, just like your muscle analogy, we’re born with an endowment of muscle size and Twitch and all kinds of capabilities. But what really matters is, what do you do with that? Do you practice? Do you work out, or do you lie on the couch and just, you know, let nature take over. Empathy has to be nurtured, and it’s best when it’s modeled at a very young age. And you know, the brain really does register other people’s suffering because it enables us to be motivated to help them. And the empathy muscle really can start with threat sensors. So if we see somebody looking in pain or looking afraid or terrified, the part of our brain that responds to threats gets really activated, and then a little circuit takes place that taps into emotion recognition, sensing what other people are feeling and taking the perspective like what’s going on here. And these are very like millisecond, rapid connections, but it really does start with the ability to perceive that other people are in trouble. And that’s, I think, why they say that empathy is a trait that’s enabled the survival of our species, because none of us can exist alone. It’s all about human connection,
Maria Ross 07:02
absolutely. And you know, it’s funny, because I always talk about also having empathy when people are experiencing joy or happiness, we’re able to do that sometimes we only equate it with being able to connect with someone’s pain. But, and I always tell this kooky story about the fact that I love watching game shows, and the reason I love watching game shows is I get such a high watching people win. I feel like I’ve won when I watch their faces light up and like my heart starts beating faster and I can’t stop smiling. And so it’s that ability to connect, not just through pain, but also through happiness and joy too. And really I feel that connection. Yes, I
Dr. Helen Riess 07:41
think that’s the survival part. Probably started with facial recognition, and as people were less, you know, basically fending for their very existence, like way back in early times when danger was everywhere. I imagine that we evolved to be able to appreciate joy and happiness, and resonate with that with similar neurons, because we have different parts of the brain that light up, you know, within our reward systems when we see people really happy. So it’s both,
Maria Ross 08:12
yeah, and I’m going to put a link to your TEDx talk, your wonderful TEDx talk the power of empathy. But I love that you share that story of, sort of how empathy shows up in the brain. And can you just, can you give us a quick hit of that and explain to us what is actually happening to us and our brains when we’re able to be empathetic or when we’re able to experience empathy? I don’t know if it has to be mutual for those centers to line up light up, but tell us a little bit about that. So
Dr. Helen Riess 08:39
empathy begins with perception of human emotion, and it can be either live or even imagining someone in pain or seeing something on television. So it doesn’t have to be in person. And that perception starts to trigger whether people are in a safe or unsafe situation. You know, one of the reasons we have empathy is not just to help other people, but it’s also to help us learn what causes pain and how to avoid it. So if we see someone stepping on glass, for example, you know, we’re motivated to help them, but we also learn, you know, at a very young age, don’t step on glass, because you’re going to see a lot of blood and start crying. So the brain is registering these many threats that actually pertain to our own survival and also to the survival of others. Through that perception of processing takes place and then the motivational centers of our brain get activated, and this is where things can get stuck, because we can be motivated to help. You know, say there’s a worker in our office who’s overwhelmed with a deadline and just so upset, and people around are buried in their own work, so they might actually. On to help but be thinking, I just can’t afford the time at this minute because my deadline is due, right? So the motivation can be there, but other factors can interfere with the helping gesture, which is why, of course, it’s so important in the workplace to make sure that people aren’t constantly overwhelmed and overworked and unable to help each other, because that actually provides a lot of the joy. And reason why people want to stay in their jobs is that there’s a mutual helping understanding, yeah, and care about
Maria Ross 10:34
others. Yeah, there’s a camaraderie. And my most recent book the empathy dilemma, I talk about the five pillars of effective and empathetic leadership, and one of those is self care, because if our capacity is low, we don’t have the capacity to be there for other people and show up with patience and accept another point of view without defensiveness or fear. But also to your point Joy was in there too, because if you’re creating an environment of joy, people get to know each other. They can relax. They feel like other people have their backs, and that enables them to do their best work and tap into their as you’re saying, be able to tap into their empathy for other people without being so much in self preservation mode all the time. That’s kind of what I hear you saying,
Dr. Helen Riess 11:17
right? We’re not meant to be in survival mode all day long. Absolutely, that does bring up the whole topic of self empathy, which many people think that’s a contradiction in terms. But just as we’re able to perceive the suffering of others, we also need to be able to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, How am I doing right? What do I need? How do I nurture myself so that I can show up in the best possible way?
