What role has empathy played in your life and how can it help you?
Empathy didn't just manifest itself during sales, it’s taken a lifetime to develop and understand but I’ll focus on the lessons learned during my time in sales because it’s fresh. Whenever you’re approaching a sale, you have two problems that you need to understand before starting out. The first is the problem what your customer is dealing with and the second, is the fact that you might lose your job if you don’t hit quota. Most people (regardless of profession) are extremely self-centered and struggle to see anybody else’s point of view (sound a bit like a cynic) and it leads to heated arguments and uncomfortable exchanges (think of your most recent Thanksgiving!). In order for true collaboration and growth, I’ve needed to check my ego at the door, see various sides of an argument and truly listen to what the other person is saying and feeling in order to accomplish anything. Moving forward, I am always going to be working with other people who have differing ideas and beliefs. The art of truly listening to others and understanding where they’re coming from will always benefit the situation even if we ultimately disagree.
How does empathy build better software?
Unless you’re working on a side project, you’re going to be in a group setting, interacting with people who come from very different backgrounds and see things from a different point of view. Whenever you’re working with others, the need to provide & receive feedback is paramount to the success of the project. If you’re unable to take criticism to heart and use it to improve, you’re either going to build awful software or you’re not going to be on the team much longer.
Why is empathy important for working on teams?
The reason we work on teams is because we can accomplish far more in groups than we ever could on our own. If you’re unable to see other people’s perspectives, then you won’t be able to learn from others and grow your abilities. Plus, nobody will want to work with you. In order to grow your skills, you need to be able to listen and take feedback as well as provide it. You’ll find that most people want to learn and improve. It’s really all about your delivery and understanding how to present the information.
Describe a scenario in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.
As a team lead, I was constantly working with fellow salespeople to improve their process or make tweaks here and there. One situation I dealt with a lot was when people came to me saying, “I’m going to lose my job if I don’t hit quota” which is rough to hear and without empathy, it’s impossible to overcome. The best way I’ve found to deal with that is to be vulnerable. Let them know it’s totally alright to be afraid. I’ve been in that position and it’s brutal. Like any problem though, you need to break it down into digestible bites. You can’t focus on the final number. Let’s say your goal for the month is 25k. How many cold calls/cold emails do you need to set a demo? How many demos do you need to close a sale? What’s your average sale size? Work back from that! Then you can create a process for what you need to do on a daily basis to hit your numbers!
When do you find it most difficult to be empathic in professional settings? How can you improve?
The most challenging scenario I faced was apathy towards the company by high level employees. I would ask challenging questions about the run rate, sales models and how we were expected to get there and was told to either keep my mouth shut or to think positive thoughts and good things would happen. Unfortunately, hope doesn’t scale and it’s challenging to keep a positive attitude when you’re hearing from your team that they’ll lose their job and their family can’t handle that at this time. In order to avoid this feeling of helplessness moving forward, I need to 1. Do a better job of asserting my convictions and the seriousness of issues on the front end and 2. Do a better job of interviewing the companies before taking a job. I was great at listening and hearing the executives side of things but never showed them how pressing the issue was because I assumed that they were right. Turns out, they were not. The hardest part with empathy is that you need to balance hearing the other side while also staying focused on the problems at hand. You also can’t use feelings in a business setting. Stick to the numbers and focus on those. Not the people.