Empathy at Work

Chapter 5. Operationalizing Empathy

Empathy at work isn’t something that just happens: it’s a result of communicating intentionally and knowing how to bounce back from failures of empathy. It’s difficult to quantify how impactful empathetic actions are without some sort of system in place that helps guide people. When people have a set of rules to follow, they know when they are succeeding and when they need to switch things up. For this reason, operationalizing empathy is vital to having success in this realm.

I’d like to take a moment here and say that I know it seems that operationalizing something as intangible as empathy is impossible. After all, we can’t just systemize people’s feelings and expect that to actually work in maintaining a positive environment in the office. When I say “operationalizing empathy,” I mean identifying the empathy actions that are the most impactful and then defaulting to those when you or your coworkers find yourselves in a difficult situation. This kind of change will take effort, but it is entirely achievable.

Impactful Everyday Empathy Actions

Empathy is a muscle that must be engaged routinely to see any significant growth long-term. And how do you strengthen muscles? Through consistent use. Operationalizing empathy in your life means figuring out which actions you can do easily and immediately and which will take more focus and work. To get you started, the two most common everyday actions that you can focus on immediately are how you approach ...