The 15-Minute Empathy Map: Building Deeper Executive Relationships

How does mapping employee empathy increase team efficiency?

Mutual empathy directly correlates with massive increases in job satisfaction and business revenue. Leaders can fast-track foundational trust by dedicating 15 minutes to an "Empathy Map" exercise, actively documenting a colleague’s unique goals, professional fears, and the external expectations fueling their behavior.

Core to our work as public relations professionals is building lasting relationships. Possessing empathy will go a long way for not only your relationships with others, but also for your mental well-being.

According to a survey by EY, “mutual empathy between company leaders and employees leads to increased efficiency, creativity, job satisfaction, idea sharing, innovation and even company revenue.”

So, how do you possess and build empathy? I have a proven 15–30-minute exercise – creating an empathy map - that’s helped people build deeper relationships within their teams, executives, customers and other key publics.

As you go through this process, it’s important to think about somebody you’re trying to build a relationship with at work. It could be your manager, an executive, a client, someone you manage, or a peer.

Take out a piece of paper and answer as many of these questions as you can about this person.

First, who are they and what is their role? Do you have a solid understanding of their responsibilities? What do they spend their time doing at work? In our profession, we can wear a lot of hats. In some instances, their role might be confusing, even to them. It’s important to understand if they themselves can’t articulate their role.

Second, what are their goals? What problem(s) are they solving? What are their success factors? This is the most important aspect of this exercise. What are they thinking about when they start working every day? It’s important we understand this because this impacts their experience at the company, and ultimately things like performance reviews, promotions, salary increases, and bonuses.

Third, what do we know about their behavior? How are they speaking with their teams? Do they appear to be accessible? Are they listening more than they are talking? When you speak with them, are they intentionally listening to you or are they distracted? Do they follow-through on what’s promised?

Fourth, how are they influenced? Remember when we asked about their goals and what problems they are there to solve? Someone else will measure whether they were successful. These are likely their managers, members of the board of directors, customers, and other people whose opinions matter. This also relates to media consumption. If they spend 30 minutes per day watching videos or television, reading articles or listening to podcasts, what are they?

Fifth, what are their fears, frustrations, and anxieties? This is the most vulnerable of the questions as these are deeply personal and may be difficult to determine. Keep in mind, some of these answers might focus less on their professional life, and understanding any personal challenges – friends, family, personal health, etc. - they might be living with daily.

Finally, what are their hopes and dreams? These can also be hard to pin down. However, understanding their personal and career ambitions are critical when understanding decisions they make.

Even if you don’t have all the answers to these questions right away, being aware of these will go a long way to building lasting relationships.

This is also an important exercise to do for yourself. How would you answer these questions? To what degree do those around you know enough about you to build strong relationships with others?

Look forward to hearing from you on what you learned during this exercise. What did you learn about yourself and those around you? Please send me a message and let me know!