Managers, bring out your empathy and create more advantageous outcomes

When coronavirus imposed itself on our reality, it forced us to examine this new phenomenon in order to understand it. We could not just reach for an existing frame of reference and apply it to the virus. Instead, we had to adopt an inquisitive mindset and use it to identify those virus characteristics that might help us solve our challenges. 

A new study from Aarhus BSS suggests that this approach is equally useful in relation to people and the results we wish to achieve together. The study deals with the relationship between the manager of a company and its suppliers, but according to the researchers, the findings also apply to the relationship between managers and employees. 

”Generally speaking, managers who wish to achieve results in an organisation spend a lot of time on standardisation and control mechanisms. However, our study shows that rather than applying your own concepts to your suppliers or employees and subjecting them to identical demands, it might be beneficial to differentiate between these demands and engage in the relationship itself to develop concepts and understanding which grasp the dynamics of the situation,” says Hanne Nørreklit, professor at the Department of Management at Aarhus BSS (Aarhus University).  

Inspired by an everyday hero 

Together with fellow researchers Mai Skjøtt Linneberg and Mihaela Trenca, Hanne Nørreklit has observed what happens if you shift your perspective from regarding other people as chess pieces to be moved about in order to solve your problem and instead consider your own position in relation to these other individuals, regarding everybody as part of the problem as well as part of the solution. Based on their observations in the world of practice, the researchers have developed the theory of empathic engagement – a theory other managers might use as inspiration for creating collaboration with other people based on understanding and empathy.   

"Understanding what talented people do is interesting business. And as a researcher, it is important to conceptualise the doings of talented people; not just in terms of their professional success, but more so in terms of how they are able to do something in a particular way, generating results because of the specifics of what they do. By conceptualising this, you may present an everyday ‘hero’ that others might feel inspired by,” says Hanne Nørreklit. 

In the study ”Institutional work through empathic engagement”*, the everyday hero is the CEO of a small company. Due to the size of the company and the complexities of its supply chain, the CEO is not able to control all his suppliers. For this reason, he needs to build relationships with his suppliers based on other methods than power in order to implement a number of sustainability initiatives. 

"He does not use coercion but enters into a relationship with them and tries to understand his own position; not based on distance, but as a part of the reality of the supplier: That is, he tries to understand the situation as seen from their perspective, considering himself both part of the problem and part of the solution. More specifically, it is a question of how he adopts different approaches to his suppliers depending on the conditions of the local context and thus the opportunities each supplier faces,” Mai Skjøtt Linneberg explains. 

"Our understanding of the world is dominated by mechanical thinking. We believe that if we move components about, it will generate results. But complex problems are not solved this way.” 

^{Hanne Nørreklit, professor, Department of Management, Aarhus BSS} 

Empathic engagement 

The researchers have conceptualised this way of relating to other people with the term empathic engagement. 

Empathic engagement is a dynamic way for a manager to relate and interact with another person. You interact based on dialogue and assume a sensitive and receptive attitude towards the other individual. You tune into the other person’s subtle understanding and insight as generated by their direct experiences and participatory function during actions. You focus on the specific experiences and actions of the other person and on fitting these into a wider context. This requires the ability to perceive, understand and describe the other person’s experiences and engagement with the world. 

Empathic engagement entails mutual interdependence between the interacting parties, creating a dynamic relationship. 

"When we interact, we transform each other because we affect each other. Not only on a cognitive level, but also on a personal level by way of the attitudes and feelings we bring to the dynamic,” Mihaela Trenca explains. 

The empathic way of interacting with people consists in our attention to the dynamic relationship and mutual interdependence as well as the fact that we are participating in an affective interchange.   

”This attention constitutes an affective experience. A way of being fully present in a situation which draws upon our emotions and body – and which is not just a purely cognitive activity. Often, empathy is confused with sympathy, but empathic engagement is not a question of sympathising with the other individual and absorbing their experience of distress and frustration. Instead, it is a question of being attentive towards those emotions and allowing for the experiences the other person brings to the table. You should not absorb their frustrations, but work on them within the confines of the relationship,” she explains.  

