Gear Up Reflection:
Q: What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
A: Empathy played a huge role in my professional life. I spent some time managing people on teams, and each person required differing management styles to help maximize their potential on a team. The first step into helping someone grow is to understand their strengths, weaknesses, and other personal needs. Empathy helps me seek to understand those needs, so that I can lead in a way that works for everyone involved.
Q: How does empathy help you build better software?
A: Empathy in software development allows you to hone your goals so that they align with the needs of the user. Empathy allows you to understand the feelings of people who use the tools you create. If you do not understand your user, their problems, or the things they value, then you will be building something that is only useful to you, and not others.
Q: Why is empathy important for working on a team?
A: Empathy is crucial to becomine a good team player. It's important to be a good listener, and someone who can take criticism or new ideas and implement in a way that properly represents what the team's vision or goal is. Someone who is empathetic is easier to work with, so it's important to be able to see things from someone's elses eyes so that you can both reach your intended goals.
Q: Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
A: I worked with an employee who took turns being 'on-call' during after hours of the business. Our rule was that we take turns each week being on call. My employee thought that it was very important that they were free from the burden of being on call when they were taking their online classes. Since this was important to them, I agreed to take after-hours calls on weeks that they were on-call, and they chose to take 2 extra days on weeks that I was on-call. This allowed both of us to work around or schedules so that each of us were able to maintain our responsibilites outside of work.
Q: When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
A: I feel it is most difficult to be empathic when someone refuses to listen in group settings. I think it's easy to write off the person completely, or not properly try to reason with a person who does not want to listen. I think that maintaining a positive attitude in those situations is important to navigating what may seem like a frustrating situation. Understanding that listening and then offering solutions in a constructive manner will help work through any issues you may have when working with someone who is not focused on being collaborative.
Thank you for these responses Djavan. I can tell that you have a clear understanding of empathy and the benefits of approaching situations through this lens. I love your example from management where you realized you needed to understand the needs of your employees in order to be a successful manager. I also really enjoyed hearing about how you were flexible with your teammate to work around one another's schedules. I encourage you to draw from these experiences during your time at Turing, and continue to grow this mindset. Listening and maintaining a positive attitude will enable you to be successful at Turing and beyond. I'm excited to hear about your progress in Mod-1.