If you were a student of philosophy, psychology or divinity, a course in empathy might make sense, but at the University of Richmond it’s part of the business school curriculum. Sandy Hausman tells how and why one professor is teaching more than a hundred students to listen, learn and empathize.
Fred Talbott has taught four generations of business majors, exploring various themes with undergrads and MBAs, but this year, at the University of Richmond, he felt something new was needed.
“Then that little boy’s picture showed up," he recalls. "A 5-year-old boy from Aleppo, and I immediately thought empathy.”
The idea of empathy in the business world is not new. Think Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People or Bank of America’s former CEO Hugh McColl.
“He was famous for stopping to talk to the guard, and then every secretary on every floor he would visit. It would take him an hour to get to his office," Talbott says. "A journalist friend of mine who saw this asked him, ‘How can you spend so much time talking to those people?’ And he said, ‘Those people are the foundation of this business.’ For leaders to seek self grandeur and narcissism, which is rampant these days, it’s just a shipwreck.”
And for modern-day marketers, he adds, empathy is essential.
“If you’re trying to sell to people, trying to lead people, if you’re not using empathy, if you can’t see the world from their point of view, you’re guessing, and that’s the mess out there. That’s the mess in business, mess in politics, mess in government, the mess in families, because all too often we’re so self-centered now that we forget to think of others.”
To change that mindset, he developed a curriculum called The Empathy Project and asked students to research five people from Virginia history, beginning with Patrick Henry, Edgar Allen Poe and Maggie Walker.
“She was African-American woman, daughter of a slave in the Jim Crowe South she launched a bank," Talbott explains. " Pocahantas saved the Jamestown group three times, and then we had Rodin’s exhibit on campus, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be neat to think like him, to see the world like him, and then go to that exhibit and see people viewing your work?’”
Members of the class were asked to write essays from the perspective of each of those people. Students like Lauren Onestak also sent letters to the little boy in Syria.
“Dear Omron," she wrote. "At the age of five you have already learned the terrible truth about the world. It is not always a nice place. The world can be brutal. When I was your age and something bad would happen, my father would say, ‘This too shall pass.’”
Talbott also called on class members to tell what the Empathy Project had meant for them. Jack Purdy said it had literally changed his life.
“I took the time in any day-to-day interaction with others –whether it was my best friend or someone I just met to try to make the conversation about them, instead of always sharing a story or my opinion – which is easy, because everyone likes talking about themselves," he says. " I made an effort to make the conversation about them and to really understand where they’re coming from, and the result was I could tell that people were so much more willing to engage in conversation with me. The interactions were much deeper and more meaningful, and as the weeks progressed after that it started becoming seamless, natural, and any conversation I had with people felt more meaningful, and that’s when I started thinking – ‘Hey, Dr. Talbott’s really onto something here.”
Bob Congdon said empathy helped put his problems in perspective. One day before he’d been in the emergency room with a virus that left him dangerously dehydrated, but as he waited for discharge he heard two nurses talking about another patient who could only consume a tiny amount of fat before his body began digesting his muscles.
If you're trying to sell to people, trying to lead people, if you're not using empathy, if you can't see the world from their point of view, you're guessing, and that's the mess out there.
“The fact that this patient was a little 5-year-old boy, and he wakes up to this reality every day. In that moment it really took me out of tht self-centered place I was in. I was thinking about my own sickness and all that, and it reminded me quite vividly, ‘There are people – millions of people around the world every day – who face chronic illness, and every day is a new battle for them.’
And Maria Vennikov recalled being hit by a truck on I-95.
“My car spun across three lanes on the highway, hit another car and then eventually stopped perpendicular to incoming traffic, and having no idea what to do, I completely panicked. My anxiety kicked in so bad that my muscles froze up, and I couldn’t move.”
A stranger saved the day – pulling over and running to her rescue. Her name was Tamara, and she was a psychiatric nurse. She stayed with Vennikov even after the paramedics arrived – an act for which Vennikov is deeply grateful.
“In the end, no one is going to remember your jean size. No one is going to remember your GPA or your salary. What people will remember is that one time when you were compassionate to them. That one time that you went out of your way to do something for a friend or a stranger and really make their day a little better.”
Student Lauren Onestak thinks families and schools have a role to play in promoting empathy.
“I think ideally these lessons are taught to us by parents, and teachers at a very young age. My hope is that eventually empathy is such a mainstay in education that by the time people get to college this sort of thing isn’t a necessity.”
Fred Talbott agrees, but for now he’s hoping to sell other universities on launching their own Empathy Projects.
“Especially since the election, the country is so divided," he observes. " This thing heals pretty well, and it may do some good. Let’s hope it does.”