Empathy in Action: A Framework for Support

[music]

Bob: Hi. Thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection podcast. I’m Bob. My co-host, Jessica, is here as well. Today, we’ll be diving into a tool that can really enhance our ability to connect with the people we serve. Jessica will be sharing a practice with us related to that. Hi, Jessica. First of all, happy birthday. Did you have a good birthday? How was it?

Jessica: I did. It was actually exactly what I needed. Several years ago, it happened quite by accident. I started to take the day off from work, which that part is not an accident, but I started to take the day off from work. That first year, I just tooled around town. I just went where I felt like going. It felt so freeing and it reminded me of how much I enjoy an adventure, even though I was really just going around town, but I was going to different places that I don’t normally go to.

I was spending two hours in a bookstore just looking at books and looking at all the possibilities. That’s what I did this year. I took the day off. I went to some thrift stores. I enjoy the adventure of finding interesting, odd antique pieces, and I didn’t really find anything, though. I just did a few things like that.

Bob: Well, that’s awesome. It’s not about what you find. It’s the journey.

Jessica: Exactly.

Bob: Looking for it.

Jessica: That’s exactly what it was for me and I just kept gut-checking. Just because last year I went to a yarn store, doesn’t mean this year I need to go to one. Just because in the past I’ve gone to a bookstore didn’t mean this year I needed to go to one, and I didn’t even though that’s one of my favorite things to do on my birthday is to go to a bookstore. Last year, I bought two books and I’m three quarters of the way through one of them at this point. I’m like, I don’t want any more books. Let me get through the ones I have.

Bob: Well, that sounds awesome.

Jessica: How are you doing?

Bob: I’m doing great. Yes. I’ve been thinking about joy because of some meditations that I’ve been listening to. The Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck has a quote and she said, “Joy is exactly what is happening, minus our opinion of it.” The recorded meditation I was listening to was led by Sebene Selassie, and she shared that quote, which I hadn’t heard before. Sebene said that Charlotte Joko Beck was trying to get at the distinction between happiness and joy, and that’s something I really hadn’t thought about.

One distinction that Sebene shared was happiness has an opposite, unhappiness, but what’s the opposite of joy? That was pretty thought-provoking for me. Sebene describes joy as the capacity to appreciate the good in each moment without pushing away what might be unpleasant. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, trying to get in touch with that feeling of joy in that sense that I’m willing to take things as they are, willing to let things be as they are, and not confusing joy with happiness. That’s not super inspirational or anything like that, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about.

Jessica: No, that’s really interesting. Sebene is actually one of my favorite meditation people. I feel like anything she says, I get some inspiration out of this idea that it’s a joyful act to appreciate the good in the moment, even when there might be some unpleasantness going on. That is really thought-provoking. I’m really glad you shared that. I’m going to have to think on it a little bit.

Bob: Well, we’d love to hear what you’re thinking about and what’s inspiring you. Please share that by clicking the “send us a text message link” at the top of the description of this episode. When you click the link, your text messaging app should open and you’ll see a seven digit number and the words, “Do not remove.” Type your message after that and click send. Don’t remove that number or we won’t receive your message.

To protect your privacy, we won’t see your phone number so we can’t text you back, but we will share your feedback on a future episode. If you’re listening listening on a computer, you can’t text us, but you could email us at [email protected]. Let us know what you’re thinking about, what’s inspiring you right now.

[music]

Bob: Jessica, I know you’ve chosen to talk about empathy mapping today. Could you share a little bit more about the activity and why you thought it was important to highlight it?

Jessica: Absolutely. I’ve used this activity quite a lot for developing communication strategies. When we first talked about the idea of perspective-taking, this of course leapt to my mind. I pulled up my empathy mapping activities and started pouring over them, and remembering really the successes I’ve seen people have as they’ve used it. Empathy mapping is often used in the context of marketing to design customer profiles or communication strategy.

I’ve also seen empathy mapping work really well as a tool for building understanding of a person or a group. As we’ll talk about later, it’s not a perfect tool. It should be one of several tools, but we’ll talk a little bit about that later. For example, I’ve used it to help community members get a better sense of where county board members are coming from, recognizing that these officials really want to be good stewards of public dollars, even when it might seem like they’re just focused on the budget and that’s it, just the dollars. It’s meant to help you get past your assumptions and begin to understand someone else’s perspective, which is really important when working with military families and service members.

Bob: That’s a great point. This idea of perspective-taking is important to understand the unique challenges that military connected individuals face, especially during transitions, like deployment, relocation, or reintegration into civilian life. Really just to try and understand better everybody’s experience because we all come from different experiences and bring our experiences to whatever we’re dealing with in that moment.

