Empathy is a superpower in the engineering industry
I value this skill a LOT more than pure technical skills in my teams!
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Let’s get back to this week’s thought.
Intro
No matter if you are an engineer or a manager, empathy is and will be one of the key skills in the engineering industry.
“But empathy has nothing to do with tech skills?” you may ask. Well, we will break down how important empathy is in this article. Make sure to read on!
Why is empathy such a superpower in the engineering industry?
There are many reasons for that and they all boil down to these 3 points:
Engineering is one of the most collaborative fields out there.
You can have technically amazing engineers in the team, but if they don’t collaborate effectively, it won’t mean much.
Engineers with great empathy will be able to build good relationships with their colleagues and collaborate effectively with each other.
We are always building something for someone to use.
Everything that we build is and will be used by someone. With empathy, we are putting ourselves in the shoes of our users and making sure that we are building the right things for them.
Without empathy, the focus is too much on technologies and not on solving problems and building the RIGHT things for our users.
Writing code, documentation, tasks, tests, messages, emails, etc.
We write not just for ourselves but for others. The goal is to write in a way that others can quickly understand it. If you can do that → then your empathy is on a good level.
Let’s get into more details specifically for engineers.
Empathic engineers are the real 10x engineers to me
Empathy is one of those skills that often gets overlooked among engineers. It’s not so tangible and it’s hard to measure it.
It’s easy to focus on how many programming languages you know or how many years of experience you have. But let me tell you that empathy provides immense value to the team and the overall organization (a lot more than just pure tech skills).
Being empathic as an engineer means, that you can:
Write code in a way that others with zero context would be able to easily understand it.
Focus on building the RIGHT things by putting yourself in the shoes of the users.
Turn disagreements into interesting conversations, where both sides work together to find the best solution.
Engineers that can do that, are the actual 10x engineers to me.
Empathic manager is a great manager
Of course, many things make a manager truly great, but empathy is very high on the list.
Here is what empathic managers are doing:
They can understand their report's struggles a LOT better.
They put themselves in their shoes and look at things from their perspective. This ensures that they completely understand the situation and they don’t judge or blame.
They can find the right work and career paths for their reports.
They can relate to their reports and map their specific skill sets to tasks and different career paths. Everyone is different → it’s important to find and suggest + offer a way for the report to try it out!
They make decisions the right way.
It’s not always possible, but whenever it is, they don’t just blindly make them because their manager has asked them to do something, but they are transparent and involve their team as soon as possible and make them part of the decision.
You can read more about what great managers are doing here: Good managers are hard to find and once you have them, they should be appreciated.
How to develop empathy
Some people may have an advantage due to their background or experience when it comes to empathy, but the good thing is → it can be developed!
Here is my recommendation: practice, practice and practice.
Listen closely, try to feel what they feel and observe their reactions.
Anytime you are talking with someone, try to do all of the things above. Try to really put yourself in their shoes.
Be someone that you would love to work with
You can’t go wrong if you always have this in mind. Every action that you do and every decision that you make. Think about how it would feel if you were on the other side.
Understand people in general → different cultures, different kinds of motivators, behaviors, etc.
Many books on this topic can give you more insights on this. Here are some that I found to be great:
Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships by Daniel Goleman
The Art of Empathy by Karla Mclaren
How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
And of course these 3 below (we mentioned them already in this article: Engineering is more about people than tech).
Do freelance projects for non-tech clients
You need to really understand the motivation and the problem behind their ask if you wish to create the right solution. Just jumping into code after the first requirements will in 99% result in a wrong solution.
Coaching and mentoring
A lot of people may think that this only helps the person that you are coaching or mentoring, but it really helps you to develop the necessary skills to help effectively. Being able to put yourself in their shoes, offer guidance, active listening, etc.
Consulting and advising
Similar principle to doing freelance projects, you need to really understand the problem and their motivation. That’s how you can actually map the right solution to it. A LOT of times the solution is actually hidden inside a lot of layers.
I wasn’t the most empathic person when I started my career as an engineer
I always had a good feel for people in general, but with empathy, I’ve needed to develop it over the years. You can read some of my mistakes and learnings when I started my career here: Starting my career again as a junior engineer (paid article).
I’ve developed empathy with practice and a lot of it was due to freelance projects. I’ve finished a lot of projects where I needed to find the RIGHT solution for the client and also I’ve developed empathy with advising + consulting and coaching + mentoring.
You can read how important freelance work was for my growth from engineer to CTO here: My secret for growing from engineer to CTO (paid article).
Also, I developed a lot of empathy when I first became a manager. Making the transition from being an IC to being a manager focusing on uplifting and empowering others. Being empathic became necessary to be successful in my role.
You can read more about my learnings and challenges while growing from IC to manager here: From IC to manager (paid article).
Bonus: Example of a good (empathic) writing
We are always writing for someone, even if that might be for ourselves.
It’s really important to write in a way that the reader will use as little amount of mental energy as possible to understand it → that’s how you get the best results.
This works well everywhere. Writing code, documentation, sending emails, keeping notes, etc. Always keep this in mind.
Here is an example:
Niraj has focused on brevity and presenting everything in a very easily understandable way. You can judge the results by yourself.
Last words
One thing that you should always keep in mind is that even though engineering is a highly technical field, it’s one of the most collaborative out there.
Being great at both technically and at the same time being a good person to work with, will truly make your career skyrocket. And empathy plays a huge role in that.
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You are more than welcome to find whatever interests you here and try it out in your particular case. Let me know how it went! Topics are normally about all things engineering related, leadership, management, developing scalable products, building teams etc.
Great article, love the graphics :-)
All leaders need empathy because they are such a massive influence on their employee's lives. A leader or manager can make or break their team member's training, opportunities and career so they need to understand people.
And unfortunately, not everyone who is good at the technical skills (in all industries not just engineering) understands what it means to be a leader.
Listening to the team and understanding that everyone approaches different situations in the same way is the first step. Spending time with their team in one-to-ones, team meetings and project meetings is a great way to find out what the team think and what they need to succeed. Many managers allocate unclear tasks and expect their teams to get on with it, without asking how they are, what the workload is, whether they need any support or whether there are any roadblocks.
Love the book recommendations :-)
Btw I really liked the picture, I also see emotional intelligent people as super heroes. 🦸🏼🦸🏾♀️