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Sticking Together, While Staying Apart

People walking together but sepeaated by distance

Is it just me or is 2020 turning out to be much more complicated than any one of us could have imagined?

It’s Tuesday, March 17. Our kids should be in school. Our employees should be in the conference room. Our restaurants and retailers should be open for business. Instead, we’re doing everything in our power to make our daily routines as uninterrupted as possible in a world where nothing is normal anymore.

COVID-19 will challenge us on many levels in the coming months. It will challenge us as parents, as business owners, as foundation and nonprofit executives, and as individuals who need to keep work going even when everything around us feels like it’s come to a screeching halt.

What I know for sure is that our community is a profoundly kind one and that each of you have the grit, perseverance, and resilience to guide your organization, your colleagues, and your community through this time of unknown.

The reality is it’s hard to know what to do, and how to stay focused when the situation is still unfolding.  So, while you’ve had no shortage of coronavirus messages in your inbox, I wanted to share a few of the most impactful tools I’ve seen come through, should they be helpful to you as well:

  1. On shifting your team to remote work. Last week, I made the decision to move Mission Partners to a remote working policy through at least March 27th. For those considering the same, I’ve offered a link to our announcement, as well as our health and safety best practices should you find the resource helpful.  I also wanted to pass along the amazing crowdsourced resource that Amira El-Gawly of Manifesta shared in her newsletter, which really helped my team develop the above health and safety best practices document.

  2. On managing well while remote. It’s one thing to make the decision to go remote, and another to manage well in a remote working environment. I loved this article from our friends at the Management Center with excellent tips for staying connected even while apart. Read their tips.

  3. On communicating through crisis. The awesome team at CommNet has started a Coronavirus Crisis Comms Triage Kit — an Open Google Doc to share and crowdsource best practices, resources, and examples of effective crisis comms covering many of the tasks you’re attending to. Access the kit.

  4. On helping where it’s needed most. There will be no shortage of community nonprofits who can benefit from support, but if you’re looking for a group to help now, we hope you’ll donate to Manna Food. For the estimated 63,000 people who regularly experience hunger and food insecurity in Montgomery County, COVID-19 presents unique challenges. Families with limited means, particularly seniors on fixed incomes, often don’t have the resources to stockpile groceries and supplies, and they don’t have the ability to weather the self-quarantine that the CDC recommends as a crucial step in preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the community. And the 3,000+ kids who rely on free and reduced-price meals are in danger of not having that food resource over the weekends with schools now closed. If you’re fortunate enough to be able to help someone else through this public health crisis, I invite you to donate to Manna, and contribute to #foodforall.

  5. On pro bono support. And finally, if there’s anything you need through this crisis, related to communications, crisis, or fundraising strategy, including the virtual facilitation of meetings and media trainings, I hope you’ll turn our way. We are offering our services at significant discount through May, including up to 5 pro bono engagements to help nonprofits, foundations and associations with messages, materials development, donor communications, and crisis strategies related to COVID-19. Schedule a call with me here to discuss your immediate communications needs.  And if you’re in need of a service beyond what we can provide, turn to this terrific DC-area small business list first- a collection of small businesses who greatly benefit from your business in these trying times.

I’ve built my business on a commitment to using business as a force for good, and I don’t intend to stop now.  Sending you strength, health, and good things to come.

Carrie Fox (she/hers)
Founder and CEO
Mission Partners, A Benefit LLC
carrie@mission.partners

Edited to Add on 4/6/2020: Since the original publication of this article, our business is now remote until at least April 27th. While we have also already reached capacity on our pro bono engagements, we are still continuing a discount through May 2020 for COVID-19 support. If this message resonated with you and you would like to learn more about how we can help with your own messaging to push your organization through these unprecedented times, please contact us today.

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Living Our Core Values

As a purpose-driven B CorporationTM, our values are the heart and soul of our company. They drive our growth and inform our hiring processes.  But it’s easy for those words to become empty promises if we’re not holding ourselves accountable to them.

