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workshops/2015-07-20
Safi interviews Sonja
How did the empathy circle work for you?
it’s not the first time so I was familiar with it.
the only problem, it’s hot and I’m tired so it was hard to focus on it.
it was hard because of the conditions.
At the core, what problem do you feel this solves?
this is what I have trouble with. You have to really listen to people. Regularly you are listening and preparing to respond.
What does it feel like to be really heard?
I didn’t have any fears and worries, I didn’t care if I was really heard.
I didn’t really have a problem, in the end the process is good but in this case it didn’t work so well because I don’t have a big fear. If I was dealing with a bigger problem I would feel more understood.
What is the importance of being understood.
I have conversations with my boyfriend, I don’t feel heard, he doesn't respond,. I don’t know what is going on with him. There is no reaction.
While we are talking I don’t know how he hears it. Later on he will say something and then I know he heard me, but in the moment I don’t feel he hears me.
You have to show you understand. my boyfriend doesn’t show that he understood but when it comes up in a conversation, I know he has. To feel understood, the other person has to show it somehow, otherwise we don’t know if they understood.
What is the need for being understood?
it’s good to hear each other.
the empathic listening prevents misunderstandings.
sometimes you think you heard someone but you really didn’t, this helps you to really hear the other person and can clear up misunderstandings.
Safi Insight: Sonja
Empathetic listening works when there is a problem to share
Its hard to focus with environmental challenges (Climate, bad mood etc)
When no worries or fears, it doesn’t matter if you're heard
Its more important to be understood than heard
One needs to express when they understand
Being understood helps eliminate misunderstandings
Feedback:
I’d like the person to ask questions if they ask questions.
If they show this interest.
just repeating what you heard is not what you need.
sometimes empathic listening is not a good tool.
Feelings
Carelessness,
connected
Needs
be understood
Summary
I felt very good about having discovered what has always bugged me about the empathy circle — my inability to actually relate to anybody’s experience by just listening and reflecting back what they said. I wasn’t focused on how they truly felt but on what they said and what they thought. I was focused on understanding what they were trying to convey. I felt inspired about actually developing a tool that could address this problem. Reflecting back in a metaphor.
Intention
I want to develop a deeper understanding of the role empathy plays in design workshops. I want to strengthen my empathic listening and empathic design skills.
Edwin interviews Sonja
What was the most engaging or fun moment?
Most engaging moment was when Kendra was interviewing Herbert, most empathy I have felt because I can personally relate to what he was saying. I can reflect was people say, I can understand, but I don't feel it, whereas when he was talking I felt it. Big gap in empathy circle--you can reflect, listen, focus on what they're saying. When I was interviewing Kendra, I can retell the story, but I don't feel it, I haven't had that experience.
The feeling part is blank. Whereas when I was listening to Herbert it brought up personal things for me, to me that is a really big difference. I don't know if this gap can ever be bridged--being able to feel the experience someone else is having. It's just not there--don't have ingredients to make this experience. Intellectually understanding versus actually feeling. The one that I felt where Herbert was talking about was more profound.
Can you describe the feeling of that deep attachment?
I felt it in my chest. I know when I felt it because I felt instantly happier. First of all there was memory, feeling in my head--that recognition and instantly bringing up what brought those feelings forward for me. Warm feeling of agreement. Back of the shoulders. Warm. And then I had to take notes (laughs)
Why did you have to take notes?
It was a completely different feeling inside. Then I thought I have to write this down so I don't forget.
Had a fear that you'd forget?
Yes, that's right. Came from my head, the back of my head. I have an idea: what it made me also realize that what can bridge this gap is the use of metaphors. "My experience was like" bring up different versions of how you felt. Bridge the gap of telling you the experience that they had and you didn't--maybe in those metaphors there is something you can relate to.
Edwin Interview Sonja
Insight
Sonja feels that some of the circle is more intellectual and she doesn’t feel it. There is a gap between the deeply feeling something and understanding it in her head. She would like a deeper feeling in connecting with others in the circle. deeper feeling would be more engaging.
Feelings
insight
curiosity
Needs
- connection
- authenticity
- relation
Brainstorm
How Might We… close the gap between limited intellectual empathy and shared experience empathy?
Sonja
Draw or paint your feelings with colours.
Show where you felt the experience, and how it felt. Use sensory descriptors (heavy/light, dark/bright, smells nice/stinks etc.) Edwin,
Use a metaphor: something from a common, shared experience. “Like eating an ice cream on a hot summer day”, “Like being blamed for something you didn’t do”
Write a haiku about your experience. Imagine a scene that corresponds to it. Haiku is supposed to capture the mood of a scene without describing thought, just describing the scenery.
Play the music that corresponds to your experience. Maybe choose from 5-10 different tunes.
Role-play the other person’s experience. Either in person (like acting) or in a game, could be virtual.
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Sonja
Haha, I see what you're doing there :)
I like your last-idea: doing something else for a while for a change. Sometimes it's tiring because it's the same thing over and over again. Similarly, I wouldn't eat rice every single day, no matter how many additional ingredients I had on the plate... Do you see my point?
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Edwin
Yes I see. In Indonesia they have rice 3 times a day.. I lived there for 2 years and studied the language. they feel they have not eaten unless they have had rice in the meal. People come from different perspectives.
