Developing Empathy In Teams

One skill separates great communicators from average ones: Perspective-taking. The ability to see things from someone else’s point of view. But most people do it wrong. Here’s how to do it right, especially when you’re leading or being led: When you’re the boss, persuading down: You’re trying to convince Maria on your team to do something different. She’s pushing back. Your instinct might be to assert your authority. But that’s a mistake. Here’s why… Research shows: The more powerful you feel, the worse your perspective-taking becomes. More power = less understanding. So if you want to persuade Maria, don’t lean into your title. Do the opposite: dial your power down, just briefly. Try this: Before the next conversation, remind yourself: Maria has power too. I need her buy-in. Maybe she sees something I don’t. Lower your feelings of power to raise your perspective. From that place, ask: → What does she see that I’m missing? → What might be in her way? → What’s a win-win outcome? That shift changes the entire dynamic. Instead of steamrolling, you’re collaborating. And that’s how you earn trust and results. Now flip it. You’re the employee persuading your boss. It’s a high-stakes moment. You’re nervous. So do you appeal to emotion? No. Drop the feelings. Focus on interests. Here’s the key question: “What’s in it for them?” Not how you feel. Not your big dream. → Will it save time? → Improve performance? → Help them hit their goals? Make it about their world, not yours. Why? Because every boss has a mental shortcut: → Does this employee make my life easier or harder? Be the person who brings clarity, ideas, and upside. Not complaints, drama, or friction. In summary: → Persuading down? Dial down your power to see clearer. → Persuading up? Focus on their interests, not your emotions. Perspective-taking is a superpower, if you learn how to use it. Now practice, practice, practice.

Rick Rubin went on stage in Helsinki the day after my talk. Someone asked how he resolves creative differences with artists. His answer was simple: change the conversation from "I disagree" to "let's build it." Then he shared a story: An artist played him a song. The transition didn't work. Rubin told him so. The artist said, "We'll just cut that part in half." Rubin thought to himself: What a dumb idea. But he didn't say that. He said, "Let's try it." The artist played it. It worked. Rubin is a legend. He's produced everyone from Johnny Cash to Jay-Z. Instead, he bit his tongue and let the artist prove him wrong. The principle: when you make an idea tangible, it stops being the person's idea. It becomes something you can both look at objectively and improve together. Once you build it, the truth is obvious. Here's what this looks like in practice: Your designer wants to change the entire homepage layout. You think it's too risky. Instead of three meetings debating it, you say: "Let's build a prototype and test it with 50 users this week." Your sales team wants to restructure the pricing page. Instead of blocking it because you're worried about conversions, you say: "Let's run it as an A/B test on 20% of traffic for two weeks." Your engineer wants to rebuild a core feature from scratch. You think it's overengineered. But instead of killing it in the planning phase, you say: "Spike it out in three days and show me if the performance gain is real." You're not saying yes to everything. You're saying, "Let's find out." Rubin also said something that stuck with me: "If there's disagreement, I always side with the artist's vision. Because to them, it's their career. To me, it's just one piece of my portfolio." Most leaders think backing down makes them look weak. Rubin knows that siding with the person who has the most at stake makes better work happen. Your job isn't to be right. It's to create the conditions where the best idea wins. Stop debating. Start building. P.S. This insight is from this week's newsletter where I break down why Yamaha dominates while Steinway got sold to private equity: https://lnkd.in/efSqP_9K P.P.S. Access additional research links, the podcast, and the full archive in the first comment 👇 Thank you to Nordic Business Forum!