So, this fall, we decided to go a layer deeper on the values that guide our work. We led our staff through a process we often do for our clients.  And in doing so, we were able to solidify certain key values while strengthening others. I’m proud to share them with you here:

  • We value people first.We are more than what happens during our office hours. We are people first, and we strive to show a deep respect for human beings inside and outside our company.
  • We value equity. We acknowledge that our current social, economic, and political systems are unjust, predominantly due to a history of racism and oppression. We marshal our resources to advance equitable opportunities and outcomes for all.
  • We value integrity. We are honest, open, ethical, and fair. People trust us to adhere to our word, and we work hard to earn and maintain that trust.
  • We value kindness. We are guided by gratitude, and we take extra measures to appreciate one another.
  • We value courageous leadership. We act with courage, challenge the status quo, and find new ways to grow our company and each other.
  • We value progress. We are continuously moving forward, innovating, and improving.  We do this work because we believe in it and we allow that belief to inspire our actions.

We know with certainty that when we live these values—fully and universally across our team— we can achieve our greatest impact, and 2019 was a solid reminder of that.

  • We supported more than 30 nonprofit organizations, foundations and social enterprises who are advancing breakthroughs in children’s health, housing, education, journalism, technology, and the workforce, and who share our commitment to building a more just and inclusive society. Read more about our work here.
  • We re-engineered our own financial investments to be impact-oriented, in line with our core values and with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
  • We hosted a powerful community conversation on the soaring maternal mortality rates among Black and Brown women in the United States—led by and featuring the experiences of Black women. Learn more about Hear Her: A Call to Action on Maternal Mortality.
  • We created communications tools designed for social impact professionals to lead systems change efforts through an anti-racist framework. Stay tuned for opportunities to access these tools in 2020.
  • We partnered with Slack, The Last Mile, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation who trusted us to document the findings from their inaugural cohort of Next Chapter, a bold and transformative initiative to help formerly incarcerated individuals secure wealth-building jobs in tech. Read their powerful story in this week’s edition of The Atlantic.
  • We launched an application-based Social Impact Fellows program at Loyola University Maryland. Ten students agreed to a year of vulnerability as we worked together to identify inequities where we live, learn, work, and serve, and then spent the rest of our cohort year using Design Thinking to address and advocate for more equitable programs and policies within their institution. Learn more and listen to the students closing presentation here.
  • We cemented our commitment to build a more just and inclusive society by joining on as a founding signatory of #WeTheChange, 400+ women leaders of certified B Corporations and other purpose-driven enterprises who share our belief that capitalism should work for everyone, and for the long-term. Read more about our commitment to building business as a force for good at wethechange.net.

The work we do each day— on behalf of our clients and partners— is at its most powerful when we live these values. In 2020, we intend to go deeper still, working to align our business intentionally with the UN Sustainability Goals, and further advance our commitment to high-impact initiatives that lead to a more just and inclusive society. If you’re interested in doing the same, I hope you’ll drop me a line (carrie@mission.partners) so we can take on this important work together.

To each of our clients, and to every one of you, I thank you for your impact and for the purpose you bring to our work, every day.

Wishing you peace and love in the New Year.

Carrie Fox

On behalf of our clients, friends and colleagues, Mission Partners has made a monetary contribution to The Next Mile and The National Birth Equity Collaborative for their transformational impact on us, and our year.

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12 Ways to Effectively Engage an Advisory Board

People shaking hands after a meeting

By Susanne Pirone

Time. Talent. Treasure. If you lead or manage a nonprofit board of advisors, you’re likely very used to those three words. At the broadest level, these words set shared expectations for what board members are expected to bring to their board position: how much time they’re expected to spend on or in support of the organization each year, what professional talents they’ll be able to lend to the advancement of an organization’s mission, and what level of financial treasure they’re expected to give or get through fundraising efforts.

The trouble, however, is that many board leaders and executive directors don’t take the time to qualify these terms much more specifically than I just have, which can leave board members with uncertainty about their commitments, or not fully engaged with the organization—leading to much less effective boards in general.

