Leading with empathy

In this episode, Gillian French, Employee Experience Expert, WorkVivo,  talks about leading with empathy.  She is a veteran Chief People Officer and an expert at building strong organizational cultures.
We discuss:

• What empathy is.
• Why it's important in business.
• How to create a culture of empathy.
• The importance of listening well.
• How to make remote workers feel valued.
• How to identify empathetic people in interviews.
• How it affects productivity.
• How create a culture of empathy and Compassion.
• The link between setting boundaries and achieving your goals.

Transcript

Marie Ryan - Welcome to hiring talent. I’m your host Marie Ryan. In this podcast CEO’s, HR Managers, and recruiters share their inputs to finding employees. In this episode, Jillian French talks about leading with empathy. She explains why empathy is important in business. How it affects productivity and how to create a culture of empathy and Compassion.

Marie Ryan - What is the work vivo?

Gillian French – Work Vivo is a technology business that provides an employee experience platform. it’s a platform for employees to socialize connect with and bring organizations together.

Marie Ryan - How do you define empathy?

Gillian French - Empathy is very different from sympathy. It’s about being able to understand a person’s perspective. Being able to kind of step into the shoes, and relate to where they are at that moment in time. I think it’s absolutely critical, it is critical now and it always has been in organizations and it does cause some of the problems within an organization because people can’t see other people’s perspectives. It is very critical for leadership and it is going to be a lot more important in the future in organizations. If there is a lack of empathy in an organization you can imagine the issues it will create in the workplace. Not being able to understand why people are coming from is the root of the cause.

Marie Ryan - Why is it important in business?

Gillian French - If you have people in the workplace that are leading a workplace and lack empathy they have a lack of understanding of where an employee is at a certain point in time in their life, a lot of times organizations focus on trying to engage their employees in different initiatives but really when it comes to employees needs it’s important to understand where the employee is a point of time. Even if you take the pandemic for instance people have a lot of challenges at home, lots of different things going on and if we take a very logical and non-empathetic approach towards it, people just have to work, have to turn up to work and that’s not going to just cut it any more people need to have a level of understanding that there are things going on with employees on a personal level and it’s only empathetic leaders that can understand this and support people. When people are supported at such time’s they give it back 10 fold and I think that’s what has been missing from the workplace for a very long time. We have tried to buy loyalty with rewards, different perks but actually, the real stuff that matters is when a person really needs understanding. I need the organization to support them through something and if a boss helps no amount of rewards and perks are going to substitute that.

Marie Ryan - How do you foster a culture of empathy in a company?

Gillian French- I think it starts at the top like everything else. You need to have a strong leadership and management team and they have to focus on developing empathy. The training programs that are provided, what is rewarded, at the workplace we are often asked questions about results and data but do we actually ask how is the team getting on. What have the teams done to connect with other teams we don’t really ask questions that foster empathy the leader is accountable for the dynamics within an organization, that the dynamics within the team, and when you start asking those questions and start giving attention to those things people start behaving in a way that is required so it comes down to hire hard and empathetic leaders that will lead the workforce and people manage just get them trained and make sure they are empathetic as well and that will foster the culture. Listening skills are a very important part of this. listening skills have been eroded and avoided for a very long time. 

If you actually said to someone to just listen to us for 10 to 15 minutes is actually hard because attention keeps waning. We start thinking about different things or when we try to get our own perspective across, we hardly ever listen to what the other person is actually saying so things like this would help leaders develop the skills. But what we tend to do is probably develop financial acumen, different skill sets that are required like project management things but really working towards developing leadership components like compassion and listening skills and empathy is what really needs to be prioritized going forward. 

Marie Ryan- In some companies, a lot of leaders are resistant to change, they might be a bit old school. So how do you convince them that empathy is the right route?

