Practical Ways You Can Try Walking a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes
It’s a familiar saying about empathy: “Don’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.”
It’s true enough—especially at work, where situations can become tense. If you experience the pressures others face, you’ll gain insight into their realities. You’ll better appreciate their challenges. You’ll be less likely to dismiss their concerns.
However, despite TV shows in which the Big Boss dons a disguise and clumsily takes on the role of a worker bee, the workplace doesn’t lend itself to a lot of realistic, formally designed “walking in each other’s shoes” opportunities. One approach would be via job-swap programs in which employees in different departments exchange jobs for a specified period of time. To succeed, the employees would need to have similar knowledge and skills at the outset so that each can cover for the other. Otherwise, the work on both sides can go kaput.
Another approach is job rotation, where employees move through a variety of positions within or between departments. Although walking in each other’s shoes isn’t typically the driving force for job swapping or job rotation, employees who have these sorts of opportunities certainly gain a deepened perspective of a multitude of roles.
Cross-training can give employees insight into each other’s realities while preparing them to fill in for each other if the need arises. Although this approach may provide a glimpse from the vantage point of each other’s shoes, it lacks the emotional impact of wearing those shoes unless employees actually get to do the work they’ve cross-trained for. Lots of teams have good intentions to cross-train but never get around to it due to looming deadlines and unrelenting pressures.
Still, even in the absence of formal approaches, you can take steps to better appreciate the perspectives of others, particularly in situations in which they anger or annoy you. For example, you can make a commitment to pause and think before judging the behavior of others. You can contemplate what might be motivating their actions and attitudes. You can focus on the similarities you share, not the differences between you. You can gain vicarious insight into the lives of others by reading books and mulling over what you learn from unfamiliar perspectives.
You can even gain some insight by devoting just a few minutes every day to imagining being in another’s shoes. Independent of any pressing issues, spend a few minutes thinking about what your manager, a customer, or a coworker needs. Your awareness of their perspectives is bound to increase.
