Applied Empathy

by Michael Ventura

  • To test-drive a new car? To tune in at 8:00 p.m. on Channel 4? To sign up for home delivery?

  Understand that your conversation is meant to elicit a behavior that will support the powerful headline you imagined at the start of this exercise. Outline the behaviors you think are most critical to attaining that goal, and determine how you can encourage them.

  Relationships

  Your conversations and behaviors have now created a relationship. The next step is figuring out what to do with it.

  Ask yourself what kind of relationship you want with your consumers. This should begin before you start your conversations. Early planning will give you the clarity and the sense of purpose you need to bring your vision to reality.

  Do you want the relationship to be daily? A news outlet should be a go-to place for what’s happening in the world every day. But a luxury fashion brand, whose engagement with its consumer is higher touch and more service-minded, will need to consider a relationship that may be more infrequent but at a greater level of depth.

  Take a moment to understand the relationships you want to cultivate and write down what it will take to have them.

  Memories

  This is the holy grail. You want to be a business that creates lasting, meaningful memories in the minds of your consumers.

  When you think of a car, what is the first automotive brand that comes to your mind? Ask yourself why you thought of that one. Maybe it was the first car you owned or the one you own now. Maybe a commercial for the brand made you laugh (or cry), or maybe you drove by a billboard for the company on your way to work and the image stayed with you.

  Think of the characteristics you want people to associate with your business. Make a note of them for when you review the beginning of this exercise. Keep them at the top of your mind, and let them guide your leadership and your decisions, which impact the business as a whole, making sure they align with the headline you envision. This will help make your future vision—your Empathic Opportunity—a reality.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ritual Creates Reality

  Developing your empathic abilities won’t happen overnight. But as you commit yourself to thinking empathically and being empathic day after day, it will start to feel increasingly familiar. With time and dedication, you’ll find that practicing empathy will become second nature. The further I’ve gone down the empathy rabbit hole, the more I’ve seen that practicing empathy not only helps us cultivate an understanding of those around us but can also give us new perspectives on ourselves and our own personal development.

  To that end, our COO, Jeff, came to me one day with a provocative question that led us to a more consistent, almost ritualistic state in our practice of empathy: “What if we treated ourselves like our own best client?” he asked. “If we were to do that, what would we be doing that we’re not doing now?”

  As a service business, we always put our clients first, so it was a bit contrarian for us to focus on ourselves.

  Jeff had already ritualized a few things around the studio that had us set up for self-evaluation. Each week we meet with different departments, which gives us a chance not only to check on specific work in progress but also to meet with each team. How are we doing? What are we struggling with? In what ways can we help one another? I know this isn’t revolutionary, but it’s surprising how uncommon it is. In my experiences working with companies, it’s rare for executives to take the time to regularly check in with the members of their teams on a personal level and seek to truly understand how each person is doing.

  A “check-in” like this might be as simple as having a cup of coffee or walking around the block together if you get the sense that someone is going through a tough time at work or at home. Such personal moments are critical to real, empathic leadership. We spend most of our professional lives working side by side with people we get to know only in a work context. The best leaders I’ve observed make an effort to understand what’s going on with the people on their teams on a personal level—their goals, fears, hopes, and dreams; everyone has them. Time and again, I’ve seen great leaders do this as a way of building deeper, more meaningful relationships with the people around them.

  Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, is someone who is (rightly) praised for his ability to lead this way. He’s brought empathy into the center of Microsoft’s organization, using it as a tool to reorient the business and listen to feedback from within the company as well as the world around it. As a result, the company’s internal culture, as well as its growth, is on the rise.

  At Sub Rosa, we thrive on this sort of deep, personal work with our partners (Microsoft being one of them) and with ourselves. After all, if we don’t understand each other, how can we expect to work well together? What Jeff was pointing out to me was that even though we had become well-practiced in doing this for our clients, we weren’t doing a good enough job for ourselves. Being a service business that dedicates itself to our clients had gotten the best of us. We’d forgotten to give ourselves the same sort of attention and care. That led to the creation of Sub Rosa Day, a day each month that we dedicate fully to our internal work.

  On Sub Rosa Days, there are no client meetings. No conference calls. No developing ideas for anyone else. It’s one day a month when we work only on ourselves. It’s fair to ask if all fifty of us are able to maintain our commitment to that every month, and the answer is no. But we make an effort to get as close to 100 percent participation as possible. On Sub Rosa Day, people can connect with colleagues they don’t always interact with. We can go deep on some of the work we neglect to do on our own business—things such as project retrospectives, skills development workshops, or simply bonding with each other over a lunch or a postwork drink. Here are a few examples.