Gillian French - Well I think that if you don’t have an empathetic organization the employees will show a high level of absenteeism, we will face employee relation issues. In long term, if it’s not dealt with, you will have issues like in business such as product and operational issues. If people don’t fully understand each other and connect with each other. Empathy is really important in a truly empathetic atmosphere you will see a different result people are more helpful they will go that extra mile and it has to come through the leadership team. You can go online and read numerous pieces of research that will show you that having an empathetic approach will add to the bottom line and makes more sense in terms of business as it reduces waste and socially also it is a much better way to operate because whatever impacts the business impacts externally as well but the sad thing is that empathy is on the decline and the researches also show that is declining in our society. if empathy is nurtured within the workplace people respond positively to it they may not be inclined at the start but once to do engage in empathy and create an empathetic environment it really does benefit everybody and gives everyone a feel-good factor internally. You’re more connected to your colleagues. You can be vulnerable around your colleagues and you find that a lot of times including employees just don’t feel hurt sometimes it is often misunderstood that being empathetic means you are sacrificing and you’re not able to win arguments when you are in a very competitive environment and that’s how empathy can present itself but really empathy isn’t really about winning or losing it’s about understanding that you can step in and understand a person‘s perspective and how the other person will feel regardless how’s the outcome of the conversation comes at the end. I’ve had very difficult conversations with people over my life in the workplace and it may not have resulted in the person wanting the same outcome but I do hope that everyone I have ever dealt with it has felt respected heard and understood even though the message might have been a difficult one to land and I think that is really important. It’s important how you treat people within the organization because even if it’s other employees are looking on and see that people are not being treated correctly or empathetically even if it doesn’t affect them it will still affect their colleagues and their mindset. And engagement levels.

Marie Ryan - If you look at things like reviews and glass doors, there is a collusion between the most successful companies and the happiest employees so it affects the outcome affects revenue, it affects the relationship with customers, and ultimately the money that the company makes and how successful it is.

Gillian French - Yes, I think that’s what is happening at the moment everybody is trying to figure out the great designation and why it’s happening and what is going on but I think people for the first time in life did have the time to sit back and reflect around what is important in life and I think you know obviously it was a very tough time for people too. it was a tough two years and for some, it was tougher than it was for others and they really had time to sit back and think about what is important in life. Sometimes we think money and other perks are the key motivators, like unlimited holidays but none of that stuff matters when the chips are down or if we don’t have someone we really need at the workplace. The organizations don’t deal with that mental space of team play correctly and in and they don’t value that element that’s exactly what is happening with people and they’ve had time to reflect and they want to work for an organization that they truly believe where to do when they will be valued and cared for and empathy is the bedrock of that.

Marie Ryan - How do you measure employee engagement in a company?

Gillian French -There are different ways to measure through annual surveys, polls, and all the types of stuff. And engagement again really comes down to in my opinion to three things. Firstly, the person that they report to plays a huge role and that’s why it’s really important to have the right leaders in an organization because again no matter how many perks and benefits are offered if somebody has to deal with somebody where they are not treated well and they don’t feel heard the rest is all irrelevant. The relationship with your boss is really important. For engagement and for an organization that’s why they have to get the people’s manager is right and leaders right. The next part is communication. Employees really value good communication and they want to be able to communicate back so the communication has to be more open.it can’t be just one-sided where leaders are just passing it down to people who want to be involved in the communication and they want to be able to communicate with their peers and that has changed and it does drive engagement if people don’t feel that they are involved in what’s going on in an organization and feel that things are just happening to them and if they feel that things are just being cast on to them that really affects the engagement negatively.  And, the work itself that you do, the role, and the clarity of the role are important drivers of engagement. Surveys do sometimes surface these issues but sometimes we get too wrapped up in data. We do the surveys and then what happens in boardrooms is that it all comes down to data and matches in percentages, instead of actually missing the important message that comes from the survey. Sometimes, in a low trust environment, people don’t really put the right thing in the survey because they don’t trust the environment and they believe that probably nothing will change for them. So, I think again really it is for me when I was working in an organization. I always had a run-through in the organization, in the sense, talking to people, figuring out having team sessions, hearing life feedback from people, hearing the stories that experiences and gauge from the communications. We need to really bring team leads that are in really touch with each other and that may be difficult for some people in this environment but that’s only because they don’t really get a truly don’t what is really happening in the organization. We shouldn’t get bogged down by data and make sure that the elements that I have just mentioned are right within the organization.

Marie Ryan – People are working remotely more and more often, how do you make remote workers feel valued?