At Mission Partners, we spend a lot of our time guiding organizational leaders in building and growing their board relationships. We know that turning friends and allies into champions and ambassadors can be the most surefire way to advance an organization’s mission.  But it takes time, talent, and sometimes a bit of treasure from the organization as well. As I’ve reflected on our experiences from this year, I wanted to share 12 important tips to make more of your board engagements in 2020:

  1. Do your research. Invite participants who have a personal, or institutional commitment to your organization or issue area.  Participants who have had involvement with the issue before, or work for organizations who have supported the issue area through volunteerism, grants, or event support in the past will be your warmest leads.
  2. Recruit for diversity. Build a group of advisors who are different from each other and bring different strengths to the table.  Think of diversity from various perspectives – industry, professional expertise, age, race, gender, background.
  3. Have end goals in mind. How will this advisory board help you advance the mission and goals of your organization?  Build your board with your end goals in mind, and ensure that you have committed people sitting around the table with the skills needed to advance your goals.
  4. Know their role. Have a very clear vision for the role of your advisory board, and be able to consistently and clearly communicate it to current and prospective members.  Draft a volunteer job description for members, and ask them to sign off on it each year.
  5. Make meetings count. Your board members are busy and their time is valuable.  Craft strategic, action oriented agendas.  Advisory board meetings should not just be “report outs” on what your organization has been doing.  Consider structuring your advisory board with sub-committees, where members are in charge of advancing the work, and reporting progress when your group gets together.
  6. Expect their involvement. Members of an advisory board are your leadership volunteers in the community.  They should be present at your events, active at your meetings, and consistently helping you advance your goals and the work of your organization.
  7. Provide visibility. Provide your advisory board members and their companies visibility in as many ways as you can.  List them on all materials, websites, and advertising supplements, as appropriate.  Engage them as spokespeople for your organization.  They can tell your story just as well as you can, and it has more weight coming from a third party than coming from a staff person.  Showcase their companies as leaders in the community, and provide a platform to elevate them as leaders within their place of business.
  8. Make clear, in-person asks. Don’t bury action items and asks for your advisory board in a blanket email.  Don’t even rely solely on mentioning your action items and asks during your meetings.  Make your requests in person, make them specific, and tie them back to your overall organizational goals.
  9. Leverage their involvement. Leverage advisory board members in other ways/roles across your organization.  Engage them at your community and fundraising events.  Let them help you with staff development goals.  Give them a clear role in identifying and recruiting their peers as corporate prospects for your organization.
  10. Seek their feedback. Set an annual time to meet individually with each advisory board member.  Find out if they feel that they are effectively contributing to the organization.  Ask what they would change about the meetings and/or the kind of work they are being asked to do.  Determine if they think they have distinctive competencies that are not being utilized that could be of benefit to the organization.  Solicit their ideas for additional people to bring onto the advisory board.
  11. Have a plan. Make sure you have a succession plan for your advisory board.  Even the most committed and engaged volunteers will eventually need to step down from your advisory board.  New members and new ideas are critical to the forward movement of an organization.  Set a term of service for members, and have a pipeline for bringing new leadership volunteers into the fold.
  12. Don’t lose key volunteers! When a member sunsets from your advisory board, make sure you have ways to keep him or her involved.  This is an opportunity to transition these key leadership volunteers into other roles within your organization.

Above all, if you want to have an effective board, take the time to show gratitude, and not just at the end of their board term.  Small acts of gratitude, such as handwritten personal notes, go a long way in recognizing someone’s contributions to your organization, especially your volunteer advisory board members. Build into your organizational goals a plan for recognition and appreciation of these leadership volunteers.  Together, with the tips above, we are certain you’ll see a more effective and impactful board of advisors in the year ahead.

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Why Listening to All Sides Matters

group of diverse people covering their ears

By Carrie Fox

Last weekend, I was listening to a radio program when I heard a fascinating interview. Truth is, I can’t remember the name of the individual being interviewed. I can’t even remember why he was chosen to be featured in the story.

