 I told you we could just stand up here and you could say squid over and over again and they'd still love you. It was true Good afternoon lovely humans. Thank you all for being here with us today Before Diane and I get started with speaking We wanted to take the opportunity to thank the amazing group who brought this year's Euro camp together And brought us all here together this weekend as well. So thank you guys very much We really appreciate everything that you've done and this has been a phenomenal event. Thank you. Thank you very much So tonight we want to talk to you about cultivating empathy about building bridges like the bridge we you can see over here because as well Leslie as well as me though separately, but We had the same experience in experiences unfortunately in companies and Communities where empathy was not a high priority and that usually leads to miscommunication holding grudges and in the worst place even to contributors burning out and just leaving the whole project So we're hoping that our remarks here today serve as useful tools for everyone in the audience to Understand the value of empathy to cultivate it within themselves and their organizations with the final goal being to make our projects companies and ourselves Better and stronger That's us So oh What's oh no, let's reopen it No worries. We can deal with that. I can sing if you want I dance your name, please dance my name Oh, that's of the great fortress just waterfall We're on again we're on again Exactly for that So this wonderful human being is Leslie Hawthorne you saw yesterday at another talk She has been doing open source work in the open source community for over a decade. You don't see it, but yeah and in her past projects were amongst others the Google summer of code and She was the creator of Google code in right now She's living a happy life as an expat in Amsterdam, but of course she loves Berlin even better That's actually completely true, and I hope to be moving to join all of you very soon Obviously given the round of applause earlier Diana needs absolutely no introduction whatsoever But just to recap she's a past organizer for Euro camp a past organizer of the Rails Girls Berlin workshop and She's also a member of the board of Ruby Berlin So this year for the conference she decided to take a break and to just give a talk Which is probably just a little bit scarier. Not at all So why empathy matters? First of all, it is important that we actually define empathy So empathy is the process of actually being able to feel internally What another person is feeling and this is to distinguish empathy from sympathy Whereas sympathy is the ability to feel something on another person's behalf like I regret that your Laptop broke, but it's not the same as feeling that same moment of terror when you realize that keynote has just decided to barf while you're giving the closing talk of the conference And empathy is vital to us Because it helps us to be much more effective in everything we do Empathy helps us to build better products because we can understand our users needs and What they will do with software that we may have created for ourselves It helps us to work more effectively in our teams because it helps us to understand everyone's motivations and what they need to get out of our interactions in order to be successful and Basically, everything is a question of Empathizing effectively because it is through empathy that we are able to create harmony Yeah, so you're feeling into the other person, but it's also about you too, right? You have to know your feelings. How do you react in different? situations and How do you understand and act? differently while you are amongst our the peers so how you probably react differently here at this conference then you would do or I would do at a board meeting or Talking to a customer, right? so Empathy helps you to enlighten yourself and to learn natural self-interest and I think that the other important point that we'd also like to make too is we're going to talk a lot in this talk about The value of exercising empathy in terms of how it's received by other people But it's also very much about you the individual by practicing empathy. You're going to be a better negotiator You're going to be able to get things done more effectively because People like to work with people who they know have their best interests at heart, right much more so than they like to work with people who Maybe not so much with that So Getting started in our empathy process So empathy is actually a choice and the two studies that I'll reference on this slide are Documented in a New York Times article from July 10th 2015 called believe it or not empathy is actually a choice So it's very easy to find So two of the studies that stood out in this article to me were one individuals will frequently choose To avoid Situations in which they think that they will be forced to have an empathetic reaction so for example Choosing not to visit a country as a tourist where you know you will encounter high rates of poverty Because this will cause you to feel bad and uncomfortable So that's a little bit of a bummer But again, it demonstrates to us that empathy is a choice It is something that we can choose to do and when we understand that empathy is a choice and The value of it. We are much more likely therefore to exercise empathy another study found that Folks who were primed with the idea that empathy was a choice that it was something that they could cultivate That it was accessible to them Were much more effectively able to feel empathy and often sought out the opportunity to do so In this specific case the researchers were determining if people who were taught that empathy was a learned skill Would be more willing to think about and empathize with the experience of folks who are races other than their own And there was a very positive correlation there So again empathy is a choice and it is your choice and hopefully today we will convince you That it's a choice you want to make Yeah You're talking about empathy as a choice. So as Surprising as it is. It is nothing that you are born with You have you're born with maybe a bit of empathy, but it comes through socialization through your parents through interacting with other people and