Gillian French- Making sure that they are included in everything, making sure their holidays are recognized, making sure that they are all included. Sometimes, the events become head office-centric without noting that they have remote employees in different parts of the country so making sure that we keep an eye on the holidays of those regions and making sure they focused on things like – Thanksgiving, including them and have an understanding about it. We have to make sure that we don’t have a presence privilege culture where people just get rewarded based on your headquarters office and give more preferences to those employees who are physically present. Research shows we have to actively make sure that we are conscious of making these efforts and reminding leaders of it as well. What we would hate to see now is how some of the remote people who are working from different locations have negatively affected their progress at the workplace especially women who have to stay at home. As leaders within businesses we really need to make sure there needs to be a definite consciousness around this fact and make sure that nobody is feeling excluded there is a lot of there is a lot of talk about conscious leadership at the moment and I think that’s what we have to work towards where you are just conscious and empathy plays a role too because you’re thinking about others and how they are reflected and how they viewed when they are remote workplace in the last two years so consciously trying to organize retreat so that everybody is together organizing gatherings making sure that no teams happen if everybody is not present. Having Google meets so people don’t feel isolated in meetings. So just consciously thinking about how we do not exclude people who are attending the office and who are working too, and making sure that we don’t have a culture where we just feel those who work from the office and only based on the merit of the work that employees offer.

Marie Ryan - You mentioned earlier that you had to have certain difficult conversations in the past where you knew the person wasn’t going to go to like the outcome. How do you balance or draw a line between compassion and empathy and then traditional leadership and qualities?

Gillian French- I think that compassion and empathy should be a part of traditional leadership qualities they should be the critical leadership qualities things like execution should come further down. I think the biggest problem at the workplace has been prioritizing things like execution drive for results, the shareholder returns, profits and people‘s wellness comes really down on the list. I think the shift has to be where people come at the top and the organization is what is made up of all these people and you have to get your people working really well and the wonderful thing is if we do it the right way if we engage people with you to prioritize with them they going to be their best and perform to the best level.  This will ultimately result in the business being very successful but I think there is a fear of control that we have to hold on to these traditional values and methods and we have to micromanage, know what everybody is doing. we have to be able to measure it but people don’t really operate like that it’s like you’re trying to implement something like the productivity of machines into human beings and it just doesn’t work like that I think this is the shift and they should be the critical skills that leaders going forward building environments being compassionate kind and conscious and ethical and these are the critical leadership skills and all the other things follow suit after that. If we do that organizations will be better and society will be better.

Marie Ryan -When you hire somebody with that kind of leadership values like empathy, what do you look for in them and what kind of questions do you ask?

Gillian French -When I am interviewing people I am generally looking at when they’re describing things within the workplace where they are predominantly “I”. Do they talk about this task in projects or do they talk about the people that they work with, their experiences, the people they have developed. I try to see whether their approach is individualistic or is it team-based. Do they mention other people who they want to credit for the success or do they just talk about themselves? it’s the stories that they tell you when they give examples is it all individualistic?  or is the story how they brought other people on and what things they achieved along with the teams and people how are the people they work with, how they’ve contributed in their development or is it just about them. 

Marie Ryan – Ideally, you want to team player who is able to credit the team instead of an ‘I am’.

Gillian French - Yes, yes I mean there’s lots of them. Leadership style if you want to call it that is servant leadership going forward leader’s main role is to serve the people rather than being it the other way around. Your legacy should be what you’ve done for others how you brought them on and how the flood flourished under your leadership how are you drawn out the potential of the people that’s really what leadership is about not how you draw or how you do fear or extracted work from people. I think there is a big shift there is a more servant-based leadership that is required going forward and it is probably the type of leadership we need where we are right now. we have a highly educated workforce doing very interesting work and the authoritarian and sort of directive type leadership isn’t really required in that type of environment. A leadership that is more facilitating and ensuring drawing the potential of the people they are working with.

Marie Ryan - Yeah, you want to support Them to be the best.  You mentioned earlier that there is a lack of listening skills do you have any tips or pointers on how people can be more present when they are in conversations for how they can improve their own listening skills. 