Maria Ross 11:45
Yeah. I mean, I equate so much of my work to parenting and parenting analogies. But you know, when I’m my son’s 11, and I talk about, you know, the times when I’m hungry and tired, I am not a good parent. And it’s kind of the same thing with empathy. If you’re not, if your capacity is so drained, you will never be able to get out of that survival mode and be able to so you have to start with you. You sort of have to get your own house in order, in order to be at full capacity, to be able to be there for someone else and be able to even read their cues right, even, like you said, their facial expressions, and identify the emotions or the feelings that they might be having. So let’s talk about the workplace a little bit. Because, you know, we all know people in the office, and I you probably get this a lot too, where it’s like, well, I’m trying to be empathetic, but the other person is not being empathetic to me. So what do I do? Right? So can you talk to us? And I know it’s different from individual to individual. But what happens to us where we’re completely shutting down our empathy? What is happening, if that’s happening to us, barring any psychopathies that people may have, and then maybe because of some psychopathies that people have?
Dr. Helen Riess 12:57
Well, you know, in my work, I spent really years shadowing clinicians in particular who were either, you know, struggling or not getting great patient ratings. And you know, many times the leaders in these organizations, they knew that the capacity was there, but something was going wrong, right? And so in that work, you know, I would often see examples of somebody not connecting Well, rushing through exams. I’m not really making good eye contact or greeting a person with a friendly face. And many times these were just a function of being exhausted, burned out, or feeling underappreciated, not feeling seen, not feeling that they themselves were getting nurtured by the environment. And so we know right now that there is just a revolving door of people leaving all workplaces and healthcare in particular, and so we’re at a very important inflection point in healthcare where we cannot afford to not tune in to how our workers are doing. Are they getting burned out? Are they spending too much time at home catching up? Are the workloads really sustainable? Or are we turning our people into unemphatic workers who were that is going to harm the whole system? And this is not just true for health care.
Maria Ross 14:30
I was going to say that you could insert any industry in there too. Yeah, yes.
Dr. Helen Riess 14:34
So having leaders who practice self empathy and who are taking good care of themselves. First, that does open up a whole openness and a greater capacity for compassion, which, just to be clear, empathy is our perception and our processing. Compassion is what we how we show
Maria Ross 14:56
it. Exactly right, empathy. Compassion is empathy. In Action for sure,
Dr. Helen Riess 15:01
exactly right. And so the more a leader can show appreciation, validate good work and stimulate, you know, more excitement about the work ahead, the more the whole workplace is going to be uplifted. And just the opposite happens when right leaders aren’t paying attention to their most valuable resource, which is their people,
Maria Ross 15:23
their people. And this is where I I’m fascinated, from a psychology perspective, when I think about some of the most you know, quite frankly, psychologically abusive managers I’ve had or seen, right? I know, like, cognitively, I know they probably have families who love them. They probably have nieces they spoil. They probably have, you know, children they adore their spouse or their partner. Probably sees all these good things about them, and I just don’t know sometimes what happens to people when they walk through the office door, and how they sometimes can be so misaligned with who they are outside of work as they are at work. And you know, there could be so many reasons for that. It could be insecurity, fear, poor role models at work, thinking that there’s no place for empathy and compassion at work. What have you seen around leaders who have been able to recognize that duality in themselves and make a shift. What has been the difference maker to help them realize that they can bring some of that personal compassion and kindness and empathy into the workplace, and, you know, to the point of my whole work and still be high performing and high achieving. What kinds of shifts have been most effective that you’ve seen with your clients or the research you’ve done. So one of
Dr. Helen Riess 16:46
the most important things that we teach at empathetics is starting your day with intention. And that means you don’t just roll out of bed, you know, take a shower and put your work clothes on and drive mindlessly to your job, but you actually stop and think, How do I want to show up today? You know, what kind of person do I want to be? And so just starting with that question can often set the stage for a more genuine openness to the workplace. And another important question that I think really helps leaders is the question of, what do I get to do today, instead of what do I have to do today? And many just start the day with that list that really closes down creativity, it closes down exuberance, it closes down opportunity and also just the joy of like mentoring the other people in the workplace. Because if you’re just stuck on what you have to get done, you’ve narrowed down your field of vision to be very task oriented, tactical and not really very open and strategic. So I really recommend starting the day with what, what are three things that you get to do? Yeah, and sometimes even in my own life, I’ll start with what I have to do, and I reframe it into like, oh, yeah, I’ve got to do that, but that means I get to do this. And right? It’s really just a change in perspective, and I think that’s contagious.
