After spending two days at Startup Grind Global 2020, I was struck by how often I heard the word empathy. On a variety of stages, speakers doubled down on empathy–both on a need for it in startups and the lure of working with others who have this gift.
The skeptic in me wondered, though: How often is empathy real, as opposed to a conceptual virtue? Sure, it’s easy to talk about, but actually applying it in the workplace is much more difficult. That said, there’s good news here for older employees. Empathy is a soft skill that some research shows increases with age. Are you tapping into yours?
Advocacy for the customer
On the Startup Grind Global stage, Scott Belsky, chief product officer at Adobe and founder of Behance, said during a Q&A that he would prioritize empathy over passion in building a team. Not surprising, coming from a product person. One reason empathy is trending right now is design thinking in product development. Popularized by design firm IDEO and taught at Stanford’s d.School, design thinking posits that product development begins with empathy for the customer and the problem they experience.
Belsky believes the person who has empathy for the customer has a competitive advantage over the person who is simply driven to solve the problem. Another way to look at this is that the founder who can feel for the customer becomes an advocate.
Risk: A problem for underrepresented employees
On another stage, Tony Donohoe, chief product officer at SoFi, was addressing how to create a culture of failure for testing and learning. Like design thinking, failure culture is also trending, perhaps with its origins in the Lean Startup mentality and the popularity of Carol Dwek’s book, Mindset, which supports a growth rather than fixed mindset.
Donohoe conceded that a problem with creating a culture of failure is that underrepresented employees may be reluctant to take risks and fail. Despite encouragement from management, these employees have higher stakes and are justified in their hesitancy, Donohoe admitted. The underrepresented (such as older employees) can be risk-averse because they will have trouble finding re-employment. Donohoe believes this nuance is essential for leaders to understand as they shape their company’s culture, and that empathy is the solution.
The soft skill that sets you apart
But wait! There’s good news here for those who are mid- and late-career. Some research suggests that empathy may be a quality that increases with age, though it drops again much later in life. Three studies concluded that middle-aged people have the highest levels of empathy. So this is a soft skill that mid-life managers can leverage.
Ironically, research also indicates that empathy diminishes with power. Startup founders and early-stage employees may feel great empathy about the problem they’re solving. But as the company grows and both the company and the founders feel more powerful in the world, they may also be less empathetic towards customers. The ability to hold onto empathy despite rising in power will set you apart.
If you can leverage empathy with customers and with employees, you have just tapped into a gift that allows you to be more effective, a gift of middle-age!