Gillian French - The number one thing when you’re ever involved in listening is that you listen to understand. It’s not my code it’s somebody else’s that you listen to understand rather than listen to respond. So often we have a situation where we are sitting in front of someone and have been waiting to give a rest good response or feel the need to have a smart response and a need to have a good come back and forget what the A person is trying to say to us. We lose the moment where the person is actually trying to say something the only thing about listening is that you have to practice. it. I did executive coaching and I trained as an executive coach a part of a lesson was just to listen listen to someone for 15 minutes listen to what is saying and listen to what they are not saying and listen to the language so it does take practice.  It is unbelievable when you actually practice it to see how much your mind rambles and how you pick up noises and we are more distracted because we have so much going on we have screens and messages and phones flashing so our attention isn’t in a very great state so it really is about practice. When you do listen when you really sit down and listen to someone listen to everything they say the language they use what day they are not saying it is really powerful and then you realize how little we actually listen and how little we probably are listening to each other and how much we are missing and I think it all comes back to being present and being present at the moment.  So I think it’s a big part of the leadership that realizing that you have to be fully present and realize that we have so much going on in our heads and so much content absorption that we do but that’s something that can really break down relationships as well so if you want if someone comes to you and you sit down to have a one-to-one conversation and then you could get distracted by your phone or answer an email and it’s so obvious that during Time calls and Google meet some people get distracted through emails and other messages and they’re not present with you and that really does damage relationships because it gives an impression that we asked to listen to somebody and we don’t really care or give it full attention.  It’s really important whatever we do when we interact with people to keep these things in mind because things can sometimes be misconstrued when you remote for a long time and your social capital just breaks down you have to be really present so you going to have to have one-on-one and do it well do it for a short period of time but do it well instead of being half present. It’s really important that we are present we are listing and people can easily pick up on that. There is no point in rushing in trying to get it done like it’s 80 take a box in a task list and we don’t learn much.

Marie Ryan - There is nothing more insulting than starting a conversation and have the other person checking their phone.

Gillian French- Yes, I’m still not very supportive of laptops in meeting rooms and phones in meeting rooms one part of me is always thinking that if you know if you’re old-fashioned and people tend to think that we are more productive if you bring your laptops of phones into the meeting my deep sense of it is no we don’t need that. I think if you’re going into a meeting room and your meeting together unless the person who is presenting is doing a slide presentation I think everyone else should leave the phone outside and leave the laptops outside and sit and be present at the meeting to have a very good effective meeting  because I think there’s nothing worse then messages and pop ups and come up in our phones people read into things we have to be really really careful about how we are with each other and again in this environment just be mindful of how we are in our actions and how they can be read by the other person  you may call me old-fashioned but yeah I think I am very in support of leaving phones and gadgets outside before you enter meeting.

Marie Ryan - Yes, if there’s something so important that you need to Bring your smartphone along with you for the meeting then you need don’t need to be in the meeting at or maybe.

Gillian French - Yeah if it’s urgent someone can be outside and let us know we receive an urgent call and knock on the door when the meeting is going on otherwise we should avoid doing multitasking there are many studies that suggest otherwise because that’s something we end up doing very well if I do multitasking I am certain that one of the task or one of the many task that I’m trying to achieve will be affected we can’t multitask we are doing one thing at a time and we have to do it well and be present for it. We need to be present a lot more even in our lives in general  phones and technology are all wonderful but we have to teach ourselves that our downtime is when we are outside working so that we are more present and attentive when we are actually at work.

Marie Ryan - Yeah, as a lot of things we can do outside of work that will increase your presence of mind and supposed enjoyment of things like in general out of work like walking meditation also I find that if I drink less coffee I am much more relaxed at work are there anything that you have done and you would recommend increasing peoples presence of mind

Gillian French - Sure, I do three pieces of exercise I eat well that keep me in good stead. When I don’t do these things I fall off track a little bit with work, I just found that I was working hours and hours like 13:14 hours a day and it just wasn’t working for me so that’s why I changed recently back in July and my son would start secondary school so I needed more time with him so I just needed to figure that out. I basically, work three days a week now and I am very militant about it and I try to make sure that I have more time for my children and time for everything else in the other four days of the week organizing things and I am performing better in the three days that I am working. I am very focused I planned myself very well I am very structured I’m not really a structured person but I know that if those three days I am very organized and I am ready to work and I’m not exhausted in the evening for my kids I don’t feel that I am kind of feeling in every front of my life which sometimes I did when I was overworking I felt I wasn’t doing enough at work and when I realize that I had Salon at home  I kind of feel that I wasn’t doing that well either so this structure of three days is working really well and intellectually stimulates me I get what I need and I and I still have a lot of time left for my family. For my friends and for my other aspects of life if I feel that I am overworking and I am not giving time to my family and friends and I’m not able to do other things outside of work that I love then the whole system kind of just suffers and sometimes I do fall back in so I kind of try to bring myself back and it in the truck structure and track and I try to remind myself that this is why I structured these things in a certain way and it is a good structure for me and I am at my best then. I love what I do I am great at work I am great with the kids when the rest all falls down I work too.

 Marie Ryan – So, You set those boundaries and be clear about those boundaries and you pushback?

