Get the feels: Empathy as a strategic tool for business transformation

GET THE FEELS: EMPATHY AS A STRATEGIC TOOL FOR BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

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Aderinola Oloruntoye:  I see many flutterwaves coming up to disrupt other areas of service that the core industry incumbent is not looking at and the reason is very clear they have not built empathy into their corporate strategy. Therefore, it will be difficult to feel the problems of customers, to see the problems in the customers eyes and to hear with the ears of their customers and that is when the opportunity for disruptions will then be opened.

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Ife Adeagbo: Welcome to the Spark, a podseries by BROOT Consulting where we discuss ideas that spark transformation. In each episode, we engage the best industry experts and thought leaders on strategic and innovative ideas for exponential business and institutional growth. Sit back and enjoy!

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Olukunle A. Iyanda:  Julie Durd came up with a term she called the “new reality”. She said, successful transformation depends on four factors: mindsets, people, process, and tools. Most digital transformation projects fail because its focus on digital for its own sake without taking the needs of the people into consideration. Without alignment of digital tools with human need, the project would fail. The key tool to understand the people is empathy. So, what is the place of empathy in Business. Today, we will be talking on the subject; Get the feel, empathy as a strategic tool for business transformation. With us today is our Director of Digital Transformation. Aderinola Oloruntoye, Derin is a business analytic veteran with over 20 years of business experience using SAP software technology. He was SAP Digital transformation lead for West Africa. Derin holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from University of Ilorin. He is a certified Information System auditor, a fellow of Institute of management consultant, a chattered management consultant. He is a certified business transformation management methodology consultant, SAP Business subject certified professionals among other things. Today, I welcome Derin to Spark podcast series. Derin welcome.

Aderinola Oloruntoye:  Thank you very much Dr Iyanda. Nice to be here. Thank you.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: The question for you today, we start with this. We have seen study that shows that business that embedded empathy in their culture, outperform those who did not? What exactly is empathy?

Aderinola Oloruntoye OK, thank you very much. so, empathy has different definitions from a different school of thoughts. But as it relates to organizational transformation, the definition that I like, Funny enough, is the definition from a group of people, or you may say a body called “a place for mothers”. A place for mothers, and then they defined empathy as; Seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another, and have adopted that definition a lot, even for technology transformation projects. And it has paid off and has worked out very well. That’s what I choose to make my own definition of empathy. The one coined by a place for mothers and if you want to ask who are the most empathetic people on Earth? Definitely, mothers qualify as one of those.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Beautiful, beautiful definition right there. You know, seeing with the eyes of another, ear with the ears of another and all sorts of things interesting. So how do you connect that when the business sees from the perspective of another, or hear from the perspective of another or think with the mind of another? Of what advantage is that to business,

Aderinola Oloruntoye:  so, I’m absolutely the advantage is enormous because every business is made up of people. People are at the center of businesses. The customers that patronize businesses are people. The employees that run the processes of organizations are people. So, if any organization, any business, would thrive, just to make it the least of the performance index that organization, that business must listen to the people. Primarily, listen to the customers. Ear, with the ears of the customer, see with the eyes of a customer, feel with the heart of the customers, and also hear with the ears of the employees, those that run the processes for the business. See with the eyes of the employee not only from management perspective alone and also feel with the heart of employee and that trend that kind of practice is changing the dynamics of many businesses globally and even the businesses that you would consider to be tech businesses. They are taking their making use of that practice of empathy to define how they serve their customers and how they relate to their employees.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: That’s very interesting and that lead me to this thought. You know to survive in the business world sometimes we think that leaders have to be ruthless and have to engage in some sharp practices which often times doesn’t take the interest of the customer and employee into consideration. You do all of this in order to improve the bottom line. So why do we have to talk of empathy in business, in the context of business; will that not erode the bottom line? What is the difference between empathy and sympathy? Do we need the two in an organization?

Aderinola Oloruntoye:  OK, I think that that mindset of being ruthless seems to have emanated from the Stone Age, practices of businesses, and I which I don’t want to go into because we are not in the stone age obviously, so where you know, things were done in a particular way. But as time evolved and as organization evolved building capabilities to be able to deliver value to customers and economists.