During the coronavirus pandemic for instance, some managers might get caught up in the troubles some employees experience in relation to complying with the rules on social distancing. But you could also choose to react with empathic engagement by tuning into their subtle talk of their specific experiences, thereby generating insight into their situation and perhaps identifying satisfactory solutions to their problems. 

Read also: How to get the best out of your employees 

From control to empathy 

The researchers became aware of this behaviour in the case of the aforementioned CEO, who displayed this approach when engaging with his network and who had a particular goal of making his industry more sustainable; an idea that went beyond his own company. He interacted with a lot of suppliers within his supply chain, most of them quite different from each other. The researchers observed the effect of his choice not to develop control mechanisms that subjected everyone to identical demands, but trying to understand every individual scope for action and act accordingly. 

“We are the product of the institutions we grow up with; the school system, our upbringing, our workplaces, etc. Often, we subconsciously uphold these systems, but in this case, the CEO impacts some of the institutional conditions underlying a collaboration, and this could change the very institutions that dominate his line of business. You do not have to be the biggest player on a market to initiate a transformation, not if you are someone who can relate to other people in this way and who has an ambition to change things. Through his relationship with others, he is able to influence their behaviour and the institutions in his field,” says Mai Skjøtt Linneberg. 

Read also: Your boss can boost your career 

… when it makes sense 

This does not mean that you should abstain from controlling or standardising things completely. Just as with tests for COVID-19, there might be a need for such measures. But through empathic engagement, you may create changes between institutional contexts – e.g. between companies and suppliers abroad – which could act as a supplement to standards and control mechanisms.  

"We are talking about an advanced way of exercising leadership or relationship management that offers a good alternative to quantification. And for the large companies which cannot or do not wish to avoid quantification, this will prove a good supplement, seeing as this approach might produce standards which are more effective, or which do not operate on quite as high a level of abstraction. You should only subject everyone to the same standards if those standards work,” says Mai Skjøtt Linneberg.  

Hanne Nørreklit elaborates: 

"Our understanding of the world is dominated by mechanical thinking. We believe that if we move components about, it will generate results. But complex problems are not solved this way. Our article sheds light on the opportunities managers hold for generating more inventive solutions to the problems facing the world. This is a matter of ingenuity, not a matter of one person pointing everyone in a specific direction. And if you want to work together, you need to understand the other person’s scope for action. Otherwise, you will only create illusions,” she says and adds: 

"In many ways, we have a tradition of relating to each other in Denmark. But then we became globalised by standard models – often obtained in American textbooks. Now we begin to see opportunities for moving beyond standardisation.” 

Read also: Corporate leaders, talk about risks, please!

Context is important 

Of course, managers do well to point out objectives and introduce ideals, but the road to such goals will not be the same for everyone, because people are not in the same position or context. 

“You can have shared goals in an organisation, but not a one-size-fits-all solution. And when one moves beyond one’s own organisational boundary, one may encounter a completely different context. For instance, questions of what the goal is and what sustainability comprises may have entirely new meanings. To an organisation in Denmark, sustainability might mean one thing, but to an organisation in North Africa, it might mean something completely different. Perhaps these organisations have a lot in common, but the context will introduce tensions in the way the concepts are perceived. Also, one might agree on paper, but when carrying it out in practice, the context will influence your perception and opportunities. Understanding the other person’s scope for action is something empathic engagement might help us do,” says Mai Skjøtt Linneberg. She stresses that even though the case in the article illustrates this practice, the researchers do not know how far it is possible to extend the principle to other practices. 

"Our case is very detailed. It would have been interesting to consider cases in which empathic engagement did not work and examine why. Based on such insight into what the concept is not, we could have gained a more nuanced understanding of what the concept is. In further research, we would like to look more into both cases of well-functioning emphatic engagement and cases where it has dysfunctional effects,” she says.