After reading the articles, reflect (4-6 sentences) on the following prompts
1. What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
- When I was still working in the service industry, one of the key factors of getting good tips or an outcome of an experience that was enjoyable was having empathy towards customers. By gauging people, you know how to approach them; you know the right things to say and you know what not to say. You learn how to turn on your "customer service" attitude and try to adapt and adjust to your customer's mood. Understanding someone can help you work on yourself indirectly as well. For me personally, it helped me become more patient helping me be more calm and understanding towards others. Not everyone thinks like you, so when you are able to empathize with others, you'll be able to understand why they act the way that they do.
2. How does empathy help you build better software?
- With empathy comes the sense of genuinely understanding people (your fellow colleagues and your audience). To be able to communicate and relate to the people and adapt to your environment is key to a successful collaboration in any work force. Not only are you able to relate to others but indirectly, you'll be able to improve your own self-awareness. By being more aware of your feelings, and your habits, you'll be able to control your mood better to adjust to others that may be around you. Empathizing with people that you are trying to make an app for creates a stronger bond and allows you to read your audience on a more personal level.
3. Why is empathy important for working on a team?
- When you are able to put yourself in other people's shoes, it's less likely that misunderstandings can occur. Along with with relating to others, when you're more aware of your own weaknesses and strengths, your ability to collaborate with others will be more cooperative. You can take that opportunity to work on your weaknesses and relating those aspects to others to see how you should react and approach the problem that is being dealt with. It'll help you receive and give out criticism on a more mature and considerate level. When everyone gets along in the workforce, it prohibits projects to be interfered with due to misunderstandings and disagreements.
4. Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
- Working on group projects is always stressful given the fact that everyone has to depend on each other to succeed, because most of the time, the work is split amongst everyone. When given a group project to work on, even though everyone has their own individual tasks to do, I was always willing to lend a helping hand. The scariest position to be in is having absolutely no clue what you're doing, and it's worst when you feel like there's no one to help you get out of that rut. So by me empathizing with my teammates, I helped them and supported them, and when I was in their position (needing help), it was reciprocated, making the project stay on a steady pace with no interruptions.
5. When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
- When dealing with people that get too defensive and that are very stubborn and narcissistic, it's hard to find any common ground especially if they're stuck in their old ways. Dealing with people that can't accept proper criticism is also difficult as well. At times like these, it's best to work on your patience, and I mean REALLY work on it. Try to understand why they are acting the way they are. Maybe something could have happened to them that day or maybe they're just dealing with personal issues. Yes, that sounds like a personal problem, but when you're dealing with others, finding ways to better their mood will help you achieve the end goal.
After reading the articles, reflect (4-6 sentences) on the following prompts
1. What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
- When time allows you to do so, take a quick breather and observe your surroundings; you'll realize that there is an urgency for the need of empathy all around us. For me personally, my sense of empathy comes from helping strangers, and by help, i'm referring to anything from giving directions, to sparing some change, to offering a meal. Helping others, in a sense is a very selfish act, ironically. If you think about it, by helping others, you yourself in return feel better as a human being and you are relieved of any sense of guilt or pressure. This sense of self-regard nonetheless is much needed. I try to gear towards a more compassionate- empathy prone route. When helping others, you want to imagine that if that person was you, would you want and need help from others? Yes, people need emotional empathy, but when practicing a higher sense of compassionate- empathy, instead of relating to them emotionally, you have a higher urgency to actually help them, and not just feel for them.
2. How does empathy help you build better software?
- Take cognitive empathy for example; When collaborating with a group of people on making an app, this skill allows you to become a source of motivation and can also give you an advantage when it comes to negotiating certain aspects of the software you are all working on. By engaging in how other people genuinely feel, your thought process completely alters. Now, you're not just thinking about what role you as an individual would partake in, instead, you're problem solving ordeals of every individual in your project who might actually be having the same struggles as you and may appreciate or support your ideas.
3. Why is empathy important for working on a team?
- When working on a team, your opinions, suggestions, and ideas aren't the only factors that are being implemented; it's everyone as a WHOLE. If you can't relate emotionally to your fellow teammates, how can you possibly relate to the people that you are building the software for? Emotional empathy enables us to connect with each other on a deeper level, on a more personal caliber. When everyone is "vibing" and your surrounding environment promotes a harmonious atmosphere, you retain the ability to make decisions more efficiently with a preferably compliant resolution.
4. Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
- As I mentioned before, when working in the service industry you have to know how to deal with people from every angle. Being reprimanded by obnoxiously, privileged and entitled individuals can take a toll on your mentality for sure. NOBODY wants that kind of attention, especially if it's in front of others. One encounter I had in the workforce pertaining to empathizing with a colleague dealt with a rather difficult customer accusing my colleague of giving them an infection (Mind you, I was in the beauty industry where sanitation was key). Unfortunately Tom (my colleague) understood a limited amount of English, and was highly skilled and took pride in his work. His motto was that if you're going to work for the money, at least do your best and actually deserve it. Saying that, I can honestly say that Tom was a righteous man. This certain individual caused an uproar in the middle of a packed nail salon, wanting a refund and some kind of apology. My boss went home for the day, so I felt obligated to step in and figure out the situation. Being in the industry for so long, and knowing Tom's work ethics, I tried to clarify to her while defending Tom's pride that the result of her finger getting infected had nothing to do with Tom given that he thoroughly washes his tools, and places them in a container with barbocide (a disinfectant agent). I also mentioned that it wasn't possible for her to get an infection because for one, he didn't cut her to begin with, and secondly, she left that day rather satisfied and it was about a week or so ago. Of course most customers think that they HAVE TO be right, and that no matter what you should apologize to them and compensate them somehow. As by fate, amusingly, my client that I had at that particular hour (a regular client of mine) was a doctor. Given the bond that we've already established as a result of empathy, she felt the need to intervene. She called that customer over, analyzed her finger, and came to the diagnosis of a self inflicted infection. Turns out, this particular customer was probing a "bothered area" repetitively with an unsanitary, sharp tool, which in result caused inflammation and infection. BOOM! Instant shut down. She never stepped foot into the salon ever again. In a scenario like that, it would only be right for me to defend my colleague. If I were to just mind my own business, he would have been mistreated and wrongly accused for something he didn't do. When we lend a helping hand to those around us, they will return the favor.
5. When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
- When you're so engulfed in someone else's problem, it can become rather detrimental to your own individual thinking and state of mind. Being involved isn't problematic, it's when you don't necessarily know when to stop, that's when you indirectly take on an ordeal that wasn't initially yours, causing unnecessary stress resulting in an overall burnout. Professional settings alone are already a huge enough responsibility, everyone has their own tasks, and it is their duty to execute whatever command they were given. When you try to be overly empathetic, you take over workloads that you can't handle, which can result in the overall project being prolonged. When you want to help someone, first and foremost, you have to help yourself. You can't save someone from drowning if you're drowning yourself. Learn how to be helpful without completely taking over a task that isn't yours. Give some advice, give some suggestions, and provide some mental/emotional support if necessary but DON'T ever take that burden as if it were your own.