Maria Ross 18:23
Yes, language matters so much our own self talk. I really believe that. And you know, that shift has gotten me through, you know, a grueling workout of I get to do this, I get to move my body in this way, right, and also just tasks that are meaningful and that you don’t want to do, right? So I love that talk to us a little bit about the research that you’ve uncovered of the ROI of empathy in the workplace, so that we you know, because I imagine I know, like with the work I do, it’s about giving skeptics the business case to embrace empathy, because sometimes the moral imperative is not enough. So we want to meet them where they are, and I know you are constantly uncovering new research around the ROI. So can you share some fresh data with us around that?
Dr. Helen Riess 19:09
Yes, I would love to share some very new data. You know, we started out as a patient experience enhancement company because, as I said, I was a psychiatrist, seeing the pain in people who didn’t feel all that cared about what quickly happened during the pandemic was realizing that we could not ask any more out of healthcare workers they did not want to hear, on top of all the threats they were facing. Now be more empathetic because, you know, they were running dry, right? So that’s where self empathy was born, and with the combination of these different parts of our empathetic system. So starting with self empathy works for some people, starting with more skill based kinds of interventions works for. Others. But if you start by connecting to yourself and having this ripple effect in your organization where people are learning like daily self care practices, not like once a week take a yoga class, but daily things they can do every day, we started to get results from some of our clients who literally said, the half of the our workforce, who took empathetics, we have a 2% turnover, a point 2% turnover, the half that hasn’t we have an 8.5% Wow, wow. And in one 500 position group, it saved them $18.9 million in recruiting and onboarding costs. So that’s when we realized, you know, everyone who thinks it is a moral imperative is always saying, Well, how can we prove this to the C suite and to the CSOs that this is a good investment, and because of the careful tracking with this client, we did that. And you know, we have really just become a workforce retention system with many on ramp points where you can start, either with workshops you can start. Our new app is coming out in just like about a month, so there’s going to be just in time learning right at the palm of your hand, right and then our traditional, web based courses are available, so we’re now able to meet the needs of wherever people are to if they really want to put a dedicated effort to improving the workplace
Maria Ross 21:32
well. And it’s so interesting that you bring this up because and the roots of the company, because, you know, part of the, one of the paths that led me to the empathy work was my own experience recovering from a brain aneurysm and discovering later that the quality of my care was not an accident. It wasn’t that I was just really lucky to get a lot of nice people on my care team that the hospital had subscribed to patient and family centered care as a philosophy, so it was embedded in the training and the protocols in everything from the policies of visiting hours and how to choose your food as a patient, and how people were trained to call me by name every time they entered my room, it was the ability to scale empathy. And one of the nuggets that I’m sure you’ve come across too, is that when physicians are rated as empathetic by their patients, there’s lower risk of malpractice suits, even in cases where the health outcome was not untoward, right?
Dr. Helen Riess 22:33
You’re absolutely right. And this is why some malpractice insurance companies are our clients, because the ones who really understand, it’s really the relationship breaking down and communication breakdowns and a breakdown in empathy that often does motivate someone to file a claim, whereas, if they were treated well and something unfortunate happens, yeah, people want to give the benefit of the doubt to a caring care team, you know, they don’t want to retaliate, or, you know, go down in history as the patient that made life miserable for everyone. They are usually so grateful for the honest will, but if you break that will, people will come after you.