For that you have to be reflective How do I be? How could I be reflective? What is that? It's actually thinking about how you react what I said earlier. How I how do I react? So take your time every day and take care of yourself of your mental health of your health itself and for being a better empathizer to Increase your empathy take the time write down different Situations that you were in and write down. How did I react there? What did I feel? How did the other person react? What did I do and Over a time of days weeks months you will find a certain pattern of yourself who you are and How you react in in special situation you can improve yourself When you when you are in another situation that is similar to one that you were in two weeks before And you wrote down I should have done this and that differently I should have done this and that Like this then you can just think oh I had this two weeks ago And now I try something different and let's see how the outcome that come how the outcome is then there right and ask questions Learn how other people see things Widen broaden your own world your own bubble that you're in So empathy is often built throughout Adversity so if you are trying very very hard to learn Imagine why something is very very hard to learn that seems to be like this for somebody else right I have a I have a little bit of an example last year We had a speaker here Austin seraphim Austin is blind since birth, right? What's birth? I think so. Yeah, and He he found this app for his iPhone that can show him the colors or that can tell him the colors of things And he was so excited about it. He downloaded the app. He opened the app and he tried it out and All it says was black black black and he was like That cannot be right something is something is not right And then he was trying to step out of the out of the box and think out of his bubble and think how seeing people Might solve this problem and at one point he thought oh wait Colors may be only seen with light So he went and switched on the light I Used the app and suddenly it was yellow purple pink blue There we go Step out of your comfort zone step out of your box out of your bubble however you want to to say to that and There you go You will eventually find a different answer So getting into our skills building portion of this presentation One of the ways that you can begin to cultivate empathy is through the practice of active listening So active listening is the process of engaging in dialogue with another individual or with a group and When someone has spoken to take the opportunity before replying to first mirror what they have said back to them And so summarize it in your own words and then add your commentary at the end So for example, wow, I'm really I'm really nervous I'm not great at public speaking, so I'm really excited that we're giving the closing talk at Euro camp today, but I'm a little freaked out Well Leslie really I can I can imagine that you're really really excited about being here and that you're a bit a Bit nervous about being here, but about about giving the talk. We're sorry. I'm But that's no problem at all. I know that you're great. I saw a lot of talks and well If you're nervous now that means that you're that you are prepared that you are thinking everything through so you will be awesome Thank you for this wonderful demo So the practice of active listening is a key component in non-violent communication and the reason for the creation of the practice of non-violent communication is to assist us to overcome all the ways in which we are socialized or culturally taught to Just step over compassion for other people I it is just it is a natural human tendency to practice selective hearing to only hear What we want to hear or to quote one of my favorite movies to just stand there Not listening waiting for our turn to talk so instead of doing that if we actually Slow ourselves down and take the time to mirror What the other person has said to us we not only are able to absorb what they're saying to internalize it to feel it We're also giving them the opportunity to correct us Maybe we didn't really understand what they had to say and then they can give us the opportunity to come to better Understanding by saying actually that's not what I meant at all Here is what I meant Skill building exercise number two because this one's fun Z's read fiction This is one of my favorite exercises to do regardless of empathy so a recent journal that was published in the Plos journal and I should know how to expand that acronym, but that's okay. It's in the footnotes It's a journal of open science a bunch of researchers discovered that the act of reading fiction Helps to create empathy within the reader and it is through a process called emotional Transportation the idea that you are able to put yourself into the position of the characters within the story to feel what it is that they feel through the process of reading and imagining the story taking place and for those of you who may feel like it's it's a little weird to Go through thought exercises thinking like what would Diana feel in this situation? How would she react? I mean admittedly it's a little weird. She's my friend, right? I don't I don't want to be like Hey, can I get in your brain? It's nice in there So again reading fiction and going through this process of emotional Transportation is the first step in doing thought exercises like that It's a very comfortable familiar way to begin exercising empathy with the characters from the page And then we can apply that to our process of real life I'm a bit curious right now How many of you do read fiction? All right, keep your hands up. How many of you has been very very sad when the book and All right almost all the hands stayed up Yeah, I've got I've got the same because you you are you are absorbed in a new world with new characters with new people with new I don't know aliens whatever Unicorns love it and then suddenly the world is just away And it's that sadness that that tells us that we have experienced the act of emotional transportation Right, otherwise it would not be impactful to us emotionally that the story has concluded yeah and speaking of curious Embrace your inner child be curious ask questions By asking questions that