But I remember very clearly what he said.

The radio interviewer asked this individual—an immigrant from Peru and small business owner in Texas—about derogatory language that has been used by the President specifically in reference to Hispanic and Latino immigrants: “When you hear those words,” she said, “you don’t hear him speaking about people like yourself?”

“You know,” he said, “the way I see it is, he speaks his mind. And I take from it only what I want to hear.”

When the interviewer pressed him, asking again whether he agreed with the President, he said:

“You know what? I don’t pay attention to it.”

Taking only what I need to hear? Not paying attention to it?

I wish I could say that this felt unusual when I heard it (it certainly felt uncomfortable), but it’s not all that different from what I’ve heard many times in interviews and conversations over the last few years.

This individual had every right to feel the way he did, but it might not have been the best approach.

Here’s why:

In politics, philanthropy, or professional settings, it’s common to “hear what we need to hear,” and to conveniently disregard the rest. In fact, a study published by the American Psychological Association found that people were twice as likely to select information that supported their own point of view rather than consider an opposing idea.

Science confirms: we hear what we want to hear and we disregard the rest.

It’s this issue exactly that led me to write about the troubles of like-mindedness recently, and why Mission Partners now hosts regularly sold-out workshops on how to bridge cultural and communications gaps in and out of the workplace. It’s why we train on how to build healthy, inclusive, and racially-conscious work environments, and—I suspect—it’s why we’ve seen a significant increase in requests to conduct perception research. Rather than traditional market research on a key issue area or brand, we’re conducting research on how organizations—and their leaders—are seen and perceived by others. It’s the perfect tool for organizations who are ready to fill gaps in understanding, and organizations who want to hear the whole story, especially after they’ve too long prioritized hearing only what they wanted to hear.

But, what’s interesting is that organizations aren’t necessarily calling us to ask for perception research. They’re calling because they want to understand why their donations are dwindling, why their membership numbers are falling, and why their subscribers are leaving. (Sound like a question you’ve wondered, too?)

The reality is, in nearly every case, it’s because at some point, the organization simply stopped listening, and started hearing only what they wanted to hear. The good news is: conducting a perception audit can give an organization exactly what it needs—including what it needs to hear—to build a powerful comeback.

Simply put: There’s great value and power in understanding what’s being said, even if you chose to disregard it the first time. And while hearing the information might not be easy, it’s also not out of reach.

Consider this:

  • The next time you’re in discussion with someone you disagree with, don’t try to “win” and don’t try to convince anyone of your viewpoint. Instead, sit quietly, listen, and keep an open mind. Ask them to convince you and see what you can learn from their point of view.
  • Or, the next time you feel compelled to share a link on social media about current events, ask yourself why you are doing it. Is it because that link brings to light information you hadn’t considered? Or does it confirm your currently-held world view? Instead of posting that news link, consider tracking down an article that makes a counterpoint and engage your network in an entirely new perspective.
  • And, as I shared in my like-mindedness post, vary your listening habits. Instead of listening to the same morning news program every day, consider trying something completely different. See what you can learn when you simply listen to a different perspective.

Whether we like it or not, we all tend to believe that our opinions are very well-informed and valid, even though we often don’t know why we think the way we do. It’s simply easier to believe what we want, or what we’ve always believed. But there’s no knowledge or power in that. Instead, work hard to listen, and to understand beyond what you believe.

Then, see if your opinion still stands.

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Finding Swing: Syncing Up Your Team for Success

Rowing

In rowing, we call it swing.

All four, or eight, members of a crew cut through the water, their oars at the same speed, pulling with the same pressure, at the same time. It’s exacting. And difficult. But, when it happens, magic occurs. The fiberglass shell lifts, almost as if it’s floating on top of the water. And the crew, working smarter, not harder, is operating at its maximum efficiency, reserving energy for the final sprint to the finish.

Achieving swing can happen in the workplace, too. When a team crystallizes around a shared focus and common goal and focuses on working smarter, not harder, an incredible efficiency occurs. Workplace efficiency requires outlined roles, but on the outside, it’d be difficult to identify where the work of one team member stops and another starts. And the team always, always has each other’s backs.

