Welcome to the OPM podcast. OPM is the childhood body for
the project profession. My name is Emma Devita and I'm
the editor of projects apm's quarterly journal and your host
in the hot seat today with me is Belinda Palmer, founder, and CEO
of the empathy business he was also the keynote speaker at
apm's women in project management conference.
In September Belinda uses the sites of empathy to change the
way we lead at work, changing. Cultures to bring more
empowerment to There's lives with a focus on belonging and
diversity. Belinda, is also the creator of
the global empathy index published in the Harvard
Business Review, which is the first index to measure empathy
and inclusion at scale. She works alongside CEOs and
leaders of large organizations to transform companies using the
power of empathy, a speech, to a p.m. members in September
triggered. A lot of conversations and I
found what she had to say, both intriguing and highly useful to
the art of project management. And so Belinda.
Welcome. I'm delighted to have you here.
However, it's wonderful to be here.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Just one thing. Unfortunately, it's not a hot
seat. It's a cold.
See Dixon going in London right now.
So I'm pretty freezing. So if you hear my hands
well-being, it's just because I'm freezing.
Make sure you have a hot cup of tea.
Next year, let's start at the beginning with the basics of,
how do you define empathy and could you give an example of two
of empathy and Action. So the way we Define empathy is
that it's the emotional impact that a company has on its
colleagues. But also on its customers.
And it's really important that we don't look at empathy, just
internally or just empathy for clients.
Because often what happens is, you know, if my son's
misbehaving at school, it's because there's a problem at
home. So you can't have internal
empathy without external empathy and vice versa.
So that's how we Define it. Which is the emotional impact
that our company has on its colleagues and its customers and
there's three different types of empathy, there's cognitive
empathy, which is about understanding some spective
there is affective empathy, which is when you feel someone's
pain and then there's Behavior empathy.
And this is about when empathy moved you to act and the second
part of your question, which is about empathy in action.
So, for me, Me, it's all about using empathy to act.
It's very different to sympathy. So an example of empathy in
action, you know, it's not me. You telling me something sad and
you saying, Emma? That's really, really sad.
It's me saying, okay, you've got an issue.
Let's sit down together. Let's work it through.
I will support you, but ultimately the responsibility
and accountability is with you. So that's that's a really
important distinction and that did that lack of difference
between them Dorothy and sympathy is something I see all
the time in companies. Hmm.
Okay. What, why does empathy Master at
work and why? Particularly now, there's been a
lot of talk about empathy and how has that gone from something
that people think about, kind of as an individual within their
own kind of personalized, how come that now has translated to
the world of work and teams. Well, I think I'm busy matters
because we spend 50 years of our lives at work.
So that's more time than we get to spend with our kids or
families. So, I think, for a lot of people
work should be a place of purpose of meaning, a place
where you feel like you have a voice, but the reality is that
most of us actually feel that work is not a place where we
feel that. So there's there's some new
studies done really where they, you know, there was a large
proportion of the UK Workforce who said they wouldn't wish
their work on their worst enemy. So yes for a lot of people and I
can send you the link so we can put the stats in the show, note
in the podcast nodes, but for a lot of people work has never
been, you know, less exciting. And for me I feel that's really
sad. Given the amount of time we
spend It that in terms of whether it's more important.
Now more than ever, I think it's always been there, you know, if
you look at, they've done lots of experiments with rats, you
know, Even Rats will typically show each other empathy in times
of need. So empathy is an innate thing.
But what's happened is with work in the pursuit of profit in the
in the way organizational design has been created is we've
knocked out the empathy out of the workplace.
And what I want to do is transform the workplace to bring
more empathy back into it, as it should be because that's the
kind of effects of the pandemic covid influence this at all.
Well, it hasn't it hasn't, I mean during the pandemic people
were firefighting so actually I saw a reduction in companies
wanting to kind of look at empathy because everybody was
trying to survive. So, in that way, at the
beginning, we saw we saw different types of empathy.
I mean, it's interesting during the pandemic, we were working
for a financial organization. One of Britain's largest banks.
What we saw was they Empower people a lot more.
So we saw it. Increase in empathy because
people were empowered. So people, in branches, people
who are answering the phones, they were given a lot more
autonomy in it and agency. So in that respect and empathy
was becoming much more important.
I think over during the pandemic though we saw that decrease with
everybody, you know, worrying and fear and uncertainty.
It kind of makes us more cautious and more kind of go
into our own shelves. So I think we're seeing
differing levels of empathy but I I feel now as we're coming out
of the pandemic, it is definitely becoming a boardroom
topic and that's what I want to see.