I am designing for empathy, i.e. being specialized in it. So perhaps I’m like an Indonesian when it comes to empathy. J
So hearing your reaction to working on empathy and your need for change is interesting to explore and find ways to design for that. One problem I think the topic gets too broad and diffuse or overwhelming. So it is hard to grasp. I’m hoping that by having a specific process like the empathy circle to design for, it will make the challenge more concrete, manageable and actionable
I personally feel that designing for empathy in the world, is the most effective approach for solving the worlds ills.
I had thought if we designed better tools for empathic listening and circles. Then the team could take that specific tool into their or other families and see how it works to create better relationships. For example, you could try it with your boyfriend and see if you would feel more deeply heard and acknowledged in your interactions and dialogs.
I also think if we can foster more empathy between people in the world, it is the most effective value for addressing issues like in the middle east, i.e., the Islamic State, etc.
Like Johan Galtung http://j.mp/NXtR3k founder of peace studies programs says. “By peace we mean the capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, without violence, and creatively — a never-ending process,.
Anyway, that is my perspective.
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Sonja
Yes, of course. I am all for designing with empathy. I think it is a very effective tool in the design process and I hope to use it myself in the future. But I would like to use the empathic design workshop, the empathic circle, and empathic listening on some other problem, not on redesigning the empathic circle itself. I understand that you'd like to perfect it, though. I appreciate that. Please let me know what will be the final design of the empathic circle. I can, of course, test it and let you know my experiences.
Of course, I've also studied Japanese and spent a year in Japan and they do eat a lot of rice there too. I was making a point using a metaphor. It could have been any other food: apples. I'd get tired of eating apples every single day. And yes, it's my experience. I generally like to change things, to work on different design problems, not just one :) That's why I'd like to work, using the empathic design approach, on a non-empathy-circle-related problem.
I also believe, just like you, that empathy would help bring about more peace.
I hope we understand each other now.
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Edwin
Yes, I see,
I do like change as well. It can free up the mind and add new insights and foster creativity.
What would you like to apply the empathy circle process on? i.e. what challenges?
Here in Berkeley, our empathy team was working on empathy in the family. However, I found that people were very traumatized themselves about their own negative experiences in their families. It brought up a lot of their own personal issues which led to conflicts and control issues, etc. They needed to do empathy practice themselves to get themselves and the team grounded before working on the design challenge. Especially something like empathy in the family with brings up a lot of emotion.
That is why I am stepping back to make sure we do some personal empathy practice and get people very, very, very grounded before taking on other challenges. We need to exercise and build up our team empathy muscles. We also need an agreed upon foundation for dealing with interpersonal conflicts when they arise.
Also, you can see how people like Safi actually want to control the conversation and not really empathize with people at a deeper level. He wants connection, but he thinks he will get it via asking questions and controlling the conversation and giving advice. I think doing the empathic listening practice was a great revelation for him. I see this all the time in the empathic listening process. It exposes all the many ways that people actually try to avoid deeply listening and empathy. i.e. using analysis, giving advice, sympathizing, pitying, taking control of the conversation, diagnosing, using questions for control, grabbing the attention or competing for the attention, or ignoring, withdrawal, etc, etc. There seems to be so many strategies for not deeply empathizing.
Empathic Design Website and Platform
I would like to create an Empathic Design website, training and platform. Create a tool kit of methods that support deeper empathy and can be added to host dialog circles. Also, a short video series that teaches the various parts of the process. Explain the problems people have with the process and the ways to overcome them. Also create an open platform for adding more methods.. like intention setting, role playing, somatic exercises, HCD, etc. It can then branch out.
So the core is empathic listening and we keep adding methods around that. The human centered design is one of those methods as well. It’s all build around developing ‘an empathic way of being.’ So there is no end. Just like there is no end to the design process itself. People keep adding more tools and methods to the process all the times.
I talked with Robbyn http://j.mp/1HJf50z who works with children., she was interested in developing empathy circles for children. It would be more experiential and physical since children don’t have the cognitive capacities. More touch, movement, massage, games, mirroring activities, play, etc. They also need simple tools and skills for personal and social conflict resolution. Btw, there is this initiative for empathy in the schools. http://startempathy.org
That’s a bit of where I am coming from..
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Edwin.
I feel energized around the design challenge and having it be prototype driven. After working with empathy for 8 years I’ve found the empathic listening and empathy circles to be the most effective practice for personally deepening empathy and for deepening it in groups. I have a lot of hope in the process and have used it extensively for well-being, healing and I think it can be a gateway to creativity and innovation via design.
I would love to hear (and empathize with you) about why the empathy circle doesn’t energize you very much? This would be very helpful for me to understand.
Is it that it is not practical or that it is not creating something tangible?
Or not leading to creative action?
Or we don’t create some sort of software or website with it?
Or?
I do hear you don’t have ideas on how to improve the process?
Why do you think that is?
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Sonja,
I think there might have been a misunderstanding. I feel energized about doing the empathic circle, and I feel energized about doing the mini design workshop. But, I don't feel energized about doing it with the same design challenge: redesigning the empathic circle itself. I think this empathic inception becomes tiring at some point, and it's this point for me. I'd like to design/redesign something else instead. Something new :)
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Edwin
““I think this empathic inception becomes tiring at some point”
I wonder why it becomes tiring and how it could be made more enlivening or energizing? How might we make designing an empathic way of being more enlivening and engaging?
Some brainstorming..
meet with different people (designers) to add new energy and perspectives.
create some sort of tangible tools from the exploration.
see how the tools contribute to peoples well being.
see how it has a financial return.
see how ones personal empathy skill has grown or improved.
do something else for a while for a change of pace.
ideas?
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