Blog by Richard Feistman, Ph.D.

As someone working in the fields of evaluation and continuous improvement, I am often sitting in meetings with people who are some combination of:

Nervous that I am going to tell them they are doing something wrong,
Defensive and ready to tell me why the report they received before the meeting was wrong, or
So over capacity that they did not realize what meeting they were even walking into.

Early in my career, my primary goal was to ignore the above statuses of those in front of me and simply go over the data and provide some recommendations. Most of the time this led to a quiet, low-stress meeting (for me!), where everyone walked out and nothing really changed - an efficient meeting, but not a great outcome. It took a couple of years and a deeper understanding of adult learning to realize that problems can not be addressed until there is team alignment and, like all good relationships, that starts with empathy.

At Deo Mwano Consultancy (DMC), we define empathy as actively listening to a teammate’s perspective without leading with solutions. The goal is seeking to find common understanding while also broadening everyone's point of view. At DMC, we refer to this as empathy in action and support leaders in forming empathy statements to improve how their messages are understood by their teams. Some additional guidance we have shared in the past includes:

During interactions with the team, having awareness of your body language and what it is conveying to others.
When managing conflict, start with and reiterate your positive intent to ensure its centrality to the conversation.
When appropriate, reinforce your alliance with the team members by including things you know about each other regarding previous agreements or disagreements.

It is essential for team leaders to accept influence from team members as well and adjust accordingly - rather than simply seeking to get everyone on board with the leader’s vision or solution. In our work, we have found that empathy builds teams that can effectively solve problems together.

Leaders who approach their teams with empathy and understanding build a foundation of trust that makes the work both smoother and more productive. For example, relationship researcher Dr. Tyler Jamison tells couples looking to build trust that:

“Sometimes, it is easier to see and understand trust when it is broken or faltering, but we also need to learn what trust looks and feels like when it is intact and consistent. Trusting our partners to look out for us and to invest in a shared future is necessary for a relationship to be healthy and strong.”

These words were written for personal relationships, but they also apply to professional relationships. If I stand in front of exhausted colleagues and just talk about data, they may not trust me to understand their needs, and therefore, may not see me as someone who can be trusted to support them in addressing problems and challenges in their work. Utilizing empathy aligns team members to address a problem together rather than focusing on the problems they see in each other - or with the data guy in front of them.

So how can we use empathy in a workplace environment to build an alliance?

Here are a few tips for fostering a meeting that utilizes empathy to build strong team relationships. The central goal of these structures is to allow your team members to show up as themselves - physically and emotionally.

Start on time and end on time - There is often a power imbalance between those who lead the meeting and those attending. When the one running the meeting respects time frames, they are showing empathy for their team members' workplace needs (e.g., predictability, being respectful to those in their next meeting waiting on them). The leader should be transparent about what they are doing as well: “Looks like we only have 5 minutes left, let's end it here and schedule a follow up meeting to discuss further.”

Even team check-in meetings and other informal gatherings benefit from an agenda to guide the time. The School Reform Initiative (SRI) has many simple ones, such as this one for team check-ins.

Start and end meetings with the perspective of the team members - Let team members tell the leader where they are right now. For example to start a meeting the leader could say:

“Who was able to read this report before the meeting? No one because everyone was too busy, great let me start with a quick 5 min review. Jeff, can you stop me in 5 minutes please?” This approach meets team members where they are without shaming or pushing the meeting back.
“What percentage of yourself is engaged in this meeting right now? Only 25% because you have to present to the Board in 45 min! Good to know, let's make this simple.” Understanding human capacity is a key to empathetic leadership. Not everyone can be at their best 100% of the time.

A quick debrief at the end of each meeting goes a long way to improving team functioning, so always leave time for it, even if it means adjusting the agenda.

“What could have been better about this meeting?”
“What could I have done to better support the team during this meeting”

By normalizing routines that allow team members to present how they are feeling, alliances become stronger and more productive. For many readers, these ideas will not be new, but we can all use reminders that guide us back to best practices for working with teams. There is a lot of research on the importance supporting teams by building empathy and Deo Mwano Consultancy looks forward to continuing to help organizations build healthy teams through this essential principle.