I want to see it as an agenda item on the board.
I want to see it in the corporate Financial accounts and
you know that there is a section on empathy for customers empathy
for staff, interesting that you're mentioning a kind of
board room, sir, how seriously, organizations and teams all
those concerned with creating effective teams.
How seriously they taking empathy.
So maybe it'd be helpful if you could tell us the kind of
clients you have you already mentioned kind of National Bank,
but could you give us an idea of how Corporate sir kind of
viewing this now? Well, I think for a lot of
Corporations, they want to be empathic, but they struggle
with, oh, does that mean we're being nice?
You know, is that we were going to lose money?
And I think the way that the embassy business, my company
comes in, is to say, look, they're not mutually exclusive.
You could use lots of different tools and the theory is one lens
that will help you ask a slightly different question and
get to a slightly different answer and that slightly
different answer. We've seen up, cleats uplifted,
net promoter score, We've seen uplift in cash to the business
by, you know, approximately 30%. So all we really doing is using
empathy as a lens and as a tool to drive change in
organizations, I think companies are more interested in empathy.
I've definitely seen that. In terms of the new business, we
get. I think the difficulty for many
companies and leaders is. How, where do I start?
You know. Yes, I know, I need to be
empathic. It's a bit like, saying to you.
I need to go to the gym. I know that but I'm too tired or
I can't be bothered or I've got you know, loads of other things
I've got to do and that's similar in an organization,
there's another load of priorities.
So I think the first thing is to really hold up the mirror.
If you're thinking about being more empathic as a company,
you've got to measure it. And the the 10,000 steps is a
really good example because as soon as people started
measuring, how many steps they did a day, they started
thinking, I need to do More steps.
So it's the same with the company empathy.
You've got to hold up the mirror and we do that by measuring
things like the percentage of time senior vs.
Junior people speaking meetings, you don't want your senior
people talking all the time because you're creating a
culture of deference which is counter to a culture of
innovation. Other metrics, you know,
introverts, we want to hear everybody needs to have a voice.
If you don't want that person to speak then they shouldn't be at
the meeting if you're going to invite them to a meeting.
I think they should speak and give them a voice.
So, we measure the amount of time, introvert, speak, you
know? We measure corporate politics,
lots of different measures. But the first thing is, if you
really want to stop thinking about this, you've got to sort
of measure empathy at the risk of asking an obvious question.
What is the business case for upping?
The empathy and till at work? Yeah, I don't think that's an
obvious question at all. I mean, as you mentioned, I ran
a study in the half. The business of you to actually
answer that question, this was more than five years ago and
what we found is that the more empathic companies they make
more money whether you split it by, by growth by earnings and
productivity. And then catalyst have recently
done some research will not will last year, actually, it's called
The Power of empathy in times of Crisis and Beyond.
And what they did is they gave us some of the stats that really
confirm the work that I did years.
Earlier. But what they saw was that there
is a 76 percent of employees with highly, empathic leaders
report being often or always being engaged compared to 32% of
people with less empathic leaders.
So, nearly double levels of Engagement burnout.
When you look at burnout is much lower when you've got highly
empathic leaders and diversity and this was the things we We've
never seen such a link to diversity and had the route.
We've always known that more empathic companies are more
diverse, but what they found was a 22 to 58 percentage points
difference between increased inclusion and belonging when
somebody's manager is empathic. So more empathic companies not
just make more money, they have higher levels of Engagement
lower burnout, but they're more diverse So, I'm specifically
thinking about leaders and managers of project teams and it
sounds. And so if the leader or manager
of a team like that is thinking about empathy is beginning to
sort of delve into it quite seriously.
What advice would you give to them about empathy and what if
it doesn't come naturally to them as well?
Well, I think we're all working progress.
I mean, you know, I have very little empathy for my teenage
kids, some of the time because they just want bacon sandwiches
and money from me. So I struggling showing them
empathy, you know, I don't think no one's empathetic, even the
Dalai Lama is not a thetic all the time.
Work in progress and I think that's really important.
This, the other thing is, you know, we have to create the
conditions for empathy because you can't Expect people to show
empathy if you don't even talk about it, you don't reward it.
So, we just done a project for an energy company in South
Africa and we changed all the operation.
So we piloted empathy across two teams and compared that to the
performance, in the rest of the organization, we change the way
we were awarded them. They had an empathy recognition
fund, which was a really small thing where you could buy.
