On Productive Empathy

“You Belong Here” by Monica McKelvey Johnson, via the Justseeds graphics toolbox.H/T to The All We Can Save Project for the resource.

Hi friend! 

Well, here I am in your inbox with my very first newsletter. I’m a little nervous and a lot humbled by the idea of you reading these words. The thing is, I’ve been fortunate to work on some really cool projects lately. I also love to write. And I’m pretty lousy at staying in touch with my extraordinary network of friends and family. So this newsletter is an attempt to tie all three of those truths up with a digital bow. 

The plan is to come to you monthly with contemplations and hypotheses from my work helping leaders and organizations navigate tricky questions (e.g. how to be human in 2022). I’ll also share some things that I’m reading/watching/attending, and hope you will too. Please share any thoughts or questions you have while reading–I’d love to know what you think!  

Okay, here we go! 

CPM

“Wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking.”

-Antonio Machado

Notions & Contemplations

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been called an empath…and not always in a good way. Often it’s “maybe you should try not to feelsomuch,” as if empathy is a weakness or open wound in a world of constant suffering. 

Life is indeed full of suffering (see: Buddhism), and I will be the first to admit that there have been times when my overgrown empathy bone has slowed me down. But if there’s one lesson from my work in the last several years, it is that empathy, when intentionally activated and sustained, is more of a superpower than a drag. Less like a wound, more like a winner–especially in the workplace.

A Compass for Common Ground

Let’s be honest: it feels increasingly difficult to talk to many of our neighbors, maybe even our coworkers and family members. Common ground seems harder to come by, especially when we aren’t operating from the same information. If connection is our true north, the compass keeps breaking. It is in this exceedingly challenging environment that I’d offer, perhaps controversially, that our increasingly systemic failure of communication is in fact a failure of personal empathy. 

Productive Empathy

Empathy is widely known as the ability to understand another’s experience. It is a critical function of human (and non-human) connection: to expand our perspective beyond ourselves, and to value divergent experiences such that our own thoughts and behavior are shifted. In my work with the Southern Equity Collective on racial equity, we also call this a strategy for minimizing bias (more on that next month).  

To be clear: I’m not talking about the kind of empathy that leads to altruism (though I like that kind too). Today I’m talking about a certain productive empathy that leads to better understanding our colleagues and kin. To more representative decision-making and stronger bottom lines. To fewer blindspots and easier dinner table conversations. It goes something like this:

I see you. → I seek to understand the needs, fears, and desires that inform your behavior. → I adjust my behavior so that I can support my needs and yours, at the same time. 

And thus, we rise together. 

A Radical Act

I recognize that a return to empathy is a radical act, especially in these painful political times when our human rights hang in the balance. As with all things, there is a time and place for empathy as a tool for communication and for healing. Yet I fervently believe that a more expansive understanding and application of empathy may be, more often than not, what we need to find our way back to one another. 

Next month, more on productive empathy in practice…hint: it starts with a pause. 

On My Kindle & Feed & Calendar

Need inspiration to keep going while the world is burning? Pick up a copy of All We Can Save – a feminist anthology on climate solutions – and subscribe to the All We Can Save Project. Their monthly email feels like a giant hug from Mother Earth, poetry, and art, all rolled into one. Here’s their brilliant newsletter and their beautiful instagram. <3 

Looking to upgrade your binge habit? Check out Hungry for Answers on Discovery+ (or Prime!) with Southern Equity Collective co-founder and poet extraordinaire, Caroline Randall Williams. It’s a mouth-watering, mind-blowing journey at the intersection of race, food, and culture in these United States.