A teacher used AI to show her students as grown-ups in their dream jobs. 🤗 The result? A viral, heartwarming reel — and a powerful lesson about the human side of technology. AI didn’t just generate images. It generated belief. When those kids saw themselves as doctors, artists, astronauts, and engineers, they weren’t just imagining the future — they were feeling it. And that matters. Because psychology tells us that visualizing success makes it more achievable. Now, AI can make that visualization vivid, personal, and real. 📊 1 in 3 U.S. educators already use AI to personalize learning. 💡 Emotional storytelling with AI improves memory retention by 70%. ❤️ This teacher gave her students something few adults ever get — a visual future worth believing in. This is AI as empathy tech. A tool not for replacing humans, but for amplifying hope, motivation, and imagination. 👉 What if we used AI not just to optimize work — but to elevate people? #AI #Education #Innovation #Empathy #TechnologyForGood #FutureOfWork #Leadership

Travel doesn’t just change your location. It rewires how you think. Have you been to all these places? * Leaders with international experience are 32% more likely to drive successful market expansion. * Companies with culturally diverse leadership teams are 36% more profitable. * Professionals exposed to multiple cultures show higher creativity and problem-solving scores. * 70% of executives say cross-border experience directly improved their decision-making under pressure. On the ground, travel forces: * Faster adaptation when plans break * Clearer communication across cultures * Better risk assessment in unfamiliar environments * Stronger empathy — a hidden advantage in leadership and sales The best strategies aren’t built only in boardrooms. They’re shaped in airports, factory floors, late-night meetings, and conversations across borders. If you want to scale your business, scale your perspective. Travel isn’t a perk. It’s leadership training. #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #GlobalMindset #DataDriven #TravelForWork #ExecutiveMindset

Two interviews this week. Both candidates were late. But here’s what happened next… Interview #1: She messaged me right before our call to say she’d be 10 minutes late due to heavy traffic. I rejoined after 10 minutes… and she was still 5 minutes late. But I could see she was genuinely doing her best to make it on time. When she joined, I broke the ice right away and reassured her it was okay and that her lateness had no negative impact. She relaxed… and nailed the interview. Interview #2: He joined only after I messaged him to check in. He was in a noisy place, and we could barely hear each other. I suggested we reschedule for his weekend so he could be in a quiet space and well-prepared. 💡 Here’s my takeaway for fellow interviewers: -Candidates are often nervous; your reassurance makes a huge difference. - When people feel comfortable, they can actually show their skills. - Life happens — traffic, noise, emergencies — things we can’t control shouldn’t define someone’s chances. Empathy in hiring isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about creating the conditions for someone to truly show you who they are.

As I was growing up in my career, I used to get disappointed with people quite often. Colleagues I thought were close would not sometimes show up when I expected them to. People I considered friends at work would support me in one situation, but stay silent in another. And when someone disagreed with me, I would sometimes take it more personally than I should have. At the time, it felt like disappointment. Looking back, I think some of it was misclassification. I was expecting friendship from people who were allies. I was treating disagreement as disloyalty. I was assuming that support in one context meant support in every context. I recently came across a framework by Laurence J. Stybel and Maryanne Peabody, published in MIT Sloan Management Review, which classified professional relationships into four broad categories: Friends are with you beyond immediate self-interest. Allies are with you when your interests are aligned. Enemies are against you regardless of the situation. Adversaries are against you because, in that moment, your interests conflict. I don’t agree with the framework completely. Human relationships are too complex to fit neatly into four boxes. People change. Context matters. And even real friendships have boundaries. But I do think there is real merit in the larger idea: Not every relationship deserves the same expectation. Someone who supports you on a project may not be a friend. Someone who challenges you in a meeting may not be an enemy. Someone who is not standing with you today may simply have different incentives. And someone who opposes you now may become an ally when the context changes. This distinction matters because a lot of emotional energy is lost when we put people in the wrong box. We feel betrayed by allies who were never friends. We become defensive with adversaries who were never enemies. We over-personalize what may simply be a difference in incentives. The lesson is not to become cynical. It is to become more discerning. Because maturity at work is not just about understanding people better. It is also about calibrating your expectations better. Not every disappointment is betrayal. Sometimes, it is a relationship asking to be seen for what it really is.

One of the hardest tensions in leadership is this: How do you care for your people and still hold the line on performance? Too many leaders treat empathy and accountability like competing values. They're not. The real breakdown usually happens somewhere else: Assumption. Leaders assume employees understand the pressure they carry. The stakes. The expectations. The weight of decisions that affect the whole business. And employees often assume leaders cannot see their reality either. This gap creates friction. The answer is not less empathy. And it is not softer accountability. It is more honesty. Talk more. Listen more. And stop assuming your team can see what you see just because they work near it. The leaders who do this well make expectations clear, explain what is at stake, and create enough trust for people to hear hard truths without shutting down. Empathy without clarity creates confusion. Accountability without communication creates resentment. Performance requires both.

