In the final publication of the October throughline we explore how to build a culture of innovation one question at a time.
Tag: design
Are your assumptions holding you back?
Too often, we take the status quo for granted and don’t challenge our assumptions about the world around us. This can lead to stagnation and a lack of innovation.
How To Get Better At Giving Feedback
In this second issue of our August throughline, we explore one side of the feedback dynamic, the giver of feedback. Let’s look closely at the feedback experience from the giver’s perspective.
Provocations To Be More Empathic
Piece Together Moments of Truth
The word derives from Greek empatheia (from em- ‘in’+ pathos ‘feeling’)
Key Ideas
- A moment of empathy
- How to define empathy?
- Children’s books on empathy
- An alternative view to challenge your thinking.
- Empathy is an aggregate of personal stories and emotions.
- The perspective from Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence.
Empathy: An Aggregate of Personal Truths
“our capacity for empathy is as much the result of our experience and practice as it is of our genetic makeup.” ~ Alisa Del Tufo
I typically share a simple question:
Is empathy a skill?
A closed question, so a simple one right?
Maybe this question breaks those rules. It is simple in structure and yet beguilingly complex to ponder.
Del Tufo answers it pretty well in my opinion. Our ability to empathise with others can be practised, the skill can be refined through the use of various tools and thinking frameworks to help us.
However, there is still something at a deeper level we rely upon.
During a school workshop, we discussed this very same question. Through our dialogue, we explored the concept that we could never completely understand what the experience and perspective are of someone else.
Walking in someone else’s shoes is as elusive as someone walking in our own.
With only a partial understanding realistically within our grasp, we explored how empathy is perhaps more about forming an understanding that is closer to someone else’s truth.
However, the truth we create ourselves is likely to be an aggregate of our own experiences, thoughts and emotions. Our own truths.
Empathy is an aggregate of our truths.
Del Tufo explains that we learn empathy when we experience connectedness and surface shared values.
I think this occurs in small aggregated pieces, rarely do we have exactly the same experience to draw from, the complexity of our bias (and life) prohibits this in many ways.
It is more a mosaic of experience we build that helps us connect with others, find common ground and shared values.
Against Empathy
How can we really claim to “know” what another truly feels?
Do you think empathy is a skill? Is empathy something that can be taught? Can we design an empathy rich curriculum?
Let’s explore an outlier’s view. Paul Bloom explains in his book ‘Against Empathy’ that “kindness motivated by empathy often has bad effects.”
“good parenting involves coping with the short-term suffering of your child”. An over-identification with one’s child’s unhappiness can be disabling to both parent and child.
In the link below Salley Vickers explores the book further explaining that Paul Bloom:
pins his colours to the mast of rational compassion rather than empathy, and it is a central tenet of the book’s argument — I think a correct one — that there exists confusion in people’s minds about the meaning of the two terms.
Please use the article as a provocation to your understanding of compassion, empathy and sympathy.
A review of these two books by Salley Vickers. Well worth your time to explore these opposing views to the usual rhetoric about empathy in education.
Against Empathy by Paul Bloom; The Empathy Instinct by Peter Bazalgette – review
Empathic Concern
Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, offers some clarity here to navigate the confusion. He explains that there are three aspects of empathy:
The first kind, cognitive empathy, allows me to see the world through your eyes: to take your perspective and understand the mental models that make up your lens on events. The second kind, emotional empathy, means I feel what you are feel; this empathy gives us an instant felt sense of the other person’s emotions.
It’s the third kind, empathic concern, that leads us to care about the other person’s welfare, to want to help them if they are in need. Empathic concern forms a basis for compassion.
In order to feel someone else’s pain, I have to connect with memories and experiences I have had.
Goleman explains that this might mean we choose not to help others because if your suffering makes me suffer, I can feel better by tuning out…When we think of empathy as a spur to prosocial acts, it’s empathic concern we have in mind.
