What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
Empathy is something I strive to do and use more of on a day to day basis. It allows me to have stronger relationships in my life, to connect better with the guests I serve, and to really keep an open mind. I use it at work, which I've currently been serving in a restaurant because it helps me truly be able to converse in a way with my tables tht really feels genuine and deep. It has helped me to keep relationships that I value strong and to help me connect with new people in my life with more ease.
How does empathy help you build better software?
Empathy can help build better software in a number of different ways. An empathetic software developer is more likely to do a better job collaborating with other developers. This heightened level of collaboration will allow for any problems one developer may have to be solved due to the help of another empathetic developer. Empathy will also help to allow the developer but themself in the shoes of the user they're developing the software for. This will allow for a final software development to be more in terms of what the user wants and they'll be happy with.
Why is empathy important for working on a team?
As I stated before, empathy is going to allow the team of developers to do more collaborating with each other. This will allow for more communication of shared problems and therefore more communication of the solutions to those shared problems. Empathy is extremely important for any team because without it no one will want to or care about how the other people are doing. Thus no one will be able to achieve the shared team goal because it cannot be achieved on its own, it must be a collaborative team effort.
Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
A friend of mine came up with a very useful "equation" to address any issue with someone. Start off with kindness toward them, empathize and then address the issue. I recently had a manager of mine snap at me when I was closing the bar one night. He had snapped and yelled at me for something very small I had done which was completely unlike him. I wanted to give it right back to him, but I stopped and realized that he must be extremely stressed becuase of COVID and it was a very busy night considering how understaffed we were. So i went into the office and approached him calmly with kindness, empathized with how I understand how stressed he is, but then I addressed the issue of him snapping at me like that. It went really well, he apologized to me immediately, giving me a free meal that night and our relationship grew stronger afterwards.
When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
I find it most difficult to be empathetic in a professional setting when my other emotions are running high or I'm stressed out. When I have plenty of my own problems on my mind, It's very difficult to be conciously empathetic towards others and their situations. The best way to handle this is to stay calm and not to think with my emotions. I need to give myself a second to allow myself to feel my emotions, let them pass and then make a conscious decision with my intelligence. THis will allow me to control my stress and the outward problems to still use empathy with those around me. This will in turn most likely allow me to solve the problems that are causing the stress and high emotions in the first place.