Empathy has been an enabler for outstanding innovations, whether the typewriter or the telephone. It inspires us to act and provides an implicit understanding of the desired outcome to make a meaningful impact. It is therefore considered the most critical quality that product managers and leaders should have to develop innovative, valuable products and solutions to increasingly complex problems.
What Is Empathy?
Has it ever happened to you that a friend of yours is going through some difficulties, and you can understand their mind even without them telling you, and you too become sad? Or vice-versa, can you quickly identify their joy by their behavior or body language, and you become happy too? Our ability to understand and simultaneously experience such emotions ourselves without even anyone having to tell us is empathy.
Sympathy and Compassion
Two more words are often mentioned with empathy, which sometimes leads to confusion. While the difference between sympathy and empathy has been discussed quite well, we don’t find much discussion on compassion. Let’s try to understand the other two terms better.
Do you have different feelings when you see someone unknown to you getting hurt versus when someone close to you, like your friend or a sibling, gets hurt? In the first case, you will most likely experience sympathy. You may feel sorry, but you will not emotionally be affected by a stranger getting hurt as much as you would in the case of a dear one. Sympathy is also an emotional response, but you still don’t share the same frame of mind as the affected person.
Compassion, on the other hand, takes empathy one step ahead. Compassion is not only understanding and sharing the emotional state of others but also acting to improve the situation for the other person.
Dr.Brené Brown captures the difference between empathy and sympathy, in the best manner possible, in the following video.
If you carefully noticed, she also mentions in the video that we don’t always need to respond to every situation involving empathy. Compassion (or action) is not always required in life, at least directly. We don’t always need to try and make things better. However, the product is, by definition, the solution, a response to a said or unsaid need. A compassionate act can be non-empathetic and may have unintended consequences. We must base our actions on empathetic foundations.
While enabling you to identify the core problems, empathy alone is insufficient for a product manager. Instead, you must act to solve the situation in the most meaningful way.
It is also to note that charity is one form of compassion. However, a compassionate act doesn’t always need to be charitable. This distinction is critical for product managers as they must balance the business’s needs with the customers’ requirements. Only through such balance can you deliver a solution that ensures a positive outcome for the overall ecosystem.
How Do We Get Empathy?
The early belief was that empathy results from our upbringing and experiences. Researchers earlier believed that children start developing empathy from the second year onwards. However, now new evidence is emerging that says otherwise. There is even a chance that genetics might be influencing empathy. Some scientists also support the notion of mirror neurons. However, there is sufficient debate over the existence of those.
However, there is no dispute that you can influence people to behave more empathetically.
How To Cultivate Empathy?
There are multiple ways to cultivate empathy, which are reasonably simple to follow.
1. Meet and regularly connect with as diverse a group as possible. Because of our affinity bias, we tend to be comfortable around people like us. However, the homogeneity of backgrounds, thought processes, and ideas restricts creativity and innovation, not to mention the scope of empathy.
2. Read fiction. Fiction allows you to experience the world, not yours, from the protagonist’s eyes. Here too, choose as diverse content as possible. In addition to fiction, reading real-life stories from a diverse range of people will also help us gain a better understanding.
3. Psychologists and researchers have also identified meditation as a possible influencer of empathy.
4. Avoid judgment till you have sufficiently examined the issue or point from all aspects.
5. Ask questions until you know what the other person is experiencing. For example, the person may often be unable to express emotions and challenges. Asking relevant questions will help you understand the implicit feelings.
However, you must be careful not to turn the questions into an interrogation. On the contrary, you must handle it delicately, without judgment, and bring out the root causes and hidden emotions.
6. Finding common ground is also helpful for you to understand what the other person must be going through. For example, a similar experience you may have had in the past will help you understand the other person’s mindset.
Types of Empathy
Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman defined three types or levels of empathy.
1. Cognitive empathy: This type of empathy enables one to understand another person’s thoughts, feelings and perspectives. That’s why cognitive empathy is also known as perspective-taking. It helps a person to step into someone else’s shoes and gain insight into their emotions. For example, one of your colleagues did not get the promotion they were hoping for. You may not feel dejected as they would, but you will still be able to understand what they must be going through.
2. Emotional empathy: This type of empathy allows one to share another person’s emotions and feel what they are feeling. It connects two people emotionally, allowing one to truly understand the other’s feelings. For example, imagine if a colleague passed over for promotion and you are close friends outside of work too. You would not only be able to understand what they must be going through but also feel a sense of disappointment. Emotional empathy helps you uncover hidden dimensions of the situations as they impact people, thus providing valuable insights to drive your behavior.