Swing is what we aim for every day at Mission Partners. We work to achieve continuity across each project team we build, ensuring efficiency for our clients and effectiveness. We take the time to define exactly what it is we are working to accomplish, something we refer to as being “fierce in our focus.” Mission Partners takes this seriously from an operational perspective, but—especially for an agency that spends a significant amount of time helping organizations think about the words and messages they use—also from a communications perspective. Think about the confusion that could arise within an organization where team members are inconsistent in how they talk about the work they do or are out of sync in the ways in which they share the message.

Whether approaching swing from an operational or communications perspective, here are three ways you can build it within your workplace:

  1. Outline the Assignment

At Mission Partners, we always begin a project by defining the specific assignment and receiving approval on it from our client. No exceptions. If we can’t all express in crystal clear terms what we’re working to achieve, the chances that someone will be out of sync are too great.

In Action: Think about a project that you have on the horizon; it could be work, school, or personal related. What are you working to achieve? Write down, as specifically as possible, what the assignment is. If the project is feeling too large, try breaking it down into two or three smaller projects and write an assignment (and a due date) for each. Remember to always keep it simple.

  1. Define Roles

In the boat, every position has a clear title and clear responsibility, with no overlap. This even goes for talking; it is the responsibility of only one person—the coxswain—to give commands, call cadence, and provide spoken motivation. All other crew members are expected to be silent. Similarly, but perhaps not quite so severely, Mission Partners has adopted the Management Center’s MOCHA model to assign responsibility and accountability to every aspect of a given project. This model eliminates any questions of ownership, ensures smooth execution of projects, and serves as a quick reference for internal and external stakeholders.

In Action: Consider a team project at work, school, or in your personal life. Using the below chart, detail each task associated with completing the project. List the team member who will play which role for each task. Remember, the Manager and Approver are often the same person, and not every task will have someone who plays the role of consulted or helper.

Task MOCHA Model
Manager Owner Consulted Helper Approver

For more on the MOCHA model, visit http://www.managementcenter.org/. 

  1. Practice

A few years ago, I returned to my high school as an assistant coach for the school’s novice crew team. Over the course of practices that season, I was reminded of two things:

First, that we all are all novices when we begin. That goes for rowing, and it goes for everything else, too. No one is born knowing how to play a violin or ski down a mountain. And—while there’s certainly something to be said for natural talent—no one gets to be an expert at anything without loads of practice.

The second thing I observed is the time it takes to form a team. When the team first started rowing together, this disparate group of women had almost nothing in common and barely knew each other. It took a few weeks of practicing before norms were established and the team was comfortable working together. This happens quickly in rowing; try lifting a 200-lb. boat overhead and not immediately feeling trust and appreciation for the seven other rowers helping you out. But in those first few weeks of practices, swing would’ve never been a remote possibility—regardless of the team’s skill at that time.

In Action: Practice. Practice at your own work and practice at teamwork. Find opportunities to build trust and deepen relationships. At Mission Partners, we end every staff meeting with team appreciation, sharing ways in which our colleagues go above and beyond with each other and with the clients we serve. Reflect on what the 200-lb. boat is within your organization. How can you build trust and deepen relationships on your team to ensure that someone will be there to help you lift it overhead?

Want to learn more about how to find swing within your workplace? Subscribe to the Mission Partners newsletter to find inspiration, resources, and the latest on events and workshops that we’re hosting on this topic. And, if you have a specific question, email it to me at bridget@mission.partners and we can explore it together.

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Creating A Customer Experience That Goes The Extra Mile

There’s a yellow Post-it note that’s been anchored to my desk for many months now. It’s scribbled with a newish take on an old adage by Hall of Fame football player Robert Staubach, who said “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” 

It’s a mantra we all try to live at Mission Partners; a reminder that our brand is built in the moments when we go beyond the expected to deliver the extraordinary. When our clients realize we didn’t just hear what they said, but we were listening between the words for what they were really trying to say. Or, when colleagues realize we remembered their best days—or were thinking of them in their hardest moments. In either case, and in many examples beyond these two, we do our best to show up and act our part, as their partners, through those moments. I believe our success has been fueled in part because we believe in the people for whom we get to serve, just as much as we believe in their mission, and we allow that belief to inspire our work.