If you showed me empathy today or, you know, we got a client
for a specific, you know. Project.
I could use the empathy fund, and buy you lunch or a cup of
coffee. Really small things.
So, one we put in the measurement and reward
structure. Secondly, we did empathy
training to get the difference between empathy and sympathy.
Thirdly, we kind of held up the mirror.
So this was about empathy in operations, but you can do this
with empathy and projects. How you write, how you manage
the clients? You're, there were so many ways.
So I think showing people what great empathy looks like
showing. In people, what an empathy
deficit looks like, it might be in the process, it might be in
the way. You write an email, whatever.
But if you're leading a project team, really identifying this is
great, empathy. This is not and making it a
regular part of your conversation and that's really,
really key. It's not a tick box exercise.
It takes time, it takes the involvement of people, and
you've got to really show people what great empathy looks like.
And that could be something. So tiny, as the way someone's
written. An email, the way a meeting is
conducted. You know, the way a project is
delivered, could I give you scenario?
So I have a better idea of what it's like in practice.
So say you have a team meeting, a project team meeting.
And one of the more junior members on the team, raises
their hand and points out, something they're concerned
about on the project, which actually is the kind of a brave
thing to do. As a team manager team leader,
what would be the empathetic way to respond to that?
What would be the way not to do it?
Well, I think there's there's the way to respond to it.
There's also wait the way to raise that issue as well, so I
think empathy comes not just from the team managers.
It's also the people everybody. Empathy is everybody's
responsibility, so one if you're giving that feedback, it's
really to be say, look, I really State your intention.
So I'm Um, about the person giving the criticism or the
concern. So one in terms of how you would
do, that one is to State your intention.
I really want this project to go.
Well, I really believe in this project.
The issue I've got my concern is about X and what I really want
to do is use this forum so that we can explore ways to resolve
it. Okay?
So that's how I might give the feedback.
It always has to be with this positive intention.
This is what I'm trying to do, okay?
The other thing is it the right Forum?
I don't know the situation but if it's team meeting that sounds
like it is the right Forum, the weight of respond to that is to
say, okay look right. What I want to do is I want to
break down that. I want to know a little bit
more. So let's further.
Understand if you've got a concern, is it around the
relationships? In terms of the team?
Composition is it about how we'd if we can deliver on time.
So really drilling down asking some brilliant questions, that
would be my first First reaction is to ask him really questions
because the problem with a lot of conflict is that it all gets
bundled up and it all gets into, oh, you know, you just don't
like each other or you just don't care about the client or
whatever it is. You just don't think it's get,
you know, it all gets lumped into a very simplistic thing.
So as a really good empathic conversation, I would start
drilling down and finding out what the issue is.
And then going back to the accountability issue is not
true. To solve it.
You're the team manager but your job is not to solve the
problems. Your job is give to give people
the space and the support to solve them themselves.
So don't solve it, don't fix it. And that is the biggest thing as
well that we all do. We want to fix it, especially
me. I mean, what you just said was a
revelation to me because I thought of the manager is a
person who needed to be focusing on the empathy.
But actually, like you say, it's every person on that team who
has to have an empathetic kind of mindset.
How do you go about creating a culture?
Then that it expects empathy. So one I think is start small,
so take a team, take a team, if it's a project management team,
so you might For example, say right.
We're going to try. We're going to try five empathy
nudges in the way we respond to the client, the way we kind of
speak to each other. We're going to put it on our
team meeting, you know, create five or ten, empathy nudges.
So, start small is the first thing, what were these empathy
nachos you're talking about. So an empathy nudge is just a
small shift that you're going to make.
You've made a commitment. It might be right.
I'm going to change the way we speak to clients in a more
empathic toe. It might be the way we run
internal meetings or it might be the way we give feedback to each
other to use your earlier example.
So you say what you sit down, you sailor, empathy is important
to this team, what are 10 things we should experiment with our
empathy nudges that we think are quite easy to do not going to
cost any of us money but actually we want to try to come
up with your five or 10 and 15 judges.
Number one, keep them small height low-cost.
High-impact the second thing is then stop measuring that
progress. So we always like then you know
if you've got a client evaluation so with project do
you get you know when you're when you're writing the beard or
however you assess these things, you might add an empathy
evaluation questioning so that you start measuring it or
getting feedback from the client or internally about how you
doing. So to put in some kind of
measurement. And I think the third thing is
to start with tangible things, it might be the way you write a
bid, it might be the way that the website is, you know, very
talented. Jubal we often start with
language to part of what we do is rewrite, a lot of
communications for clients for one Energy company.