also implies avoid assumptions Again a talk from last year. I don't remember everything of the talk, but I remember as especially one slide when I was I Had to restrain myself not to jump up and say hell. Yeah Because it said assumptions are evil Thank You Laura Thank You Laura Laura is over there. Thank you Laura for that and I Will give you a little example of that For example, I'm standing here minding my own business and I can see a person over there or over there I don't know he doesn't care Looking like this all the time in my direction And I'm confused because the person looks like me like And I'm getting nervous And I now can assume. Oh my god. I did something wrong. I'm maybe I have the wrong clothes I don't know. Maybe maybe the person doesn't like black. I don't know And I could go in my head and I can build a whole castle of assumptions and they will build and build and build What I also could do is like just walking over I'm Sorry, I recognize that you're looking a bit Raried or angry at me. Did I do something wrong or am I under the wrong impression? I'm I'm a bit Confused right now. Oh my god. No, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I was deep in thought I have this problem and I just cannot really I don't know I cannot get it and I was just thinking and I didn't really look it was just that my head was in this direction Right ask Questions questions are our friends and our best friends ever our open questions Whom of you do know the difference between open and closed questions? good Very good for those who didn't raise their arm Open questions are W questions Open questions are questions that open the people where when what why Where do you go to holiday? Oh the Bahamas? Oh, why do you go to the holidays? Oh? I read this magazine blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and what will you do there? Oh, I wasn't thinking but I think I'm Blah blah blah blah blah so These are the open question then they are the closed questions when you're in a hurry like what do you? Do you want pizza to for for for dinner? Yes Do you like spinach? No So open open questions are mainly questions that are that can be answered with yes. No, or yeah So close questions, sorry close questions are this and so just to recap open questions are our friends So now we're going to shift into talking more about how we can have effective organizations That help us to cultivate empathy Obviously organizations are made up of individuals But in the way we create the culture of our organizations our teams and our projects We can encourage the cultivation of empathy So I think first and foremost very important is to be explicit about our values And to be inclusive in creating those values I had another example, but I threw it away immediately when I saw the signs on the bathroom doors here Which are so freakin cool I think I might steal one and send it to a friend of mine who I I know needs it So the signs that say if you are concerned about the gender of a person who is entering the bathroom take these steps Don't worry about it. They know better than you that is phenomenal Right. It is explicit Right transphobia is not okay here, and it is inclusive transphobia is not okay here. That is phenomenal And it's extremely important to be explicit about your values because otherwise people make assumptions About what is important to the organization to the group to the team, right? You need to be very clear what your values are and I know this is gonna sound kind of corny because Let's face it most of the time mission statements are crap But mission statements are very important, right? And this isn't the kind of silly mission statement that you read We will make the best ever chocolate chip cookies by using only the freshest ingredients That means nothing right absolutely nothing But here a very useful and good example If folks look at ThoughtWorks's website and they actually have a page where they talk about the pillars of their company the things that their company values and one of these is social justice and they talk about how one of the Objectives of their organization the pillars around which they build their company will be to do work That creates more justice in the world for those who are underrepresented or those who have fewer resources those who have are less able to help themselves and By making this an explicit Statement what they're doing is they're not only telling the entire world This is what is important to us. They're also giving their employees Right and the knowledge that this is one of the ways in which we will conduct ourselves This is how we will conduct a business This is an expectation for each of us as we go throughout our daily affairs at work That we are to do work that is transformative in the world and makes the world a better place for everyone and another point to that that is Can be seen especially in the tech scene is globalization Globalization means that people come into a company from very very different backgrounds They grew up in very different countries on the very different political backgrounds and stuff like this and Things that are that are totally normal for you in your daily life or for you or for you might not be normal for the new person that comes into your company into your team into your project and This comes to assumptions, right? absolutely Another thing that is useful to understand as well when creating organizations creating culture for those organizations This is where leaders come in and play a very important role an impactful role right by leading by example One great instance of this is my friend Erica joy Baker who has been blogging frequently about Diversity in the technology industry. She wrote an article called the other side of diversity About her consideration of ending her employment with Google, which is actually where I met her And she realized that she needed to move on but she wanted to go to a workplace where the work She did mattered and she knew that the people that she worked with valued the same things that she did and she talked about Reading Twitter and seeing all of the various news about the protests going on in Ferguson, Missouri after the murder of a young black man by police officers and she noted a deafening silence From most of