I’m in the midst of reading Howard Behar’s book, It’s Not About the Coffee: Lessons on Putting People First from a Life at Starbucks—a powerful read on how to build trusted, innovative, and strong organizations and leaders—and the breakthroughs that can occur when when you put people over profits. In it, he recalls a short anecdote about how serious sprinters don’t see the finish line at 100 yards—they visualize the end of their race at 110-yards. That way, when you’re in a race, no one will overtake you before you reach the finish line.

As Behar writes, “this concept applies to everything we do. It tells us to think beyond the whole, or we may always fall short and undermine our results. We need to think beyond our potential to achieve great things. If you shortchange your dreams, if you shortchange your sense of who you are, you’ll shortchange your life.”

At Mission Partners, we realize that our purpose is to help others move their missions forward, often in times of great change or organizational transition. We realize that our role is to help organizations and their people communicate in a way that can build trust, belief, buy-in, or understanding.  And we realize that our role is to develop strategies that can help people get beyond whatever is broken, to a place that allows breakthroughs to happen.

This spring we’ll begin taking that role to a new level, when we open our new Design Thinking studio in our Bethesda office.  One of the first things we’ll offer for our clients—and the extended community are open Design Thinking Days…sessions for our community to bat around their big, exciting, unwieldy, or maybe not fully formed idea with someone who can listen, and then help to ideate on solutions. It’s one offering in a mini-series of new content we’ll soon roll out under our Mission Forward umbrella of services.

I often write in these posts about the importance of understanding your audience—and then calibrating to their needs. These new Design Thinking Days are just one example of how we listen to our own advice. It’s about going the extra mile, finding the added benefit, and creating the unique value, that can help our clients move their missions forward.

Learn more about our upcoming Design Thinking Days and consider attending our first session this spring.

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Expanding Our Table

By Carolyn Berkowitz

I love occasions when we put the extension leaf in our dining room table.  Mind you, I don’t love schlepping the heavy oak slab from the hall closet or trying to fit it into the slots in the table, but do I love the anticipation of expanding my regular inner circle. I love welcoming new people, ideas, and perspectives to our conversation that will fill our dining room with new ways of thinking, thinking that will undoubtedly expand our points of view.

Today, Mission Partners put an “extension leaf” in our table to help expand our point of view by launching our Equity Advisory Board. Designed to build and share equitable practices within our own firm and on behalf of our clients, the Mission Partners’ Equity Advisory Board includes a set of seven deeply experienced leaders who are answering questions of equity in the practice of their organizational life every day, and who bring critical perspectives and voices to our table.  These new voices help us to apply a lens of diversity, equity and inclusion to our daily work – a benefit that our clients and employees will feel directly.

Here’s why we felt the urgency to create and closely engage with an Equity Advisory Board, and why you may want to think about it too:

Our deep desire to help our clients advance equity: We live in a deeply divided world, in which values including cultural competence and respect are mistaken for being “politically correct.” Pew Research Center projects the disappearance of any racial or ethnic majority in the U.S. by 2055. Historically subjected to blatant discrimination, the growing percentage of individuals representing diverse populations in America simply must be supported with policies, programs and practices across all dimensions of life in order for our nation to achieve its ideals and to prosper economically and socially.

As the aging White population begins to decline, new talent and brain-power is arising in communities across our nation, bringing multi-cultural viewpoints, solutions, and growth mindsets to our nation’s table. As William Frey, Senior Fellow from the Brookings Institution states, “the sheer size of the minority population is arriving just in time…assuming positions of responsibility, exerting more political clout, exercising their strength as consumers, and demonstrating their value in the labor force.” We must all challenge ourselves to seek out the leadership of this brain-trust to build our future.