  PROJECT RETROSPECTIVES

  Every company has recently completed projects or initiatives that present opportunities to investigate the ins and outs of how it operates and what it does (and doesn’t do) well. Looking at these in detail and evaluating them for lessons and learning are the main purpose of project retrospectives. We didn’t always recognize the value of devoting time to looking at a completed project in great detail, but over time we found that doing so creates loads of interesting insights and reveals opportunities for improvement. One of our first experiences with a project retrospective was several years after our work with GE’s mammography business. That study led to the Seven Archetypes and so much of our foundation in empathy.

  We also discovered the value of having a project retrospective run by someone who was not on the project team. Such a person comes with an objectivity and lack of “tribal knowledge” about what happened on the project, and he or she is less prone to confirmation biases than the project team. This brings about inquiries whose answers reveal insights into the work that can be put to use on future projects. A person not involved with a project can also bring a fresh perspective that will provoke a team to see how they can work differently and better.

  It’s important to use these retrospectives to call out positives that occurred. Often retrospectives focus only on scrutinizing the shortcomings of a piece of work, but we’ve seen the importance of reward and recognition, giving team members the positive support they need to keep growing and doing their work better each day.

  SKILLS DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS

  Look around your organization, and ask what skills are lacking. We do this often, and a part of Sub Rosa Day focuses on training those deficiencies into strengths. Sometimes it’s as straight- forward as honing our presentation skills or improving a department’s deftness with a particular software. But other times it has taken a more idiosyncratic and “ownable” incarnation. We utilize a basic five-step process for providing feedback. We refer to it by the acronym CLEAR:

  C: Check in

  L: Lead with data

  E: Emotion

  A: Agreement

  R: Resolution

  Any feedback session among team members should follow this f
ormat as a way of making sure that information and personal sentiments are shared in a manner that benefits both parties.

  When we “Check in,” we make sure it’s the right time for feedback and all parties involved are in the right headspace to have this sort of conversation.

  “Lead with data” reminds everyone to start the conversation with facts, not subjectively with feelings or opinion.

  With the first two in place, it’s time for “Emotion” to be revealed, with each person saying how he or she feels about a given issue or topic.

  “Agreement” is a step designed to bring about common ground. You could think of this as the “empathy” step, where we look at the situation from the other person’s perspective and look for the place where our views align.

  We end with “Resolution,” the moment when we discover how we can move forward together.

  This may not be a surprising approach to conflict resolution, but interestingly, we have found it helpful to consider when there’s positive feedback to deliver. Over time, CLEAR conversations have become second nature to us, and we don’t always have to go through the five steps overtly because each element is integrated into our behavior. Consider your own team, culture, or company, and think about what aspects might be improved by incorporating new rituals such as these or others you might create for yourself.

  Rituals such as Sub Rosa Day and CLEAR have delivered meaningful results to both our company and our culture. They foster a sense of empathy in our interpersonal relationships because they show that we are invested in taking the time to understand where each of us needs support. After all, if you can’t dedicate one day a month to have your team work on itself, you’re selling the company short.

  This is what I mean by “ritual creates reality” in the title of this chapter. We don’t create a ritual for its own sake; we ultimately want it to become so interwoven into the tapestry of our culture that our reality changes—that we become what our rituals aim to personify.

  CONNECTING ONE-ON-ONE

  Empathic leadership comes with some nonnegotiables. One of them is the acceptance of, and participation in, mentoring.

  I’m sure that many of you have endured the rote experience of a mandated mentorship session or peer review meeting. That’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m not saying that those formats can’t be empathic—in fact, they should be; what I’m talking about is finding and connecting to people in your life who are truly valuable: people you need or who need you and with whom you can work reciprocally to give and receive feedback.

  A lot of people who seek me out about their personal development do so because they think I’ve got it all figured out. I have learned that one of the best ways to have these conversations is to be open and honest about myself. Obviously, those people are in for a surprise when they discover how much I’m still committed to working through my own challenges. Being a leader often requires one to behave like a duck on a pond—calm and cool on the surface but kicking like hell below to keep moving forward. That’s what my self-work has felt like all along, and it often still feels that way. I’m the first to admit that I don’t have everything figured out, but I do know one thing about myself that has often helped guide others on their own path: empathy for myself, an ability to view my own progress as objectively as possible, has been essential to my growth.

  My best mentors never forced their dogma or views onto me. Instead, they listened intently. They were curious. They worked hard to understand me and find out what I was going through. When people are mentoring, they tend to look reflexively at their own experiences and offer counsel that starts with phrases such as “When I was your age” or “Here’s how I would do it.” Resist that inclination when working with those around you. Though sharing a bit about your own experiences can certainly help others create new behaviors, the real gift an empathic leader can impart to someone else is a perspective on his or her own challenges so that the person being mentored can learn to see things in fresh ways.

  If you consider what I do professionally, it looks kind of insane to some people. I run a fifty-person strategy and design studio; I have a thriving alternative medicine practice called Corvus Medicine; I lecture and run workshops on empathy; I teach; and my wife and I co-operate Calliope, a design-focused retail shop. To many people, that seems completely crazy, particularly because it appears to lack any real focus. But that’s not how I see it.