‘It’s been discovered that the ability to be able to understand what is valuable to the people in business seems to be one of the triggers for successful organization and businesses.

To discover what is valuable to the customer or to the employee or to the people in business definitely requires connecting with how they feel the organization, with how they see the things that it goes through every day. With how they process that they manage for the business system, and so empathy helps to be able to learn and understand the experience of people in business for their customers and the employee. And it’s different from sympathy. Sympathy is simply acknowledging what somebody has voiced out as what he has been through and experience, but empathy is quite different. Empathy is not just acknowledging what somebody has been through in a process, it’s not just acknowledging the experience of somebody in process, but empathy is saying. How can I understand what you have been through by trying to go through it myself? That is empathy. How can I understand what you have been through and possibly do something to improve the improve your experience in what you are going through? That is empathy. Sympathy just acknowledges that you have been through a particular process. You have an experience, but it doesn’t try to understand the implication of that process. The implication of that experience in that process, while empathy on the other and both acknowledges that you have been through a particular experience takes a step to understand what the experience is, the implication of their experience for you, the pain and lastly takes a step to try and work, Improve the experience that is empathy.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you, thank you so much. I love the concept of the Stone Age mentality which you’ve made us to understand that we are no longer in the Stone Age, we are in the digital age, we are in a human age and as a result we should bring human mind, humanness into whatever we do. Haven said that. I want to ask; do you think empathy can make us as leaders to be permissive or can it make us to be weak?

Aderinola Oloruntoye:   Empathy cannot make a leader to be weak, empathy allows, makes leaders to actually deliver along l together with the people that the leader is leading. The age we are in, you know normally. We see and we try to educate organizations and executives that we are not just in the digital age, digital economy; we are in an experience economy. Whatever value any organization will present to customers or employees that value can only be presented Via experience, and so if an organization is trying to deliver that using digital, then that digital must present an experience either to the employee or to the customer. So, in presenting that experience, it can’t be done by the leaders alone, it is not a world of what the leader says is what we must do, we are in a collaborative economic. collaboration is key. and so if a leader we would be able to collaborate with his team and by extension, helped the team to also collaborate with other people in the process that they have to manage, their empathy becomes the key to be able to see the perspective of both the theme that the leader is leading and also other people in the process, either externally or internally that the team has to relate with to be able to deliver value through an experience to employees or to customers so it’s not what to make a leader to be weak, it’s just the requirement to create an experience and deliver value in an experience in this age. A leader must be empathetic to be collaborating. Without it, it will be difficult for you to run processes that deliver value.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much. So having said that, you said empathy make us to be strong, make us to be more effective. Now, I want to ask you, how can we, how can an organization weave empathy into its digital strategy or into its digital culture?

Aderinola Oloruntoye:   OK, yeah, you know it is very important that empathy forms part of the culture of an organization because the concept of empathy is not something that is just a business in client like you know. Empathy is important for life to run day-to-day activities in the family, you know in the community. You know, empathy is just part of life. You know, I tell businesspeople and leaders that look, you know, I practice empathy. You know, for my own personal life and the things that I practice also help me when I run business, you know, activities or processes because empathy, you know empathy is helping us to see that there is a point of intersection between life itself, running life itself and running business and that is very important. Very, very important to note. So, it is so it is important you know that at the culture of an organization must be a culture that is empathy driven because if people don’t practice empathy in their daily lives, it will  be difficult to be empathetic to the people in the business that they manage either employees or customers, I would say three things that must happen; 1.organizations must understand empathy.2  Making impact part of the culture must start from the top from the executive, in fact from the board it must start from the board because nothing becomes a culture if it is not driven from the board, then 3. there must be a way to measure out empathetic a group, a business, you know, a set of people are, so the businesses must find a way to measure out empathetic they are and there are different ways, different ways. There are solutions now you know, to measure to experience, things that we couldn’t, now solutions that can help us measure those things. So, three things, 1) know what it is 2). drive it from the top and 3). If people are practicing it see how you’re progressing with being empathetic.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you, thank you. I want to ask how do you think we can bring empathy into product designs now, for the product designer out there? We’ve seen you know, product that designs that are never used that fill the marketplace, so how do you think we can bring empathy into product design?