Genuinely, I think we don’t spend enough time thinking about what we really want to do in life. We all fall into the trap of busy life we all form aspirations.  I very much did that I kind of jumped in and I never kind of had a setback and realized and reflected upon if I am truly happy am I flourishing and the answer was no. I do love the work I did at CPO,I love seeing the people I work with and seeing them getting on but I just felt that there was no time for family or no time for anything else when you operated at that level and I knew that I really want to be with my kids I have three children and one of them is going to secondary school and definitely did more time but I also need the intellectual stimulation then I started crafting what would be the portfolio career and what would I like what I want to do what I don’t like what I found was when I was at few CPO that I loved people but I didn’t like some of the aspects of HR like the policies employment law et cetera .so I put together all the confidence that I did have like I focused on the experiences of people who worked and wanted to improve on that so I craft that solution want to know what you want that is the easy bit the highest that of parties understanding exactly what you want and what the structure would look like. Say what you want to stick to it and go for it that’s the is a bit then to find it once you decide

what you want you will get it once you put your mind into it the path that people really struggle with is to really articulate what they want and what will make them happy and what will be fulfilling for them. In my coaching, I come across this all the time I simply asked people what you truly want what is in your heart, and sometimes they just don’t really know it takes them a lot longer time to figure it out and it’s a tough journey for some of them to make it and to get to that point with parents and their priorities and they’ve been kind of having a journey with their husband and wives and they’ve committed to doing things but it’s actually not what is making them happy so it can be really upsetting and certainly but I know once you come out on the other side of it you actually decide. What are your nonnegotiables are and what do you want you just want to get it and it’s like.

Marie Ryan - Are you ever not leading with empathy?

Gillian French- Honestly, yes. I have done that. I have been nonempathetic. I was younger and probably a little less mature, I would see people that were different from me and saw that more in a combative sort of light and that’s not how I would do it now. I did not seek to understand people‘s perspectives completely I didn’t seek to understand where they were actually coming from and probably I just did that to people which you shouldn’t do because that’s certainly not an empathetic approach I was judging them and probably put in them in a specific box and that’s the type of leadership that I like and that’s the wrong thing to do that creates a division within an organization. When you are not able to talk and meet with people and it took me a long time and  a lot of chapters and experiences from where people would tell me that it’s not right it’s never going to work out if you don’t move to understand and to seek others perspective and judge. Everybody has their stories the best way forward is always compassion and love is probably an interesting word to use in the workplace but there is a lot of literature about that now but compassion is really important and everybody does have space and if you kind of meet them between and get your own ego out of the way it really does go a long way in building bridges and somebody has to make the first move with empathy with no judgment.Try to step in to understand even that that can be something that you may feel isn’t how you would ideally, approach it because you haven’t been there before but you really have to try and step in and seek to understand. There was a lovely Facebook video about understanding people and trying to find a commonality that’s really important. if you’re really struggling to have empathy  then try to find some commonality with them, people look different from different walks of life it was really interesting to see how the minute they had a connection w with each other and they found a common ground how their barriers just broke down.It would be wrong of me to say that I have always lead empathetically I have tried  but there have been moments where I haven’t been the best version of myself and I have probably not lead in an appropriate manner. 

Marie Ryan - I am curious, At leadership we often think that we are always right and the outcome will be how we predict it to be. When you haven’t lead with empathy and you made mistakes have you ever come back to people and admitted?

Gillian French - I believe I have. I have never had a problem with saying that I have done wrong. I’ve had probably times in my career where I was myself  wrong and coming back after having a child and feeling a little bit out of sorts and I’m kind of feeling that I am out of the sea now I’m feeling that people are better than me and you trying to assert you. People were starting and you don’t understand what you doing it’s your ego that is talking, there were times when I didn’t see that and I wasn’t honest about it I felt like what if I’m not good enough for the road because I was off so long these are the type of things that you feel that’s when you’re not at your best that’s where exactly if you’re an empathetic leader and leading someone who is come back after days, you can assure the other the person that it’s going to be alright. We are still here for you and you’ll be fine sometimes a higher the lowlier it gets and there aren’t many people around you that kind of reassurance there are been problem moments of vulnerability when I have but I haven’t felt good enough and I had stopped operating in my best capacity which is my pathetic mode which is really funny and only I had a realization now.

Marie Ryan - Thank you so much for joining us today at the podcast, it was a really interesting conversation.