Maria Ross 23:17
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my own diagnosis was initially misdiagnosed by a primary care doctor that I had actually had an aneurysm that just hadn’t failed me, and when I went to the doctor with neck pain and back pain and a raging headache, it was misdiagnosed. But I never blamed that doctor number one, because primary care doctors don’t get very good education around suspecting brain aneurysms. But number two, because he listened to me, he actually did listen, and he took the time. And it wasn’t like he was rushing me out of there, but he really thought it was just stress. He really thought it was just, you know, well, let’s try these other things first and see what happens. And so you know that that’s the kind of thing where I hear that a lot of like, don’t you think you should go back? And I’m like, But no, he treated me well within the confines of what he knew and what that experience was like. So I definitely, firsthand, could say, you know, that does make a difference. And when you’re a business, and especially when you’re dealing with customer service, customer success, it’s not always about solving the problem that paints your brand with goodwill. It’s about how you’re treated in the process of trying to solve the problem. Someone really is dedicated to trying to help, like you think about help desks and people that you call for technical support, you don’t always get the right answer, but if somebody truly tried and shows, you, know, a little anxiety that they really want to help you, right? It goes such a long way, right? I love that. So I would like to talk about a little shift. Since I have you and I have a doctor and a psychiatrist with me, let’s talk about neurodiversity, because one of the things I’ve been talking. About the last few years is that we can access empathy in different ways. It doesn’t always have to look the same for everyone, and if you’re not necessarily a touchy feely person, you can still access your empathy cognitively. You can still access getting to an act of compassion through other doors. So can you tell us more from an actual scientific and medical point of view, what does that mean? What when we’re talking about neurodiversity, when we’re talking about autism, or we’re talking about other types of issues that people may have that stereotypically, we’ve been told get in the way of empathy? What can empathy look like for different people, even something as innocuous as introvert versus extrovert?
Dr. Helen Riess 25:43
Well, that’s a big question, yeah, and I think empathy looks different for different types of impairment, so if we’re talking about autism spectrum disorder, often those folks have a lot of emotional empathy. They get upset when other people are upset. Their impairment is not being able to read faces very well or tone of voice. But if you start crying in front of you know somebody, depending on where they are on the spectrum, they will feel upset and dysregulated. It’s more the matter of not processing like facial expressions very well. And so there, you know, there are treatments available for this, which is super encouraging, where people can learn, just to memorize, like, if the mouth is turned up like this and their eyes are involved, it means they’re happy, and so it’s a little extra step, but they can get there, and through applied behavioral analytics and all kinds of reinforcement tools that you know may decrease stimulation to help a person become more attuned, there are ways to build on the empathy, And we must remember, they are empathic at the core, it’s not what they don’t feel human emotion, right? You know, another group that we put in the sociopathy group, that’s a different story. The the impairment there is, you know, how I talked about the threat sensor of the brain is, like, when we see people hurting or, like, scared or impaired, that part of the brain is very turned down so they are not moved when they see people suffering, they don’t have the mechanism to actually feel the pain.
Maria Ross 27:38
And just to clarify, you’re talking about folks that might have a sociopathic disorder. Okay, great, yes,
Dr. Helen Riess 27:44
so there’s just a lack of perceptive resonance with other people in pain, yeah, and I mean, in extreme examples where they’re actually harming people that look of, you know, fear and horror and pain isn’t enough to stop them, because they’re not processing, so they have very little breaks, shall we say, for mistreating people. And you know, we see this to varying degrees in the workplace, like some people are very gruff, they’re harsh, and they’re not very friendly or kind, and it’s off putting to others. And I think in some cases, it’s not because they’re mean people, but they’re not reading the room well, right? And I wouldn’t say those are sociopaths, but I’m just trying to say there’s varying degrees of, yeah, attunement and even recognizing the impact of your social behavior. So like the special part of our brain that processes emotion, interestingly, is the same part that processes social interaction. Interesting, right? And so if people who are impaired in this area, they can’t put together, that person was just nice to me, so I should be kind and say thank you, or maybe do something reciprocal, right? It just gets lost, and it’s a problem.