By doing their part to advance equity in housing, education, healthcare, jobs, and civic participation, our clients are at the forefront of ensuring that our nation prospers. At Mission Partners, we believe that our Equity Advisory Board will help us better serve our clients by adding more value and thoughtful insight around to the challenges and opportunities that they face in advancing their missions, all while maintaining the lens of equity and inclusion to create impactful and measurable change to policy and practice.

Our belief that homogeneity is a hindrance to progress: Without the full breadth of perspective, new ideas and innovative solutions to community impact are simply not possible.

When homogeneous leaders – even well-meaning ones – create solutions for our organizations and society, they are bound to fail, or at best, to be useful only to small segments of the population. Many of us have heard the story of “racist bathroom sinks” – automated soap dispensers that do not recognize darker skin tones because their optic sensors were built only to accommodate the level of light present in pale skin tones. This is a prime example of the dangers of homogeneous thinking.

More and more research points to the improvement of every dimension of organizational performance when Boards and leadership teams are diverse and inclusive. One of my favorite studies on this phenomenon focuses on corporate strengths beyond financial performance. In a 2014 study conducted at Utah State University, researchers found that when a White CEO operates with a diverse board, both corporate governance and product innovation are significantly strengthened.

At Mission Partners, we recognize that to innovate in our business and on behalf of our clients, we simply must incorporate a breadth of perspectives, experiences, and skills to our work that are representative of the communities that we and our clients serve. We are excited to welcome seven stellar leaders to our expanded table today, because together, we will solve problems, learn from one another’s experiences, and become better stewards of the missions we seek to advance.

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Here’s Why Leading with Empathy Matters – And How You Can Do It Better

By Carrie Fox

Several years ago, a young employee was having a hard time concentrating at work, and while it was clear she was struggling to connect with her peers and meet certain deadlines, she was also noticeably uncomfortable sharing details of her struggle.

Rather than scold her for missing deadlines (which was my first inclination), I asked her to join me for a walk. We found a little table at an outdoor café and talked, about seemingly inconsequential matters first, before she shared that her grandmother was ill, and that she was having a difficult time thinking about anything other than how she was going to get back home to visit with her. She was a relatively new employee, and hadn’t yet worked up the vacation time to step away.

As she talked, I no longer saw her as a new employee causing issues among the team, but a young person, who was feeling overwhelmed by the illness of someone very special to her. I suggested she take the rest of the week off, to be with her family, with the knowledge that that we would manage her assignments for the remainder of the week.

Looking back, it was such a small gesture, but it deeply and positively changed our relationship, and her future performance. It was also my light bulb moment to the power of listening and learning from my employees, and the importance of leading with empathy in the workplace.  As  Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Empathy is defined many ways, but I understand it as the ability to see the world through another’s eyes. The importance of empathy has long been understood among educators, parents, and physicians, but only recently has it emerged among the shortlist of required skills for successful CEOs: an essential tool to the success of business, with direct correlation to the growth, productivity, and earnings per employee.

Why Empathy Matters

When you allow yourself to see situations from another’s perspective, you create an environment for employees and peers to feel safe with failures, or to ask for support when challenges arise. When our leaders are empathetic—and by extension, kind— we become more loyal to them, and therefore work harder to do right by them. And, in this especially divisive time, how can we be anything but kind?

Yet, according to the recent Workplace Empathy Monitor, while sixty percent of employers believe their organizations are empathetic, just 24 percent of employees agree. Many times, leaders think they are being empathetic. They think they are creating space for an understanding environment. But they don’t take the time to really listen and learn from their employees.

How Empathic Are You? Take the Quiz!

The good news is there are some very simple strategies to build empathetic leadership into your day-to-day activities. (Note: the following list is adapted from the teachings of Roman Krznaric and the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkley.)