3. Compassionate empathy: This type of empathy expresses kindness and care towards another human being. It encourages a person to offer comfort and support in times of distress. We have already discussed compassion, and compassionate empathy indicates the same.
These three components of empathy correspond to thoughts, feelings, and actions, and a balance is required for an empathic response to situations.
Why Is Empathy Critical For Product Managers?
Empathy allows product managers to accomplish the following;
1. Identify the correct problems and solutions that alleviate the root cause of the pain and lead the customers and users toward success.
2. Create an environment for sustained product evolution and innovation.
3. Align the organization and teams towards a shared purpose.
There are four core areas where product managers need to increase levels of empathy to achieve these objectives.
Your Customers And Users
Dealing with your customers and users from a position of empathy allows you to surface deeper problems and challenges they face. Addressing those changes boosts the chances of your product’s success.
The Product Team
The product team includes every function contributing to product development and success, including design, engineering, sales, and marketing. More often than not, product management functions will not have any formal power over these other functions. Therefore, you must understand their needs and challenges and build your processes around them to influence them in the right direction.
The Business Stakeholders
One of the three things that the product manager must balance is the business aspects of the product. The product must be viable and generate revenue and profits for the business. Thus, the product must also reflect the needs and challenges of the organization and its representative stakeholders.
You, The Product Manager
It’s easy to give in to the ever-lasting demands of the role and ignore the self. However, this approach is counter-productive. As a Product Manager, your motivation and ability to balance multiple needs are critical. Without taking care of yourself, your ability to help others also diminishes.
How Do You Use Empathy In Product Management?
You can use multiple tools to inculcate more empathy in your approach.
Empathy Maps
Empathy maps are one of the great methods you can use as the foundation for your efforts to understand the users.
The empathy map examines user behavior from four aspects. While this may sound like the user persona, the empathy map should focus on the problem we are trying to solve. It is a visual representation that helps you to understand their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
An empathy map is typically divided into four quadrants:
Says: This quadrant represents what your target audience says, such as their quotes, opinions, and feedback.
Thinks: This quadrant represents what your target audience thinks, such as their hopes, fears, and assumptions.
Does: This quadrant represents what your target audience does, such as their actions, behaviors, and habits.
Feels: This quadrant represents what your target audience feels, such as their emotions, attitudes, and values.
By filling in each quadrant of the empathy map, you can gain a deeper understanding of your target audience and their challenges and needs. It can help you to create products and services that resonate with them and meet their needs.
An empathy map can be created through research, such as customer interviews, surveys, and social media monitoring. It can also be developed collaboratively with your team, using their knowledge and insights to build a complete picture of your target audience.
Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) recommends 11 methods to approach product management, especially the product discovery aspects, with an empathetic approach.
Image Source: IDF
Behavior Mapping
It is similar to journey mapping, and here is a video where Kristen Berman explains the approach and how to use it.
A Hypothesis-Driven Approach
While there is significant truth in customers not being able to articulate their core problems or requirements, we, product developers or managers, tend to take their opinions at face value instead of trying to decode their core issues.
Many people often quote the story of Henry Ford, saying that if he had asked the customers what they needed, they would have told him they needed a faster horse. It supports the notion that customers are not the best source for identifying problems. However, if we pause to think for just two seconds, we will realize that the answer still points to the need for a faster mode of transport. With technology products, such understanding has a more significant impact than it would for a car.
You can adopt a hypothesis-driven process to utilize both approaches better, one of inquiry and the second of observation. Here is how it works;
1. Treat your product vision or expected feature outcome as a hypothesis.
2. Work towards providing or disproving this hypothesis. Utilize what you learn by asking your customers, observing them, or plotting their journies to validate this hypothesis.
3. As you collate your learning, you will get the insights that will provide you with either the validation of your hypothesis or the opportunity to fine-tune it before you can validate it.
4. A validated hypothesis becomes the problem you want to solve.
Conclusion
Empathy is an essential tool for product development. An empathy map can help you better understand your target audience and user needs, allowing you to create products and services that resonate with them. A great product manager will have a balance of all forms of empathy, including cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and compassionate empathy.
The empathy-driven approach involves utilizing both inquiry and observation to develop an understanding of user needs. By combining customer interviews, surveys, journey mapping, hypothesis testing, and other methods, product managers can create a more empathetic approach to product development.