Imagine this: You’re a new VP of Sales. It’s day one. Everyone’s sipping coffee, flipping through slides, and then you drop the hammer. “Why isn’t the team prospecting more?” you ask. The room shifts. Suddenly, everyone’s avoiding eye contact like you’re a TSA agent asking about unclaimed luggage. Defensive walls go up. Someone mutters about “priorities.” Another says, “We’re working on it.” You’ve hit a nerve. Now rewind. Same room, same coffee, same slides. But this time you say, “It seems like the team’s been focusing more on closing deals than prospecting.” Heads nod. People lean in. Someone even says, “Yeah, and here’s why…” The conversation—collaborative and smooth. The difference? Chris Voss calls this “tactical empathy.” “Why” is like shining a spotlight in their eyes. “It seems like” is more like holding a flashlight, gently guiding the way. One feels like blame, the other like curiosity. In sales—or life—“why” can make people feel cornered. “It seems like” invites them to step forward.

Some people call empathy a "pathological weakness." Denmark has made it a strength for 30+ years. Some think empathy is "feminine" behavior holding back progress. But Denmark has made empathy central to its childhood education. Students 6-16 take weekly 1 hour empathy classes. Here's what it looks like: → Students share challenges (academic or personal) → The whole class listens without interrupting or judging → They collaborate on solutions together → They reflect on how others feel in different situations → Students build self-awareness through repetition → There's no tests, no grades, just skill-building The philosophy runs deeper: → 60% of schoolwork is collaborative → Children learn they cannot succeed alone → No prizes or trophies to avoid creating rivalry → Focus isn't to excel, but to help those who struggle After 3 decades, the results speak for themselves: 📊 Denmark ranks top 3 happiest countries globally 📊 Bullying rate: just 6.3% (one of Europe's lowest) 📊 Better job retention & stronger workplace bonds Empathy isn't "soft skills" fluff. Empathy does not have a gender. Empathy is for everyone. In a disconnected world, our ability to understand and connect with others is a sustainable competitive advantage. 👉 What would change if empathy was treated as a core skill in business, not a nice-to-have? ♻️ Repost if someone in your network needs this perspective 🔔 Follow Ashley Couto for more daily business content

This week, I learned about a new kind of bias—one that can impact underrepresented people when they use AI tools. 🤯 New research by Oguz A. Acar, PhD et al. found that when members of stereotyped groups—such as women in tech or older workers in youth-dominated fields—use AI, it can backfire. Instead of being seen as strategic and efficient, their AI use is framed as “proof” that they can’t do the work on their own. (https://lnkd.in/gEFu2a9b) In the study, participants reviewed identical code snippets. The only difference? Some were told the engineer wrote it with AI assistance. When they thought AI was involved, they rated the engineer’s competence 9% lower on average. And here’s the kicker: that _competence penalty_ was twice as high for women engineers. AI-assisted code from a man got a 6% drop in perceived competence. The same code from a woman? A 13% drop. Follow-up surveys revealed that many engineers anticipated this penalty and avoided using AI to protect their reputations. The people most likely to fear competence penalties? Disproportionately women and older engineers. And they were also the least likely to adopt AI tools. And I’m concerned this bias extends beyond engineering roles. If your organization is encouraging AI adoption, consider the hidden costs to marginalized and underestimated colleagues. Could they face extra scrutiny? Harsher performance reviews? Fewer opportunities? In this week's 5 Ally Actions newsletter, I'll explore ideas for combatting this bias and creating more meritocratic and inclusive workplaces in this new world of AI. Subscribe and read the full edition on Friday at https://lnkd.in/gQiRseCb #BetterAllies #Allyship #InclusionMatters #Inclusion #Belonging #Allies #AI 🙏