  1. Speak from Experience vs. Giving Advice. Frederique Irwin, the brilliant mind behind Her Corner, asks members in her Accelerator programs to abide by the Gestalt Language Protocol, in which individuals speak from experience rather than give advice. For instance, saying, “Here’s what worked for me…” is far more effective and empathic than saying “Here’s what you should do…” or “Here’s what I would do…”
  2. Listen vs. Analyze. The person with whom you’re speaking likely isn’t expecting (or wanting) you to have the answer, nor do they want to be immediately judged or evaluated on the information they are sharing. Rather than jumping to a statement like “I think you’re taking this the wrong way…” or “You’re taking this too seriously…,” just listen, and avoid the urge to have “the right answer.”
  3. Focus on Understanding vs. Defending. If an employee or peer has difficult information to share with you, give them the time and space to share, without immediately jumping to your own defense. It is far more effective to let someone explain what is bothering them, and then to calmly enter into conversation, without rushing to give your side of the story—even if you do believe you are in the right.
  4. Give the Person Speaking Your Full Attention. The person in front of you is your sole focus and multitasking, while a great skill, is not appropriate when working empathically. Instead, practice active listening. Tune into what your conversation partner is saying without interruption. Pay careful attention to their body language and facial expressions and periodically repeating back to them what you think they’re trying to say, to make sure you understand them accurately. The real test of active listening: next time you’re in conversation, focus on the color of your conversation partner’s eyes. Tune in to them fully, and you’ll likely find that you will hear them better than you have in the past.
  5. Look for Commonalities. Approach your day knowing that you have at least one thing in common with every single person with whom you interact—on the train, in the coffee shop, and certainly at work. When interacting with people who, at first glance, seem to be different from you, look for sources of commonality and shared experience. Maybe you’re both fans of the same sports team or you both know what it’s like to lose a loved one. Seeing your Shared Identity can help you overcome fear and distrust and promote empathy and cooperation.
  6. Share in Other People’s Joy. Empathy is not just about commiserating; it can also be experienced in response to positive emotions such as happiness and pride. If you hear someone else sharing good news or celebrating a special moment at work, step away from your computer, and express your enthusiasm for their good news. Moments like this take mere seconds, but they are immensely important for the well-being of a relationship.

 

The short summary to all of this is: Life is hard, and there will always be more to people’s stories than they let on. Start every day from a place of compassion, and an understanding that it’s OK to not know all the answers. And, in taking the time to understand others, they’ll likely take time to understand you better, too.

 

For more empathy tips, check out the best research-based empathy practices, and read Roman Krznaric’s “Six Habits of Highly Empathic People.”

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Going Beyond Belief

When we moved into our office space at 7201 Wisconsin Avenue, the very first thing I did was have a quote painted on the wall right outside of my office:

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

I have read those words, from Nelson Mandela, nearly every weekday morning since 2014, just as I step into my office to start the work day. It’s my constant and intentional reminder of the power and influence that good communication can have, especially when the pace of life can make real connections feel hard to come by or—in the case of this year—when the state of our national discourse feels too much to bear. But there’s something in those words that always brings me back to what I firmly believe, and to why I do the work that I do.

I believe that communications can change the world. I believe that when people connect with one another—often across whatever divides us—real, positive and lasting change happens. Whether it is advancing a critical piece of legislation, inspiring a movement, educating young students, or building bridges between cultural divides, positive change happens through communication.

But belief, while an important ingredient, is only half of the equation. One most act on those beliefs in order to realize their magnitude, which reminds me of another guiding quote, this one from Mahatma Gandhi:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.”

As I prepare to enter my 14th year in business, and our first anniversary under the new umbrella of Mission Partners, I can honestly say that entering every day with my core belief top of mind has allowed us as a company to lead with purpose. And leading with purpose has allowed us to build a company beyond belief:  a company that drives every decision with heart and head—a company that can say ‘what we do, for the good of others,” without even a second of pause. A company that goes further to get at the heart of our work, and sticks with that work until big breakthroughs are realized, because our heart’s in it too.

In this season of gratitude, I simply pause to give thanks for the people who drive me, the organizations that inspire me, and the daily routine that has become my “work.” It is, truly, beyond belief.

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