Deepen Connection. Practice Compassion.
We all want our products and services to be the best they can be. With ever changing markets, fierce competition and the exploding world of AI, knowing our customers is more important than ever.
Yesterday I was speaking with the brilliant Matt Anderson, Think StartUp, from Australia and he asked me an interesting question, ‘What’s the story behind your focus on compassion? How does it shape your approach to design?’ Well Matt, I’m so grateful you asked.
In Design, we talk a lot about Empathy, the act of understanding and feeling another human’s feelings. They feel frustration, you feel frustration. They feel joy, you feel joy. It’s how Researchers and Designers gather all of those yummy insights that help build great product, brilliant solutions and money making businesses.
Compassion takes Empathy one step further. Compassion is art of understanding your humans deeply with Empathy, and then being moved to make things better for them.
As a business professional, practicing the human act of Compassion is guaranteed to open the door for customers and teams to feel safety, trust, belonging and joy. From that safe place, teams can improve product quality, usability, efficiency and ensure everyone enjoys the ride. Without compassion, your product may fall flat. (kind of like asking ChatGPT to write your blog post for you :) ) You lose the human element that makes the product ‘feel’ good. And we all know, a product needs to ‘feel’ good to sell.
Crazy concept right? Learn how to practice Compassion, and you make stuff better? It’s just that easy.
Here’s the back story.
A couple years ago, I did a talk for a Leadership program at Allscripts. I spoke about the difference between pity, sympathy, empathy and compassion.
Sarah Gibbons of NNGroup does a great job of laying it out for us in her article ‘Sympathy vs. Empathy.’
Pity takes the least amount of effort, producing the least amount of understanding. It’s a quick act to acknowledge another human, but it doesn’t feel very good for the receiver. It may feel a bit ‘judgy,’ and everyone in the room knows it. ‘I pity you,’ does not come across as a ‘heart felt’ statement. To make that better, we practice sympathy.
Sympathy, is one step up from pity on the scale of effort and understanding. Like for example, when a friend loses something or someone that matters, the ‘right’ thing to say is ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Job done. For a moment, the giver of the phrase may ‘feel’ for the person in distress. This might be followed up with a card or a small token of sadness for them, but the giver moves on, and the receiver understands and feels heard. It’s quite lovely actually.
Empathy takes more effort and is doubly rewarding for all parties involved. Empathy is, simply, or not so simply, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, and actually feel their distress, joy, love and care. This is where it starts to get interesting, because this might involve listening to a story or four, allowing the person to emote while understanding their loss, and experiencing the waves of grief, sadness and joy with them.
This simple act of listening deeply is a tool for great design. With empathy, a designer can understand what is in a human’s heart and mind, why and how they make decisions or behave the way they do, and what goals they would like to accomplish. (find out more about how you can practice empathy in my ancient blog post here.)
Then there is the queen of all, ‘Compassion’. Compassion is the act of listening, understanding and feeling so deeply, that you, as a human, are moved to help improve the situation. Waaazaa. Deep compassion means you want to dig in and make it better. The receiver is usually pleasantly surprised, and in return the giver feels good too.
In my work as a Design Strategist, I attempt to practice Compassion every day. I start with empathy, listening deeply to my clients, their situation and their customers’ situation. I am moved by the connection to find a better way forward. Together we innovate to discover what’s possible and make their world a better place, whether it’s a new product, service, experience or an uplift to something that already exists. What’s lovely about acquiring this skill (And it is a skill. It takes practice, but you can get there, because you’re human), is the joy that comes from it, the passion it creates in you and the people around you. It’s like music, or film. If you allow your heart to open to another’s plight, the possible bright future unfolds with joy and delight.
With love and joy, I dare you to take the time, and give it a try. In your next meeting, take 5 minutes to ask the person on the other side of the table, or the other side of the screen, ‘How are you? How are you really?’ Listen deeply for the answer, and consider responding with a ‘that sounds hard/fun/exciting, what can I do to support you?’ And then follow through.
With that small exchange, antics will ensue. The connection will deepen, and from that, trust will grow. Leaving space for creativity, innovation and productivity.
If you want to talk about how I can help you and your team reconnect with Empathy and Compassion to make your products and services better, please reach out. I’m excited to hear from you!
