Is empathy something you can learn?

There is a lot of value in empathy at work. Understanding the situations your colleagues are facing can help you to work more effectively with them. Understanding customer and clients can make it easier to provide them the service they want in the way that they want it.

There are clear differences between people in how much empathy they bring with them in interactions. Some people naturally take other people’s perspectives and emotions into account when interacting with them. Others are rooted in their own way of thinking about things and can be oblivious to the goals, motivations, and emotions of others. Luckily you can practice being more empathetic—in the workplace, and beyond.

If empathy doesn’t come naturally to you—or if you are mentoring someone else who rarely takes other people’s perspectives into consideration—there are some ways to learn to show more empathy and to make a habit of it:

Have three questions and a statement in mind

If you want to show more empathy, you have to notice what is happening with the people around you, and then you have to incorporate it into your interactions. In order to do that, it is helpful to remember three questions and a statement. (And because so many interactions happen these days via video or IM, you could even put them on a sticky note on your computer as a cheat sheet.)

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