the people that she knew who worked in the technology industry She noticed a deafening silence from leaders in the technology industry. No one seemed to care This was not their problem This took place far away by people of a different socio-economic class and a different race Not my issue. I don't care but by contrast the CEO of Slack a Brand-new quote-unquote unicorn startup with a valuation of over a billion dollars Y'all don't have billion bill Thank you Valued at over a billion dollars was tweeting his concern for the protesters and That he hoped that they would be safe in their pursuit of social justice and by reading this She realized that this was the company that she wanted to work for that This was the place where she should bring her talents to bear and she's now one of their release engineers and having worked beside Erica I can tell you that any company is very lucky to have her so again Be explicit about your values be inclusive and make sure that everyone is on the same page about what is important to all of you For you to be successful. Oh my god, we have hippos. They're there What do they do that? Okay, so hippos are cute But these hippos are grumpy and there is a reason and that's because these hippos are letting you know to discourage hippoing hippoing is highest paid Person's opinion is the only one that matters Yes So only the one on the level that begins with a C matters See oh CTO see whatever so Make sure that every voice is heard in your company in your project in Wherever you are wherever you gather people that have to decide something I Tell you a little story because that makes it more clear In my day-to-day life. I organize it conferences. I organize them with a team that is very good like we when we Communicate it's like a circle of communication So we are circling around all the ideas that we have and we are playing with them We do brainstorming sessions and stuff like this and for one conference that came a new person in and This new person Got grumpier and grumpier all the time with every email and I was a little bit like what's going on there? And at one point I was there I don't understand your emails anymore There they don't seem very constructive. What's going on there and this person was just like You're not a good manager You cannot even make simple decisions You cannot You cannot decide if we want the speaker or not. Why do we always have to ask us? I was like whoa That is interesting Then I thought Okay, this person came from a big company where the manager said you have to do this you have to do this You have to do this you have to be finished with this by the end of the week and stuff like this, right? And I said, okay, we're working here differently. We are working as a team Yes, I am the manager of this project so I have to make sure that everyone is on track and that we are at the Point where we have to be finished that we are finished and everything is set but on the road Everybody has a voice. I don't know everything. I'm not going to all the conferences in the world I don't know every speaker in the world But you might know him or you might know him For at one point we had I read an abstract that was so perfect and I thought oh my god I want to have this person at my conference because this just looks perfect for this or that or that and Then I brought this in this abstract and said hey look at this abstract. This is amazing Look at this it would fit there and and then there were three voices Three that said nope. Nope. Nope. You know what? They saw the speaker at another conference actually at two other conferences He were mean He was racist and he was very very Not nice So I said oh my god. I'm so happy that I asked you We will not to have this speaker at our conferences definitely not So if you are the hippo if you are on the sea level make sure To be inclusive to let everybody have a word At the end of this your decision of course but You don't know everything I know you sometimes we think we tend to think that we know everything but to be honest no, we don't and That's why asking questions and talking to people is very important So again important for all individuals within an organization But a cultural value to promote do not flip the bozo bit For people who are not familiar with the idiomatic phrase don't flip the bozo bit This is actually from a book written in 1995 by a gentleman named Jim McCarthy Called dynamics of software development and the idea of flipping the bozo bit is that once someone says something or Does something that you think is stupid Every statement that that person makes from then on is wrong Everything they say is put on slash ignore and you have no value to provide to me to the company I just don't have to listen to a word you say mine just one time right one time that they did wrong So flipping the bozo bit is is not useful for a wide variety of reasons, but let's just start with the basics If there is someone in your organization and you have decided that they are never going to say anything useful You've also decided that they are never going to be successful And then at that point you are better off not having them there because they should go someplace where they can be successful and Contribute to the success of that organization and you can have another human being there doing work that you will actually appreciate Now mind you I suggest that the problem is with you in that scenario not with this individual There's also the point that this is just it's silly right this is ridiculous. We're all human beings We all make mistakes. There is no reason to decide that one silly mistake defines a person forever Right and if you make the decision to flip the bozo bit you are cutting yourself off From the opportunity to ever learn something from that person again, right? That is not wise and finally organizations where this is common practice are Encouraging a lack of innovation and stagnation and a lack of creativity Because if people are afraid that if they say the wrong thing That they will be judged that they will no longer be respected. What will they do? They will choose to say nothing. They will choose to not contribute They will choose to not engage because they are afraid. Yep so Being inclusive also means Make it truly okay to fail