In this short read, Daniel Goleman responds to the question: What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?
Children’s Books on Empathy
Stories have the potential to be perspective portals.
Stories have the power to transport us into another world and another worldview. The list of children’s books below is a good starting point for talking about empathy with young children.
The list author is Tinybop, a US, Brooklyn-based studio creating educational products. Although I have not come across some of these books before, I like the sound of this one:
Just Because by Amber Housey. Part of the series Flip Side Stories, which aim to teach children to see another point of view, Just Because teaches children about the value of giving, being thankful, and having empathy for others.
A great little collection of books aimed at primary age children that you might use as a starting point for dialogue about how we feel with others.
13 kids books to spark conversations about empathy
Moments of Empathy
Design Thinking has a phase called empathy. But this is not something we switch on and off. It is certainly not something that is just a tick-a-box.
A deeper connection with people at the heart of a problem will likely yield a stronger commitment to figuring things out.
During a Design Thinking online workshop, I encouraged teachers to share a story. A story of a time when they felt out of place and challenged by a language or cultural barrier. These memories helped us to connect on a deeper level, with the experiences of students at the heart of their inquiry.
It shifted the dialogue and our motivation to advocate.
We made meaning by connecting with our own experiences, memories and stories. This put us in a position to connect in a more meaningful way and understand more.
It was a privilege to be part of that moment, so pure and clear, and to help a little in getting there. It is rare to share such a discrete moment of empathy that I can recount.
Hold the Space
I stumbled on this quote from Brené Brown. Not sure why it had passed me by over the years, but my practice is better for this powerful articulation of what empathy is.
Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘You’re not alone.’
https://edte.ch/media/bc65af111a833cc48c137addeeaf1b7b
I had the chance to put it into practice straight away and wondered if I was overthinking how we “do it”.
Thanks for exploring these ideas with me.
Your Talking Points
- Do we narrow our attention too much on our quest for ‘more empathy”?
- Reflect on the clearest moment of empathy you have witnessed?
- Reread Brown’s quote. How might you apply the ideas in your own practice?
- What will you do to withhold judgment or simply listen?
This is a snippet of my Dialogic Learning Weekly. ⚡A weekly email designed to build your cognitive toolkit and enhance your practice. It saves you time and provokes your thinking.
Exactly the nourishment I need on a weekly basis.
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Feedback Is Oxygen For Your Ideas — Start With A Minimum Verbal Prototype
Drafting or prototyping is one of the later stages of the design process. Our approach and mindset have the potential to influence anything we create.
The key to success: share your ideas early and often.
Minimum Verbal Prototype
One of the simplest prototypes you can create is to describe your idea to someone else.
- What if we
- Why don’t we
- Imagine that we
Your Minimum Verbal Prototype or MVP is a more rounded description of your idea — not just one of many ideas on a list. Your verbal outline creates the first impression and helps someone understand your initial intent.
The MVP is the kick to begin representing your idea in a more tangible way.
The Word prototype is from Greek prōtotypon “a first or primitive form,” from prōtos “first” + typos ‘impression, mould, pattern.”
Prototyping is not the goal. Feedback is.
A different way to approach prototyping is:
To engineer as many opportunities for feedback as you can.
Feedback is the main reason we share drafts. Rough and ready versions give us the chance to test and think about what works and what doesn’t.
And to truly understand how bad our ideas are.
Feedback is oxygen for your ideas.
When you share a First Verbal Prototype, you activate a feedback loop to develop your creative ideas.
Remember, the only thing worse than a bad idea is to isolate an idea from feedback for too long.
Feedback is oxygen for your ideas. It will help them grow and get stronger, starved of it, and your ideas weaken.
This is a snippet of my Dialogic Learning Weekly. ⚡A weekly email designed to build your cognitive toolkit and enhance your practice. It saves you time and provokes your thinking.
Exactly the nourishment I need on a weekly basis.
⚡️ Subscribe now and get started this week.