Aderinola Oloruntoye:   OK, so empathy in product design has become one of the most important subject today in product design, whether physical products or digital products, whether it’s every product and the reason is because every product is made to create an experience, if the product today is not delivering an experience to the user of the product, then it would be difficult for that product to be acceptable by the people that it is intended for. So, we must know that you know people want an experience. That’s the first thing. So, if people will use my product, then the question is what experience will the product deliver, but before I would even get into the point of asking what experience will the product deliver, I must first find out what experience do they would be users of the product, what experience do they desire? And that’s where empathy comes in today because that’s why empathy is more or less the foundation of design thinking because we have to find out, we have to research, you know, some people call it, you know qualitative research which is more inclined to academic environment OK. Why some call it Empathy builders. OK, so, we have to find out what is the current experience of the people that will be the that will be the users of the product in the process that the product is meant to improve. What is their current Experience? Building empathy with them will help us understand their experience, their frustrations, their pain, how they feel about the process and possibly what do they desire from the process? What kind of experience do they really desire, empathy will help us identify that so that we can go into, you know the ideation, we know we can redefine, we can reframe the questions around what the product should deliver? Once you can reframe the questions around what the product should deliver based on empathy then we can move into ideation, to ideate and create a means to deliver what really the users want from the reframed questions and then prototype it, test it and then continue to evaluate it based on how the experience keeps changing because you know, design, product design should not be an event. It is a circle, is a continuous cycle because the users of products are always evolving and that is very, very important. Therefore, empathy, in product design is a continuous process. Continuous and that’s you know the way to have a product. That’s why you have many versions. Version 2.43, because the leading organizations today have found a way to continue to build empathy, understand how the users of the product are evolving and they use empathy to be able to deliver higher and higher value to them.

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Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much. Now, you talk about we talk about the product design.  However, you know, products don’t just exist on their own there is always a service that back it up and that leads me to looking at our service industry be it the bank, be it the consulting, be it the restaurants, whatever you can think of when you talk about service industry. In this part of the world, we tend to be believed that the services can be very poor, you go to the bank, there’s a long queue of people who went there because of service disruptions. You know of poor service. In government is a different thing entirely. How can we make impact to be a strategic part of a service design? In government, in the in the in the banking industry, insurance industry, the consulting industry, how can empathy be the core of service design.

Aderinola Oloruntoye: you know, Dr Iyanda, we’ve touched on this briefly earlier in this conversation. Um, it has to be part of the organization culture and you know, we are we, the economy we’re in, especially in Africa is not as competitive as the Western economy. That’s one thing we have observed and when competition is very low in an economy in this space, the motivation to improve service, the motivation to improve the experience of the customers in the processes that they have to go through for them to receive service from you; that motivation is very low. You know, that’s one big challenge, we have here in this part of the world in Africa. So, you know, I think that. Organizations in Africa in Nigeria must seek to deliver value based on global standard and I say this because many at times, we think that we are competing, particularly, in the digital economy that we’re in now, we are competing among ourselves in this geography, not knowing that our competition actually is now global. So, if we are not thinking if, we’re not empathetic and learning about the experience, that the customer desire, you will be surprised at the things, at how our business will be disrupted. I will give you one example. See the example of Flutterwave. Flutterwave is valued at over a billion dollars. Today, they completed another round of You funding some months ago now there has been analysis, you know everywhere that if flutterwave is a Nigerian bank, Flutterwave will either be the 3rd or 4th largest Nigerian bank. What did flutterwave do? Flutterwave simply looked at the experience involved in payment. In Africa, and they ask themselves, how can we improve this experience and deliver higher value to the users of this service which is payment service. Now the question you want to ask is. Didn’t the banks, who were the core providers of payment service before Flutterwave came into the picture? Didn’t they see that people had painful experience. Sometimes experience that are not desirable in the payment service. Didn’t they see it? I can assure you that they saw it, but because they felt that everybody else in this market. They their focus was on, was mainly on Michael Porter’s five forces of strategy that is looking at the competitive battleground. So, they felt. Everybody in the competitive battleground seems to be offering the same thing. They forgotten that invests in Michael Porter’s five forces, there is the provision of disruptions for new entrants, but they didn’t see that digital could empower a new entrance to deliver service in payment. And that has given flutterwave the opportunity. I see if care is not taken, I see many flutter waves coming up to disrupt other areas of service that the core industry incumbents are not looking at and the reason is very clear, they have not built empathy into their corporate strategy, definitely it will be difficult to see, to feel the problems of customers, to see their problems from the customers eyes and to hear with the years of the customer and therefore opportunity for disruption would just be open. That is my concern, but I think they are beginning to relook at their processes and beginning to rebuild the culture of empathy in service delivery now. I think so, but there is still much to be done, so much to be done.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so, it is apparent that one of the things that fuel poor service in Nigeria is lack of competition; the more you have absolutely, the better the service becomes, and I like the fact that you talked about this a warning right there saying just be careful because competition is coming, and it will come.