At the end. Yes, we are all human Humans make mistakes surprise and Through mistakes mistakes are actually good because through mistakes we learn We learn that something is not good It's not good to leave your trash on the floor because another person might trip So you can actually Rewind what you did and do something else instead and also Do not oppress people for making mistakes it happens all the time and When you find out that the person made a mistake or the person comes to you and says I'm sorry I made a mistake Talk to them immediately Because otherwise it will probably It's it's like the the assumption the assumption thing that goes in your head and it's building up and it's building up And it's building up That is the same with with Problems when you have a problem and you're not talking about it It will probably grow bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and at one point this whole Vulcan of problem will explode and you will probably Sometimes say things that are not nice that are not inclusive and that might burn the bridges that we are trying to build up So my friends our talk is at an end and so to just quickly recap what we've discussed today Empathy is a choice and a learnable skill and We can cultivate it through active listening Reading fiction. How's that for homework something you want to do anyway? Getting to know yourself and being more self-aware Practicing curiosity and avoiding assumptions and within our organizations. We can be explicit and inclusive in our value systems Avoid hippoing hippos belong in the wild. It's not in our offices Not flipping the bozo bit and ensuring that it is truly okay to fail and to quote Or to conclude our Talk with a quote from Rumi Always be kind for everyone is fighting a hard battle that you will not see Thank you very much. Yes. We love you questions. What a fitting closing talk to this conference That was amazing and it really shows that Very innovative format as well that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts two speakers together are better than Individuals we love it So yeah, we can take a few questions if there are any I don't know is there a girl equivalent equivalent to bromance, sorry, we have a question That's us. Anyway, yeah question. Okay. I'm not really a question But I'd like to add to that because I absolutely agree with what you've said and thank you for everything you've said But whether you follow this advice or not may well decide about the future of your project or your company because I Spent a couple of months in a company where the sea person did quite the opposite and bullied people never forgave or forgot the slightest mistake and Lot of really good knowledgeable people left Left the company. Yes. That's that's what happens. That was that's what happens people are leaving unhealthy environments Yeah, oh It's for the video we need them. Oh, it's for the video I've actually talked on this topic a few times and people have said so so what do you what can you do to change an Organization where people are bullying or hippoing or you know, just generally not being apathetic And I have racked my brain for the last year and the answer is always the same Prepare your CV and tell your friends that you're leaving Questions what? There's a question. What do you think for you personally has been the most? Challenging or exciting thing that you learned that you have shared with us here. Oh Wow Okay, I I have I have something about the learning to be empathy thing. It's a process Do not expect you to wake up tomorrow like today. I will be empathetic That's not how it works and we all we're all humans there. We are again. We all have bad days and At some point Even I I tried so hard and so hard and so hard and at one point I just Flip out because somebody is pushing my button and I'm just like, oh my god. I told you this like ten times Probably not the best answer So I think for me the most profound thing that I have learned is actually the process of active listening Because I speak really really fast I have a tendency to interrupt which is not awesome and I'm constantly working on it And I also think I know what people are talking about because I'm super smart and the answer to that question is no no No, no, no, no So actually getting trained in active listening and being able to To go through that process and because it first it sounds a little silly like yeah Yeah, you're listening on why are you summarizing stuff? This is annoying but realizing how much closer it brings you to someone because Human communication is flawed and difficult and we just think it's easy because we can talk so Clearly communication is easy. There are words coming out of my mouth right now And it's not right and and active listening teaches us You know that it's not easy and that it is a skill that we acquire and something that we have to work on every day To be effective and if you never practice it the first time or the first few times that you will practice it It will feel totally silly You will feel like an idiot and it's okay. It's okay. Push through it will all get better More Anyone else You get another one then I'm just really interested because I hear these concepts in Buddhism a lot as well in like oh, yeah Is that an area that you look in for inspiration or? What are the main area other areas that you look at? For a moment there I thought this was about our religious affiliations and I was about to say dirt worshiping tree hugging pagan so let's see I I Take inspiration from literature written but from folks in various walks of faith. I read a lot of psychology journals. I read a lot of fiction and I Don't know I think I just have learned partially to be a more empathetic person because sometimes things were really tough for me When I was younger I was bullied in school and it taught me like I don't ever want someone to feel as bad as I feel right now And because of that it it helped me to be a more empathetic person right to value to value bringing joy and love to someone's life instead of Pain and not ever wanting to be the person who was the source of pain for another person because I knew how bad it felt myself What she said we were separated at birth don't tell anyone other nice humans Okay, thank you. Oh, thank you very much