  There was a time when I felt as though I were drowning in all of those seemingly disconnected endeavors. But when a mentor of mine brought a sense of empathy and objectivity into my life, I began to see that what I do at Sub Rosa, Corvus, Calliope, and anyplace else is just the same job taking different forms. What I’m really good at is helping people identify obstacles that stand in the way of their progress and then finding solutions that remove those obstacles. Sometimes that means creating a new marketing campaign or reviving a company culture. Other times it’s working a point on the body that’s holding tension or lending an ear to someone who needs to unload some baggage. I’ve even helped a few couples who have wandered into our shop figure out how to make their house feel more like a home. Different media, same skill.

  ONE CAREER, MANY JOBS

  The days of working at one company for your entire career are over. In today’s world, it’s entirely acceptable to take multiple paths and pursue different passions across the life cycle of your career. I tell people who come to me for advice to look for consistent themes that emerge in your life and your interactions with others and to use them to push yourself toward satisfying work. For me, it was helpful to pull out wide enough to see the connective tissue across all the various things I do—to recognize that problem-solving with empathy is my core skill.

  Take a moment to reflect on your life and what seems to pull you in different directions or cause you to compartmentalize yourself. What is the consistent theme or idea shared by these seemingly divergent directions? Does your career have a through line that is true for how you see yourself? These macrolevel questions can help you discover your true gifts and understand what you do that is most effective. I love to problem solve, and all of my businesses engage me in the solving of problems for others.

  Problem-solving can be a bit cerebral, and I certainly appreciate that not everyone wants to fill his or her day tackling other people’s challenges. Maybe you’re looking to latch on to something more concrete. Perhaps you’re an amazing baker or a fantastic florist. Sometimes the most empathic thing we can do for others is to point out what those gifts are and encourage others to pursue them. A few people who’ve passed through Sub Rosa’s doors eventually determined that their passions lay elsewhere, sometimes far outside strategy and design. That’s a good thing. We are all on our own path, and if being at Sub Rosa helped them discover their real passions, their true selves, it was time well spent.

  I’ve come to believe we are all born with innate, savant-like gifts. For me it’s solving problems by applying empathy, but for someone else, it might be playing the tuba. You’re right to ask what the tuba has to do with this. Let me explain.

  THE TUBA SAVANT THEORY

  I admit the name is a bit cheeky, but what I mean is that you probably don’t believe you’re a savant at playing the tuba. But have you ever tried to play it? Maybe not. Most of us go through life playing it safe, not experimenting or trying new things. But if we want to bring empathy to ourselves and to better understand who we are and what work we’re here to do, we need to experiment and discover what we’re great at and then pursue it fearlessly.

  I had no idea I could work in indigenous medicine or run an award-winning studio. I had to try. I had to trust that the empathy I had for myself and my innate gifts was accurate enough for me to start my own business when I was twenty-three years old and that it was a risk worth taking.

  Admittedly, it’s a relatively unscientific theory, but so far I’ve found it to be true. Everyone has powerful gifts waiting to be unlocked. Try some of t
he different empathic archetypes, and do some self-inquiry. See what happens when you look at yourself through the lens of the Inquirer or the Alchemist. You might be surprised to find a powerful gift waiting to be actualized.

  AN INK-AND-CHEMICAL COMPANY

  When we create and embrace rituals in our organizations or teams and practice them with dedication and commitment, we can bring new realities into being. This was brought home for me and my team during our work with Pantone, the creator of the Pantone Matching System, a standardized system for colors that is recognized and loved by designers worldwide. Those of you not in the design world may not be as familiar with the company, but Pantone colors are a fixture in any studio. For more than fifty years, Pantone has built a reputation as the leading color authority. Its most widely known product is a series of swatch books that enable exact color matching in the printing process.

  Any big multinational company that produces marketing and promotion pieces and even, in some cases, products, depend on Pantone to be sure its brand’s specific colors will be accurately printed and represented. Imagine if that iconic Coca-Cola red were printed with a lighter or darker color in different geographies. So much of the brand is built on that specific red that it would lose some of the instant recognition the company has spent decades building. But it could extend beyond that. A consumer holding a can with an off color might wonder if product quality had fallen off as well and if the drink inside were not as good as it had always been; is the off color a reflection of the company cutting corners? Such problems keep designers and brand leaders up at night. Consistency is key, and when it comes to color matching, Pantone provides its customers with confidence.

  As a fan of Pantone, I was excited when, in 2014, its executive team invited us to discuss working together. A few days later, we were in a conference room with a group of company executives, and we soon figured out that they were experiencing something of a crisis of confidence. Collectively, they were concerned that the company had lost its way and were looking to define what Pantone could authentically be.