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That Fired Google Engineer Was Totally Wrong That 'De-emphasizing Empathy' Leads To Better Thinking

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By now you’ve probably heard about James Damore, a now-fired Google software engineer who wrote a 10-page diatribe arguing that women are underrepresented in tech because of innate biological and psychological differences, not because of bias and discrimination.

For example, at one point in the memo, he argues that:

Women, on average, have more… Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

Google fired him, and in a statement, CEO Sundar Pichai said:

...portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.

The nonsense about de-emphasizing empathy

So, that’s the backstory. Now, while other experts will tackle the gender diversity issues, I want to tackle one paragraph in Damore’s memo where he states his belief that we should “de-emphasize empathy” because it leads to better thinking. It’s an important paragraph because so many people share this belief, and it’s completely and totally wrong.

Damore says:

“I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.”

Empathy is not wallowing in someone’s feelings

This paragraph is dangerously wrong, for two reasons: First, empathy is not the same as having a ‘case of the feels.’ Being empathic doesn’t mean we’re walking around weeping because of another’s pain. Rather, as the legendary psychologist Carl Rogers said, it’s to “perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy, and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto, as if one were the person, but without ever losing the ‘as if’ condition.”  You might call it something less complicated, such as slipping beneath someone else’s skin or walking a mile in their shoes, but empathy is not wallowing around in someone else’s feelings.

Empathy actually leads to better outcomes

The second big mistake that Damore makes is thinking that de-emphasizing empathy leads to better and more rational thinking. This is utter nonsense. Empathy gets hard results. In negotiation settings, it leads to greater gains for both parties. For physicians, it’s related to higher patient satisfaction, better patient recall of medical information, improved adherence to physician-recommended protocols (such as medication), and more positive health outcomes such as fewer symptoms and improved quality of life. Teachers who use empathy see higher student motivation and effort, which leads to better performance (whether measured by multiple-choice questions or essays).

Lack of empathy gets CEOs fired

One study, called “Why CEO’s Get Fired,” found that the top executive often gets fired for issues unrelated to financial performance. In fact, we found that the top two reasons for CEO firings were ‘poor change management’ and ‘ignoring customers.’ And both of those issues are almost entirely exercises in empathy.

Virtually every organization we interviewed indicated they were undergoing, or had recently undergone, a change management initiative. However, half of board members said that their change initiative did not go well. Most pointed to a failure in properly motivating employees and managers, and more specifically, to adequately selling the need to change course. Why didn’t the fired CEOs properly sell the change? Because they didn’t empathize with all the employees, who were afraid of change.

There’s an online quiz called “What's Your Style of Change Management?”  One of the test questions probes whether you think that people generally like to remain in the status quo (rather than reaching for something better). The current quiz data shows that about 45% of frontline employees believe that people generally like to stay in the status quo. But only 37% top executives think that people like the status quo. In other words, there’s an empathy gap, because the executives misunderstand the mindsets of the people they manage.

Customer fiascoes come from a lack of empathy

When it comes to ignoring customers, board members who fired CEOs overwhelmingly said that if a CEO ignores or alienates customers, it not only undermines the business and revenue, but it significantly undermines board support. Board members said their test for whether the chief executive was sufficiently engaged in the business was the extent to which they evidenced intimate knowledge of customers, customer needs and developing trends.

Here again, we’ve got an exercise in empathy. A few months ago I wrote a Forbes article called "CEO Fiascos Typically Start With A Lack Of Empathy."  And when you look at the bad situations involving Uber’s former CEO Travis Kalanick or United Airlines’ Oscar Munoz, for example, you see they were caused by insufficient empathy. Go back and watch the video of the United passenger being beaten and dragged from the plane and see if you can spot even an ounce of empathy. And read Munoz’s non-apology and again, try to find any empathy at all.

Even Google’s mostly blank homepage is an exercise in customer empathy. It’s one of the most valuable homepages in the history of the internet, and yet it’s kept free from clutter and ads. Why? Because Google is empathizing with customers who want the page to be as simple, and search-focused, as possible.

The final verdict on empathy

So, does de-emphasizing empathy lead to better thinking? Well, a lack of empathy can get the CEO fired. A lack of empathy will chase away customers. A lack of empathy can kill more patients in a hospital. So I’m going to say that Damore was wrong; de-emphasizing empathy makes people much dumber and less successful.

And there are quite a few people in addition to Damore who could use some help being more empathic. Across the 4,000-plus people who’ve taken the online test “Do You Know How To Listen With Empathy?” about a third of respondents failed pretty badly. And only about 20% of people achieved perfect scores. So we’ve still got some room to grow.

Here's one final nail in the argument that empathy isn’t important. A classic psychology study (called “Is Low Therapist Empathy Toxic?”) analyzed the success rates of 41 alcoholics treated by nine different counselors at a treatment center. When counselors were assessed on a test of perspective-taking and empathy, the three counselors that rated highest on empathy had patient success rates (higher levels of treatment engagement and retention in substance abuse programs) of 100%, 75%, and 100%, respectively. The three lowest-empathy counselors had patient success rates of 60%, 40%, and 25%. No matter how you slice it, being empathic is a better approach.

Mark Murphy is the author of Truth At Work: The Science Of Delivering Tough MessagesHiring For Attitude and Hundred Percenters.