Jessica: I appreciate that you put it that way. This also ties into something that we’ve talked briefly about called the Military Transitions Theory, which provides a framework for understanding the various phases that military personnel and their families go through during their transitions. The theory highlights the importance of understanding not just the physical changes, like moving to a new duty station, but also the psychological and social adjustments that come with those changes. By taking the time to see the world from a different perspective, we can better support military families through these transitions. Well, that’s why I thought of this activity.

Bob: How does it help us apply our understanding of different perspectives in practice in a practical way?

Jessica: Because it’s structured as a way to step into someone else’s shoes, it can help us move beyond the surface level observations and really dig into what a person is experiencing. Again, we’ll go into this in a minute. This is one tool of many, right? You are using your own knowledge of that person to fill this out. Unless you’re ground-truthing it, you’re not really digging into what they’re experiencing, but it’s a way for you to start to see the different perspective.

For military families, this means understanding not just what they’re doing or saying, but also what they’re thinking and feeling as they navigate these transitions. You might be hearing what they’re saying and seeing a little bit of what they’re doing, but this really helps you dig a little bit into what they might be thinking and feeling as well.

Bob: This is really interesting. I’m excited to learn how to use this. Could you walk us through how to put empathy mapping into practice?

Jessica: Absolutely. We’ve provided a link in the show notes where you can download the template. This template has a goofy-looking individual in the middle of the paper. Around this individual are some different areas for you to focus on and add your notes to. In the first box, you’re going to want to start with defining who you’re focusing on. It’s often really, really helpful to think of someone specific. Even if you are trying to think of a group of people, try to think of someone specific. A military spouse who’s just relocated perhaps, a veteran transitioning to civilian life, or a kid coping with a parent’s deployment.

Depending on what your role is, think about a person, then consider their goal, something that they need to do. For example, maybe a military spouse needs to build a new support network after a move. Depending on what your role is, figure out what kind of goal they’ve come to you for. This goal should be something observable, something you can see them trying to achieve. Then you’re going to move on to thinking about what they see around them. There’s another box there that says, what do they see? What’s their environment like? Are they surrounded by new places, unfamiliar faces or challenging situations?

Understanding what they see can give us insight into their daily reality. Then move on to looking at what they might be saying to others. What are they communicating about their experiences? This can reveal a lot about their mindset and what’s important to them, which will be really helpful to you later. Then after, you move on to thinking about what they’re doing to reach their goal. Are they already taking steps to connect with others? Are they seeking out resources? Are they trying to maintain their routines and trying to maintain some structure in their lives?

Finally, you would listen to what they are hearing. This sounds confusing because I said we’ve gone through what are they seeing, saying, doing, but what are they hearing? What are the advice, the opinions, and expectations that they might be hearing from those around them? Then finally, look inward. After considering these external experiences, what they’re seeing, saying, doing, and hearing, we shift to their internal world. This is where you can focus on their thoughts and feelings. What emotions might they be dealing with?

I think there’s a lot of information out there for some of these transitions about the typical emotions that people go through as they’re experiencing things like deployment, for example. What emotions are they dealing with? What worries or hopes might they be carrying? This part of the empathy map helps us connect with their experience on a deeper level. All of that said, I have some tips.

I’ve alluded to it a couple of times already. I really want you to consider a tool like this to be one tool among many and the practice should really be approached with care, using it together with other methods and feedback mechanisms. What I mean by that, for example, keep in mind that empathy mapping starts with what you know of a person. You can and you should find ways to ground truth your map, or you could end up with superficial insights.

You could also end up with some stereotyping and things like that. Another tip I have is, just like any activity, try to go into it with an awareness of the biases and assumptions that you have that may affect the results. For example, with financial clients, you could do the financial genogram activity we talked about some weeks ago on this podcast. That could help widen your awareness of your biases and assumptions when it comes to financial applications.

Otherwise, the process could end up being more of a reflection of your views than the actual experiences of the person being mapped. Then lastly, consider the systemic or structural factors that affect people when completing your map. The empathy map activity often focuses on individual experiences. Definitely keep those other things in mind. I know that those are three really big tips, but I would not let that scare you away from going through this activity because I’ve gone through it many, many times with people, and it is really a helpful tool.

Bob: That’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend. We’re going to be back next week with an interview I’m super excited about. We’re going to be talking about communicating across generations with Corie Weathers, who wrote a great book called Military Culture Shift. So looking forward to that conversation, and I hope you can join us for it and let folks know that if they want to hear more from Corie, to tune in to the Practicing Connection podcast. Until then, keep practicing.

[music]

Kalin Goble: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense, under award numbers, 2019-48770-30366, and 2023-48770-41333.

[music]

[00:13:50] [END OF AUDIO]