Aderinola Oloruntoye: Let me add government, you know, I know that I’m running away from answering, giving examples, perspective, government. I’m not running away, OK, but. You know, in this part of the world service from government is at the lowest, you know, I must admit it because that’s a fact and you know, it’s obvious that the political, the electoral process in itself must be designed to encourage service to the customers. who are the customers? The citizens who vote you know, people into positions. They must understand that look, that process in itself that brings out the people that will be voted for in itself must consider what do the people go through to vote the service. That service of election process in itself must be designed, and I’m just hoping that you know one of the clamors, particularly in Nigeria, in the last few weeks, you know, culminating into  the voting  the House and the Senate last week around electronic transmission and hoping that that clamor would be, you know, will produce the right kind of result, which is based on service to the people who are at the center of voting who desire right and you know, the best candidates to come forward that will service them. I’m hoping that it.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much. You know for that, talk about the government now in Nigeria, for instance, see the rising waves of insecurity. You see corruption becoming something that is intractable. We don’t even know how to deal with it, not to talk of poor service in government. Do you think if there is an empathic leadership every stratum society, do you think that could be the solution to some of these problems?

Aderinola Oloruntoye: Absolutely, that would be the solution, unfortunately, just like we mentioned earlier, what we asked today is the sympathetic leadership, not empathetic leadership. That’s why with every form of kidnapping that occurs anywhere in Nigeria, you we hear you will hear one statement. OK, we condemn the kidnapping, we condemn the banditry. It’s not just enough to condemn. That is sympathy. OK, the world doesn’t need those who are sympathetic anymore. The world needs people that are empathetic. Those who we want to possibly. See what it is to be in a kidnapper’s den, for one month or even for two days. Let’s see how it is to be the kidnappers’ den for two days. OK, you know I can imagine a president, you know, saying that? OK, let me disguise, let me open up myself to be kidnapped. I know with an arranged system, with all of the military force to be able to rescue him. Again, let me see. Let’s let the governor see what it is to be kidnapped. OK, if they feel what the people feel. If they feel what’s the parents of the children or Greenwich University?  The parent of Kankara secondary, the parents of Berger Baptist School, if they feel what the parents feel then I believe I believe that they will be able to ask themselves the right question.

You know to reframe the questions around security and ask themselves what we must do to even prevent this kidnapping in the 1st place so that they can be, you know, provide services, and provide experience for Nigerians and for the people that they desire.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you. So, feeling what you feel is critical in any organization critical if you feel what the customer feel, feel was the users feel, feel what the citizens feel you may be able to design a better solution. Now I want to ask you bias is an enemy of empathy. Those bias sometimes can be favorable to some people and be unfavorable to other people. How can organization manage bias in the workplace, bias in government bias in leadership? How do you think you can deal with our bias?