Maria Ross 29:09
Okay, I have a question on that. Again, as a parent, is there a childhood development stage where that’s not activated until later, asking for a friend? No, I’m just kidding, but I have heard that there’s certain stages of childhood development where we don’t tap into our empathy because we’re still working on our sense of self. I might be completely butchering that, but can you speak to that at all? I think what you’re
Dr. Helen Riess 29:35
really describing is these compensatory areas of the brain that compensate so when we are, you know, especially in the teenage years, struggling to fit in, like, who am I in this context? Who am I at home? The brain is on fire with activity and trying to understand social relationships. You know, they say that when the brain is at rest, we’re not doing nothing. So the default mode is all about working out relationships. Isn’t that interesting? Wow. That’s what neuroscience shows. Is that when people are on the bus on the way home, or, you know, in their car, they’re usually not thinking about, how do I, you know, get the last paragraph written on that proposal they’re thinking about, how did that go today with Tom or Joe or like, I wonder what you know whether, whether that went okay or Yeah, could be like, Wow, that didn’t go right for me. I’m really, you know, caught up in the emotion of what happened to me. Yeah, but the default mode, it’s, it just shows how critical human relationship and connectedness really is,
Maria Ross 30:42
yeah, absolutely. So I know I’m kind of all over the place, because I just love having my hands on you right now. But can we talk a little bit about how do we deal in the workplace? Let’s take it from the perspective of you’re trying to be empathetic, but you are dealing with people that are at all these varying stages of on the scale that you were talking about, whether they can’t read the room, or they’re not as tapped into their emotions. Or what are some strategies for, number one, coping with that as someone in the workplace. And then number two, what are the strategies you work with your clients on to help those people better tap into their empathy. So if there are, I call them empathy gaps, I think it’s first of all recognizing that it’s there is number one, right? It takes some work for a lot of people, and then I think I’m a very strong proponent of finding a safe place to talk about these kinds of gaps, to get perspective on what might you be contributing to it, and you know what’s coming from the other person.
Dr. Helen Riess 31:52
And a lot of this taps into the self regulation skills that I think are critical for anyone trying to learn empathy. Mm, hmm, because we can so easily get flooded by our own fears, by our own agendas, by our own you name it, things that make us uncomfortable, right? And so we always have to have the self awareness to look at. Am I contributing to this or is this quality something that’s happening, you know, all over the place, and I think most of the time, people are trying to be decent at work. They’re not trying to cause a problem. But if there is, you know, a competency gap, or someone’s in the wrong wrong seat, you know, in an environment, it’s an act of kindness to help get them in the right seat right and not to expect things out of people who aren’t able to do them. Because I think that tension is often what gets people upset at each other, when it might be a misunderstanding and it might be just understanding. You know, what are you really good at, and what do you love to do, right? And you know, how do we help, help people here perform at their
Maria Ross 33:09
best, absolutely, and so. And then what so that sounds like. That might be some advice for the person who is empathetic dealing with someone who is not empathetic. What are some, what are some strategies or interventions that have worked well to help someone in the organization who is not exhibiting a lot of empathy, number one, first come to the realization of it if they haven’t been self aware, and number two, strengthen that empathy.
