Empathy in Action: Going Beyond Surface-Level Interactions

Empathy mapping is a simple tool for helping you imagine someone else and their experience.

In this From the Archive episode, Bob and Jessica explore a powerful tool designed to deepen your connection with others—empathy mapping. 

Whether you're working with military families, service members, or anyone navigating life's challenges, this practice can help you step into their shoes and understand their experiences on a whole new level. 

Jessica shares her insights on how empathy mapping can move us beyond surface-level interactions, offering practical steps to apply this tool in your work or personal life.

Links and resources from this episode:

• Empathy Map Activity
• Opening to Joy and Love by Sebene Selassie
• Sign up for our monthly newsletter: https://oneop.aweb.page/practicing-connection-newsletter
• Join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12879756/ 
• Send us a message: practicingconnection@oneop.org 

Transcript

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ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: [00:00:00] Welcome to Practicing Connection. I'm Erin, and today we're diving into empathy mapping as part of our From the Archive series. 

In this series, we're updating and re-releasing retired content that we feel is still relevant today. I picked this episode for two reasons. One is in the first half, Bob and Jessica have a short discussion about Joy that I absolutely love.

I've been on the “work should be more joyful” train since my very first episode. So anytime I can bring joy into the conversation, you know I'm going to do it. 

The second reason is that empathy mapping is a really simple tool for a thing that we all need to do all of the time, and that's imagining someone else and their experience more complexly.

A huge part of being a service provider or even just being a part of a community is working with people who are different from you. This is a nice tool to have in your back pocket for when you get stuck. 

I hope it's as helpful to you as it is to me.

BOB BERTSCH: [00:01:00] Thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Bob, my co-host, Jessica is here as well. And today we'll be diving into a tool that can really enhance our ability to connect with the people we serve. And Jessica will be sharing a practice with us related to that. Hi, Jessica. First of all, happy birthday.

Did you have a good birthday? How was it?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I did. It was actually exactly what I needed several years ago. It kind of happened quite by accident. I started to take the day off from work, which that part's not an accident, but I started to take the day off from work, and that first year I just kind of tooled around town.

I just went where I felt like going. And it felt so freeing and it reminded me of how much I enjoy an adventure, even though, you know, I was really just kind of going around town. But I was going to different places and that I don't normally go to, and I was spending, you know, two hours in a bookstore just kind of [00:02:00] looking at books and, you know, looking at all the possibilities.

So yeah, that's what I did this year. I took the day off, you know, I went to some thrift stores. I enjoy the adventure of finding interesting, odd antique pieces and I didn't really find anything though. Yeah, I just did a, a few things like that.

BOB BERTSCH: Well, that's awesome. It's not about what you find, right? It's the journey

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Exactly.

BOB BERTSCH: Looking for.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That's exactly what it was for me. And I just kept gut checking, like, just because last year I went to a yarn store doesn't mean this year I need to go to one. And, uh, just because in the past I've gone to a bookstore, didn't mean this year I needed to go to one and I didn't. Even though that's one of my favorite things to do on my birthdays to go to a bookstore.

But you know, last year I bought two books and I am three quarters of the way through one of them at this point. So I'm like, I don't want any more books. Let me get through the ones I have. So

BOB BERTSCH: well, that sounds You doing awesome? I'm doing great. Yeah. I've been thinking about [00:03:00] joy,

JESSICA BECKENDORF: ah,

BOB BERTSCH: because of some meditations that I've been listening to.

The Zen teacher, Charlotte Jo Beck has a quote and she said, joy is exactly what is happening, minus our opinion of it. And the. Recorded meditation I was listening to was led by, uh, seven A ssi and she shared that quote, which I hadn't heard before. And seven A said that Charlotte Jo Beck was trying to get at the distinction between happiness and joy.

And that's something I really hadn't. Thought about and one distinction that seven A shared was like, happiness has an opposite, right? Unhappiness, but what's the opposite of joy? And that was pretty thought provoking for me. Seven A describes joy as the capacity to appreciate the good in each moment without pushing away what might be unpleasant.

So I've been thinking about that a lot. Trying to get in touch with that feeling of joy in that sense that I'm willing to take things [00:04:00] as they are willing to let things be as they are, and not confusing joy with happiness. So that's not super inspirational or anything like that, but it's what I've been thinking about.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Oh, that's really interesting. And Snet is actually one of my favorite meditation people. I feel like anything she says, I get some sort of inspiration out of this idea that it's a joyful act to appreciate the good in the moment, even when there might be some unpleasantness going on that is really thought provoking.

I'm really glad you shared that. I'm, I'm gonna have to think on it a little bit.

BOB BERTSCH: So Jessica, I know you've chosen to talk about empathy mapping today, so could you share a little bit more about the activity and why you thought it was important to highlight it?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, absolutely. Um, I've used [00:05:00] this activity quite a lot for developing communication strategies. Um, so when we first talked about the idea of perspective taking, um, this of course kind of leapt to my mind.

I pulled up my empathy mapping activities and started pouring over them and remembering really the successes I've seen people have as they've used it. So empathy mapping is often used in the context of marketing to design customer profiles. Communication strategy, but I've also seen empathy mapping work really well as a tool for building understanding of a person.