We're about a hundred letters, you know.
So what we'll do is, we'll start in a very tangible area so that
people can start to get empathy and think, oh, it's not, it's
not just about us, it's not just about us having a team Hagen,
you know, or bringing bring your dog to the zoom call.
It's much more than that. So, the third thing is really
make it tangible. So those are things I would do
and do it collaboratively. It's very difficult to change.
If you're a team manager, if you're someone, it doesn't
matter what level you are saying.
Look, do you do we care about this?
Should we make this a focus in 2023?
Should we have an empathy kickoff meeting?
And should we make this a reality?
Brilliant. Thank you one.
Follow-up question from that, that intrigued me is about the
use of language. So when you're rewriting
corporate materials, can you give an example of language that
is not empathetic and what that would be changed to.
Yes, so the example that I shared at the conference was the
work we did with the UK government around the covid
communications. You know, it was very much the
fear-based if you remember the original Calms.
It was look him in the eyes. Tell him.
You always keep a safe distance. Very scary imagery.
And what we did is we said actually number one, you've got
to recognize that what people are doing.
Number two, you've got to articulate the why, why are we
doing this and thirdly, you've got to say what they're doing to
make a difference. So the change Communications
were, you know, every foggy lens is making a difference.
This was all about, you know, wearing a mask and your eyes,
you know, your glass is steamed up.
So it's again, people just want to know that they're making a
difference, they want to connect back to their, why even, you
know, Disney Disney, don't call their receptionist receptionist,
they call them director of impressions of First Impressions
and I love that because it might be changing the job titles.
That could be a really good, you know, thing.
So lots of things we've done about language, but I think
language is the most one of the most important.
Potent tools, we have and it's really underutilized dehumanized
in in every industry, not just your industry.
My final question would be, what are the individual skills are
qualities that you can work on to be better at being
empathetic? So, one thing that's striking
me, is must be the power of being able to listen well.
So that people feel listened to is am I right in thinking that
and what would be the other things that you could work on.
So, I think absolutely. I mean, you can't really have
empathy, if you don't Listen and you just want to tell the other
person, you know what you think, but I think those are the
differences between listening and agreeing.
Don't have to agree with someone that the empathy is in the
listening. I might not agree with you.
You may say something. I do not agree with you, but
I've listened to you and you feel her.
Do you feel visible and you feel that I've taken the time to
listen to you? That's not the same thing.
So I think this thing is key but I actually think what we need
Each right now is team managers and leaders who can who can
lean, you know, really Embrace difficult conversations because
where empathy is key is when you're having a difficult
conversation and that's where you can really start to
practice. So, if you know, there's a
difficult conversation, you've got to have think about it,
think about how you're going to you, how you how you're going to
State the positive intention, how you're going to not
sugarcoat but say The facts how you're going to use emotional
labeling, some of the things I talked about the conference, but
there's kind of ten steps to having a difficult conversation.
You have to practice these things.
And for me, what I've seen with the best managers, it's not how
much empathy they've got is how reflective how self-reflective
and self-aware. They are.
That makes the biggest progress and that's what we're looking
for. Here is progress, not
perfection. Okay.
Thanks Belinda. Was there anything any last
pieces of advice? You'd like to pass on to people
in projects? A piece of advice, would be.
We all work in progress. You know sometimes you're going
to get it right? If you slept well or you feel
good about yourself or you just naturally like the person, you
know, that's going to be easy for you.
But the challenge is really when things are not going well and
making sure that you have those difficult conversations.
I think that's really important right now because You know, it's
really difficult for so many people cost-of-living crisis,
divisive political situation, it's very difficult.
So kind of asking people, do they feel heard and if you feel
that I've listened to you or how could I listen to you better,
you know, making making it really easy and giving people a
space where they can tell you, whether you've been empathetic
or how they want to be more empathic, I think that's really
really important. Okay, thanks Belinda.
I want to thank you for your time again, but also to ask if
people want to find out more about you and your work, where
should they go? Well they we have a website, the
empathy business.com or you can reach out to me, Belinda at the
empathy business.com. I met and I was lucky enough to
meet quite a few of you at the conference.
I thought you are an amazing industry.
Amazing group of people. So, yeah.
I'd love to stay in touch. Okay, thanks so much.
Thank you again. All right, take care.
Thanks again to Belinda for joining us and to you for
listening to this episode of the APM podcast.
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