Dr. Helen Riess 33:37
So I have a great story for that, because I once had a clinician tell me I don’t have empathy. I just, you know, I’m on the spectrum, and that was a surprise to me, because it wasn’t clear that that was the case, right? But this person’s self assessment was, I don’t I just don’t have empathy. And when, you know, when I share a diagnosis and people start getting upset. I don’t feel anything. And so this person was kind of like, I guess I’m just, you know, a lost cause. And so I had the feeling that wasn’t the whole story. And so we worked together at some very basic connecting skills, you know, like making eye contact sitting at eye level when you’re talking to a patient, in this case, and recognizing that when you’re delivering bad news. And that goes for anybody in any industry, you have to realize the vulnerability in yourself and in the other person, even if you’re not that aware of it, because you know, like, when you tell someone they have a an illness, it’s not going to get better, that’s not a good day, that’s a terrible day. Yeah. So this person learned some of the, what I call some of the more like skills of empathy, and then we worked on, how do you put yourself in that person’s shoes? That. Just gotten terrible news. What might you say? Because this person was a brilliant diagnostician, but yeah, would give the news and kind of feel like they’d done their job right? And so we practiced saying things like that, must be hard for you, or I wish I had better news, like something that was a bridge, or even before the news, saying, I, you know, I wish I had better news to share with you. And so I saw this person, like months later, and they told me that they had started saying just that must be hard for you. And the story was that when those words were expressed and eye contact was made, this person started to feel something, wow. And the patients would say, thank you so much. That means so much that you understand. And it’s almost like a heart opening happened, yeah, you know. So when people say, I don’t have it, I’m just like, and obviously there’s a range, and this person really did work at it, because I think the job was not that satisfying, giving really bad news all the time, right? So anyway, that’s a way that we can sort of teach the mechanics, right, and then also help people with that, you know, part of empathy that’s cognitive. It’s the perspective taking, yeah, imagine it’s happening, you know, to your mother, imagining this happening to your yes,
Maria Ross 36:30
what might you be feeling,
Dr. Helen Riess 36:32
what might you be thinking? And just using that as like a cognitive exercise, exactly what might you need to hear, right? And so I get very energized by these stories where you’re not just changing a clinician or a worker’s life, you’re changing the life of every person they touch in the organization. And that’s really
Maria Ross 36:53
powerful. Yeah, well, and you know the work you do, the work I do, it’s ultimately, we’re trying to create a more empathetic world, but I’m, you know, I’m starting at work and creating a sandbox for people and a lab for people to practice those skills at work, because then all those people go home to families, to personal relationships, to communities, to the larger world, and if they can practice that skill in the place that they spend the bulk of their time, we’re ultimately going to bleed out into the other areas of our lives.
Dr. Helen Riess 37:25
That’s exactly right, and that’s the feedback we often get. Is I’ve tried these techniques on my teenager, like one person even said I tried that, you know, taking a time out for myself with my two year old. It’s put them in a time, put yourself in a time, and and they come back with such excitement, because they really it does work, and it makes people’s lives just that much smoother and more enjoyable, for sure.
Maria Ross 37:50
And you know, we know it’s a practice, and you’re not going to be good at it at every day, at every moment, because we’re all going to have different capacities at different moments. And so, right? You know, the word of encouragement I always try to give people is just like, again, kind of going back to the gym analogy. The first time you go work out, it’s going to feel awkward and weird, and you might be sore the next day, and that’s okay, but you keep showing up, and you know, you’re going to have good days and you’re going to have bad days, and that’s okay. It’s it’s the progress, not the perfection.
Dr. Helen Riess 38:19
Exactly. I love that such an important way to think about it as it’s a journey, not like you do this one thing and
Maria Ross 38:26
and then check it off the list. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Well, Helen, it’s been delightful to finally connect with you. I hope, yes, we continue to connect. We will have all your links in the show notes, including to your TEDx talk. We’ll have a link to empathetics and to your book the empathy effect. So but for anyone that’s on the go or exercising while they’re listening to us and engaging in some self care, where’s the best place they can connect with
Dr. Helen Riess 38:53
you? So I’m on LinkedIn, and also the empathetics website is a great place to reach us, for people interested in how we use a workforce retention system to help organizations, really, in any industry, we’re becoming industry agnostic, so we’re I love it, excited about the impact we can have.
Maria Ross 39:17
I love it. Thank you so much for your time and your insights. Today, it was a pleasure. So nice to talk with you. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review and share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Yes, please follow me on Instagram at Red slicemaria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place. You.
