In just nine months, Amanda Halbersma, a Public Insight Network source, went from buying a foreclosed home to worrying about the possibility of foreclosure with that very same house.
Several years ago, Marcia Miller of Minneapolis worked as an administrative law judge for Arizona’s unemployment department. Last fall she was forced to file for unemployment herself. Despite adjudicating the unemployment process many times, Miller says didn’t truly understand the frustration with the process until she went through herself.
“In fact, I didn't even know how to apply [for unemployment benefits]," says Miller.
Hard times have a way of building empathy. More people are seeing how the other half lives, because now they’re one of them. In July, there were 75,000 more people unemployed in Minnesota then there were a year ago. A third more people in Minnesota filed for bankruptcy than a year ago.
There’s an upside here, for people, and for businesses. Some business leaders suggest the capacity to care is a good thing for the economy. Business strategist Dev Patnaik, author of “Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy,†says the problem with business isn’t a lack of innovation; it’s a lack of empathy.
In an interview with MSNBC, Patnaik said the organizations that survive economic crisis are those with empathetic cultures and managers who are able to step outside themselves and walk in someone else’s shoes. “It’s about having intuition and a gut feeling for other people,†he explains.
Marcia Miller says her upbringing and professional pursuits gave her sympathy for those getting unemployment benefits. She grew up in a small Iowa town where her parents struggled to own a home and make a living. She worked her way through school, earned a law degree from the University of Minnesota.
But sympathy (feeling for someone) is very different than empathy (walking a mile in their shoes). And it wasn’t until years later, when she moved to Minnesota and struggled to find a job, that she truly understood the frustration with the unemployment process, by applying herself.
â€You worry that one wrong move may keep you from receiving benefits,†she says, “It's not an easy process for people."
Last fall, Amanda Halbersma and her husband bought a foreclosed condo in Minneapolis. At the time, she focused on what a good deal she was getting, not on why she was getting a good deal. "We thought we were pretty smart," she says.
Then, in early 2009, Halbersma lost her job. And suddenly the good deal became "an albatross." How would they swing the mortgage payment with only one income? Would they have to consider selling? What if the house fell into foreclosure? Halbersma landed a new job within a few months. Still, the threat of losing her home cured her naïveté.
“Now I'm much more keenly aware," she says. "I learned what people who go through this have to deal with."
Still, that empathy wouldn’t prevent Halbersma from buying a foreclosure in the future, she says, largely because she wouldn’t begrudge someone from getting a home that she was forced to leave.
As for Miller, she’s still looking for work. And she’s skeptical that her experience will translate on a resume. Insight is fine, she says, "but does that help me practically in life, in getting work? I'm not so sure."
What are your stories of empathy and understanding in this economy? Tell us here.
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Comments: 17
For example knowing the housing market was in an extremely overbought situation and the prices were over two to three times the real value usually 'empathy' is not a good thing to have. We at many times think it is, but in reality it's not.
I my opinion right now the housing market is in a very good position to buy. However, jobs aren’t stable and stable income is paramount when considering buying a home. I’m one of those that think this recession will last past 2016, but don’t ask why I feel that way for I won’t tell you. Therefore a stable job is probably the most important thing for one to have for the next eight years. Not Marriage, not kids, not schooling but a stable job. We are now, at this time, in a survival time frame and the time for empathy certainly is not relevant at all now, financial stability for a person now is the paramount thing, and for many will be the only thing.
Basically trying to use feelings to understand another. That would be different than rational understanding by observation. Rational understand that the financial situation would be grave if they lost their job might have deterred them from buying the home now. Renting was an option that was available and as the square feet of a home being rented now is cheaper, and also more frugal but not considered.
Therefore I use the word understand as a more rational thought on this matter than the word empathy of what another went through. Also to ‘care’ for something because of empathy, without understanding is a fool’s game in my opinion
I have heard many people speaking in denial of the current economic dangers. They are whistling past the graveyard. All around us, even in the most affluent neighborhoods, people are quietly going bankrupt.
So many people did not think the bankruptcy of the automakers would affect them. Some are still insisting they won't be affected. It's a question of when, not if.
Maybe this story qualifies for an empathetic story: During the Depression, my grandparents, who had grown up working hard to survive and had known poverty, helped as many people as possible.
Grandpa ordered more coal for the furnace than they needed. He cut back their own coal consumption and gave away coal to families in need. My grandma bought up very ripe produce and day old baked goods and distributed them to families saying "Please take this food off my hands. I bought too much." which allowed them to keep their pride.
They owned a rental house and allowed a family to live there rent free, just to keep the pipes from freezing.
I think once we have been in a difficult situation, we can recognize the same in someone else's life. Having been there and done that, we want to help others survive. Maybe someday those people will help someone else.
The fundamental problem is that the economic marketplace is built on competition. Competition cannot exist with empathy, because once you empathize with someone, once you feel for them, you want to help them... and you cannot make the profit you need to in the modern marketplace if you're helping the competition. It can probably exist in little pockets or anomalies, enought to make economists feel good, but in general empathy will never be valued by the marketplace.
Yet what "empathy" as you all are explaining it to me is ingrained in our psyche. That is why we have this seemingly contradictory tendency to display altruism very readily.
You cannot predict the future, so help out people when they are down and one of them will help you when you are down. That's happened to me often. It also has the benefit of encouraging a competetor to become a partner or ally, thus enhancing both your prospects.
That move changed an enemy to a kind of ally who has actually assisted them in their defence.
Wheras that was actually done out of self-interest and not empathy, it illustrates what can result when kindness is extended to a competitor.
Empathizing opens up some of those doors.
But to the last point... can a fiercely competitive society learn to collaborate? Or, does a society that values winning, value something else when more people are struggling?
Just more food for thought.
Yes as there is always greed to contend with.
It's worth repeating that there is one person out there who has written a book that claims business has long missed the boat on understanding the marketplace, because they haven't been willing to empathize with potential buyers.
Check out the blog by Dev Patnaik for a smattering of his thoughts. http://www.wiredtocare.com/
Target management outsourced over 7,000 jobs to folks from India or elsewhere as the labor costs were cheaper. I’m not angry at Target, I feel that they did the right thing in those areas; otherwise they may have not survived. The greed of survival was the paramount reason that Target did those things, not empathy.