Or a group as we'll talk about later. It's not a perfect tool. It should be one of several tools, but we'll, we'll talk a little bit about that later. But for example, I've used it to help community members get a better sense of where county board members are coming from. Recognizing that these officials really want to be good stewards of public dollars, even when it might seem like they're just kind of focused on the budget, and that's it.

Just the dollars. It's meant to help you [00:06:00] get past your assumptions and begin to understand someone else's perspective. Um, which is really important when working with military families and service members.

BOB BERTSCH: Yeah, that's a great point. This idea of perspective taking is important to understand, uh, the unique challenges that military connected individuals face, especially during transitions like deployment, relocation or reintegration into civilian life.

And really just to, you know, try and understand better everybody's experience. 'cause we all come from different experiences and bring. Our experiences to whatever we're dealing with in that moment.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, I appreciate that you put it that way. And you know, this also ties into, um, something that we've talked briefly about called the Military Transitions Theory, which provides a framework for understanding the various phases that military personnel and their families go through during their transitions.

The theory highlights the importance of understanding, not just the physical changes [00:07:00] like moving to a new duty station, but also the psychological and social adjustments that come with those changes. By taking the time to kind of see the world from a different perspective, we can better support military families through these transitions and well, that's kind of why I thought of this activity.

BOB BERTSCH: So how does it help us apply sort of our understanding of different perspectives in, in practice, in a practical way?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Um, because it's structured as a way to step into someone else's shoes, it can help us move beyond the surface level observations and really dig into what a person is experiencing.

Again, we'll go into this in a minute. This is one tool of many, right? You are using your own knowledge of that person. To fill this out. So unless you're ground truthing it, you're not really digging into what they're experiencing. But it's a way for you to start to see the perspective, the different perspective.

So for military families, this means understanding not just what they're [00:08:00] doing or saying, but also what they're thinking and feeling as they navigate these transitions. Right? You might be hearing what they're saying and seeing a little bit of what they're doing, but this really helps you dig a little bit into what they might be thinking and feeling as well.

BOB BERTSCH: This is really interesting. I'm excited to learn how to use this. Could you walk us through how to put empathy mapping into practice?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Absolutely. So we've provided a link in the show notes where you can download the template. This template has kind of a goofy looking individual in the middle of the paper and around this individual are some different areas for you to focus on.

And, um, add your notes too. So in the first box, you're gonna wanna start with defining who you're focusing on. It's often really, really helpful to think of someone specific. So even if you are trying to think of a group of people, try to think of someone specific. A military spouse who's just relocated, perhaps a veteran transitioning to civilian life, or a kid [00:09:00] coping with a parent's deployment.

Depending on what your role is, think about a person. Then consider their goal something that they need to do. So for example, maybe a military spouse needs to build a new support network after a move, depending on what your role is, figure out what kind of goal they've come to you for. This goal should be something observable, something you can see them trying to achieve.

Then you're gonna move on to thinking about what they see around them. So there's another box there that says, what do they see? What's their environment like? Are they surrounded by new places, unfamiliar faces, or challenging situations? So understanding what they see can give us insight into their daily reality.

And then move on to looking at what they might be saying to others. So what are they communicating about their experiences? This can reveal a lot about their mindset and what's important to them, which will be really helpful to you later. And then after you move on to thinking about what they're [00:10:00] doing to reach their goal.

So are they already taking steps to connect with others? Are they seeking out resources? Are they trying to maintain their routines and trying to maintain some structure in their lives? Finally, you would listen to what they are hearing. So this sounds kind of confusing because I said we've gone through.

Uh, what are they seeing, saying, doing, but what are they hearing? What are the advice, the opinions and expectations that they might be hearing from those around them? And then finally, look inward after considering these external experiences. So what they're seeing, saying, doing, and hearing, we shift to their internal world.

This is where you can focus on their thoughts and feelings. So what emotions might they be dealing with? I think there's a lot of information out there for some of these transitions about the typical emotions that people go through as they're experiencing things like deployment, for example. So what emotions are they dealing with?

What worries or hopes might they be carrying? And [00:11:00] this part of the empathy map helps us connect with their experience on a deeper level. All of that said, I have some tips. I've alluded to it a couple of times already. I really want you to consider a tool like this to be one tool among many, and the practice should really be approached with care, using it together with other methods and feedback mechanisms.

So what I mean by that, for example. Keep in mind that empathy mapping starts with what you know of a person you can, and you should find ways to ground truth your map, or you could end up with superficial insights. Um, you could also end up with some stereotyping. And things like that. Another tip I have is just like any activity, try to go into it with an awareness of the biases and assumptions that you have that may affect the results.

So for example, with financial clients, you could do the financial genogram activity we talked about some weeks ago on this podcast. Um, that could help widen your awareness of your biases and [00:12:00] assumptions when it comes to financial applications. Otherwise, the process could end up being more of a reflection of your views than the actual experiences of the person being mapped.

And then lastly. Consider the systemic or structural factors that affect people when completing your map. The empathy map activity often focuses on individual experiences, so definitely keep those other things in mind. So I know that those are three really big tips, but I would not let that scare you away from going through this activity 'cause I've gone through it many, many times with people and it is really a helpful tool.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: That's it for this episode. Thank you for joining us. If you do this empathy mapping exercise, we would love to hear how it went. You can email us at practicingconnection@oneop.org or use the link in the show notes. 

We'll be back next week. Until then, keep practicing.

[00:13:00]

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.