Empathy as a Business Strategy

Empathy is one of those words that gets used so often in professional settings that it starts to lose its meaning. In UX, designers are taught from day one that empathy is the most important attribute they can bring to their work. Ask any UX candidate what makes a great designer and they almost always say “empathy.” It's become predictable, almost reflexive, and somewhat meaningless.

After hearing this across so many interviews, I've started to wonder whether we actually practice what we preach.

If empathy means truly feeling what another person feels, then how empathetic can a designer really be toward a million anonymous end users of an e-commerce site? That’s something closer to imagination and advocacy — visualizing an experience you haven't had, then fighting to make it better. That’s admirable, but it's not quite empathy.

Where I look for the evidence of real empathy is in how people treat the colleagues right next to them. The engineer they're frustrated with who appears to treat their designs as recommendations, not specifications. The product manager who's asking for something complex and poorly defined under a tight deadline. The stakeholder who doesn't seem to understand the business value of design thinking (they just want “screens,” and fast). It's easy to empathize with an abstract user you'll never meet. It's harder, and more important, to empathize with the person in the room, especially if you are struggling with them.

Empathy and judgment cannot coexist

When I had a revelation about empathy and the desire to practice it mindfully throughout my day, I ran into a natural tendency that disturbed me — the tendency to judge, not just observe neutrally. Empathy and judgment are two sides of the same coin. To truly practice empathy, you must completely drop judgment. When we approach someone with a set of expectations about how they should have performed, how we would have handled it, what the right answer was — we've left empathy behind and made the situation about ourselves and our negative feelings coming from disappointed expectations.

The practice of empathy or judgment shows up most clearly in how feedback gets given. Most people, when asked, will say they want direct feedback. But direct feedback, delivered without empathy, tends to trigger defensiveness rather than growth. The walls go up and the feedback — however accurate — can't get in.

My approach is to not really give the feedback at all. Instead I ask questions: How do you think it went? What was the best part? Is there anything you'd have done differently? Why would you have approached it that way?

Done well, this kind of conversation coaches someone to the insight in themselves, in a psychologically safe space where they can actually receive it. They arrive at the answer without having to defend against the messenger. That's a much more loving approach than critique, even if well-intentioned.

One simple technique I've carried for years is to ask permission before giving any feedback. Not “do you mind”" then rushing to vocalize your judgment, but “would it be okay if I gave you some feedback?” then waiting for permission. That small act lowers the walls before you say anything of substance. Nine times out of ten they say yes, opening the door themselves.

The deeper root

Here's something I've learned over 25 years of working with people: when a team member is struggling, it almost never has anything to do with work. Work problems are manageable. Life problems are the ones that bleed into everything else.

So when someone snaps in a meeting, or misses a deliverable, or seems checked out — my first instinct now isn't to address the behavior. It's to ask how they're doing. And to mean it. I open most of my one-on-ones talking about life before we ever get to work. It may sound inefficient but it provides me context to empathize with before we get to any struggles associated with work performance.

When you understand what someone is actually carrying, the tough conversation softens. The feedback becomes more relevant. The relationship becomes one where growth is actually possible because there's enough mutual trust and vulnerability for honesty to move in both directions.

Empathy in the team, not just toward the user

One of the clearest lessons from my career is that the empathy that matters most in product work isn't between designers and users — it's within the team that builds the product. UX folks who are deeply connected to end users but disconnected from their engineers, product managers, and stakeholders will rarely ship something great. The collaboration required to build something excellent demands a certain quality of relationship that you can't manufacture. People of different roles can't afford to act like consultants to each other. They need to actually trust one another.

A team that has that quality — where people genuinely care about each other and about the shared outcome — produces better work. Not marginally better. Dramatically better. This is the kind of care you see in a high-performing sports team, where trust is built through sustained shared effort, stress, and discomfort. Where people know they can depend on each other when it counts — in real-time on the playing field when the stakes are the highest. Take that mindset from the field to the office and see how well it works.

If you give it with love, they can receive it with love

A senior leader who I worked for and admired greatly asked me to coach our sales team so we could close more deals effectively. As a design thinker and a leader, he believed in me. Yet, I was uncomfortable with the dynamic — I'd never been a salesperson, I had no right to advise people whose shoes I'd never worn. I expressed as much. His response? If you give your feedback with love, they can receive it with love. Wow. That was a type of heart-led wisdom I had never heard in the workplace.

Two years after, those same salespeople still called on me. Not because I told them how to do their jobs, but because they could feel that I was genuinely there to help them win.

That's what empathy in practice actually looks like. It’s a genuine orientation toward the person in front of you — their growth, their success, their wellbeing — expressed through how you speak, listen, and show up when things are hard.

Respect, at its core, is a form of love. And love, it turns out, is a remarkably effective business strategy.

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To learn more, listen to my interview with Jeff Ma, on Love as a Business Strategy.