Aderinola Oloruntoye: Yeah, bias is one of the major enemies of empathy and unknowingly, I would say is an extension, one of the majors you know hurdles and hindrances to an organization becoming an experience organization that is one that creates experience for the for the people in that they serve either customers or their employees are specifically now. You know, for employees you know organizational bias is simply a mindset that says this is the way we do it, we know, in the last 5-10 years, we know what customer problems are or we know what employee problems are. Their problem is simply more salary. You know, having that kind of bias; you know even when you’re going, you’re going to develop a product or you want to set up a team, having a bias that we know the kind of people that should be in this thing or we know the people that we want to be in this thing, you know, I’ve been mindsets that it’s already cooked up. You know, in trying to execute a process, simply is what organizational bias is and it will not help any organization in a digital economy or in an experience economy. We must be able to ask the right questions about empathy. We must close our minds to the biases that we have. We must open our minds to new possibilities, to new opportunities. Whatever the people that are in the processes we are managing, we are trying to improve or that has a problem, whatever their feelings or their seeing, once there is a bias, we will never be able to see it. Because,

‘It has been proven that People normally don’t see what they’re looking at. They see what they’re looking for. ‘

So, when there is a bias, when you want to improve a process and there is a bias, bias by the team leader, you know bias generally from the culture, from the top, you know then the real problems in the process will be staring with us in their face. But because there is a bias, we will not see it, rather what we will be seeing would be the questions that we have that we already have in the mind, in our mind, before trying to attempt to look at the process and what the problem is, we will be seeing the questions that we have in mind with respect to the people the persona involved in the process. We will not see the major things, in fact, we will never be able to see at all even what the personas themselves in that process, what they don’t even know. One of the beauties about empathy and having bias, having an open mind when you’re building empathy. One of the beauties is that sometimes even the people involved in the process did not even know their problem. And so unless there’s an open mind, there is no bias, we will not discover  the things that even the people in the process themselves don’t even know, and many at times what they don’t even know themselves is what leads to innovation, is what leads to novel solutions to their problems or biases will close our mind, close our ears, close our eyes to the core of the problems of the people involved in the process we want to improve or the one that has a problem.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much Derin, so as we close. I want to ask you can empathy be thoughts.

Aderinola Oloruntoye: That is our work at design Thinkers Academy. We teach empathy. That’s our, that’s our call. We teach empathy. We have taught hundreds of people how to build empathy business and we are still teaching so it can be taught, and it’s being taught and will continue to be taught by design thinkers academy.

Olukunle A. Iyanda Thank you so much. So, I finally, what is that uncommon insights that you have to share with our audience. Regarding empathy, everything we have discussed you know today. What is that thought, what is that idea that want to show to them especially for those in Start-ups and SMEs, those in leadership position.

Aderinola Oloruntoye: OK, uncommon idea about empathy and integrating empathy would be what if all entrepreneurs, CEOs. What if team leaders can run, you know there is this show there is this. There is this show on pay TV which is about the CEO of a company that disguises himself. I’m trying to remember the name of the show now you know that disguises himself to go and see and experiences, the processes that the staff you know, go through and you know, I love that show so much because it is. It’s once, you know, it shows what CEO has done simply is to build empathy. And it shows how, it shows how good empathy will help any leader to be able to delivers service to the people that is serving. So, what if leaders you know, make this, you know process of disguising themselves and then trying to experience the process that the employees experience so that they can be able to build services, deliver services, creative services for the people involved in the process you know, and then for the employees’ support, it is important. You know, I think that every company should have his own undercover boss. Yeah, that’s the name of the program. Yeah, Leaders in startups should be able to have their own undercover boss program so that you can feel what the people, either your customers or your employees, feel what they feel here what they hear, see what they see so that you can design services and value that meets will their needs.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much Derin. On that note, I will bring this. discussion to an end, and it is a pleasure to have you on this program.

Aderinola Oloruntoye: Thank you. Thank you very Dr Iyanda.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Spark by BROOT Consulting. To subscribe to this show on iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS, head over to www.brootc.com /spark so you never miss a show while you’re at it. If you found value. We appreciate our rating or simply tell a friend or colleague about the show and that will help us out. You might also want to check out our open workshop for the month or the free resources and materials on our website www. Brootc.com

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About the author(s)

• Olukunle A. Iyanda, PhD is the Chief Executive Officer of BROOT Consulting.
• Aderinola Oloruntoye, Senior/Facilitator/Director Digital Transformation, Design thinkers Academy Nigeria.
• Adeola Ojoawo, PhD is BROOT Consulting, Director of Strategy & Growth.