With AI we are entering a new era in which technology can tabulate information, recognize patterns, answer questions, and write reports at a phenomenal speed, and do tasks that would require a massive amount of human time and effort. This has huge implications for our future and what kind of skills are still important for humans to acquire. Being the smartest person in the room has little value if artificial intelligence can pull up more accurate information than the entire room has, and assess that information in moments.
There is, however, an aspect that we humans possess that AI does not: It cannot authentically care about others and make them feel heard. Doug Noll, author of Empathy Leadership, puts it this way: “Empathy is the learned ability to observe and name the emotional experience of another person from that person’s frame of reference.”
Noll has a unique background as a lawyer turned peacemaker. From 2010 to 2020 he and his colleague Laurel Kaufer trained thousands of incarcerated people in California on how to stop prison violence, using empathy as the foundational skill for de-escalation and nervous system regulation. “Empathy suffers from a vague idea about another person’s feelings,” Noll says. “It is not vague. It is a precise neurophysiological skill that anyone can quickly learn and apply.”
Noll and Kaufer’s work remind us of how powerful empathy can be. Here are four crucial ways empathy matters in the workplace that cannot be outsourced to AI.
1. Appreciation
We know that people don’t necessarily leave organizations because of factors such as salary, workload, or lack of advancement. Often, they leave because they don’t feel recognized and appreciated. I recently read of a 20-year employee receiving an email recognizing her time with the organization. When she read the email, she discovered that it had been generated by AI.
Imagine her disappointment when she realized that her manager could not be bothered to use his own words to write a personal note. While technically she was recognized, it fell very short of feeling appreciated.
2. Relationships
Workplaces are more than places where we go to complete tasks that we are paid to do. Social attachments are formed and relationships built that often reach outside the workspace and carry on after. Sure, AI can provide massive amounts of information, but human experience and understanding of nuances and historical background is required to use that information beneficially and ethically to build relationships with other people. These relationships can help us find purpose and meaning in our work.
3. Trust
Trust is one of the essential ingredients of a workplace in which we feel safe, included, respected, and appreciated. It is trust that allows people to feel safe to voice their opinions and take risks, knowing that their leaders will have their backs if things don’t work out as planned. In my book Emotional Intelligence Game Changers, one of the sections speaks to how leaders can develop trust.
Trust takes time to build and can be easily destroyed. As humans we are hardwired for connection and want to be able to trust. Trust forms slowly through sharing with others, and coming to know and believe that the sharing will be safe with them.
Building trust is an emotional process that rests upon our feelings about someone and our ability to empathize with them. While AI can mimic emotions, it is unable to feel.
4. Understanding
Empathy helps us understand ourselves and others. It provides us with tools to understand others, respond with care, and make them feel safe around us. Through understanding our emotions we come to recognize how we come across to others and develop a better understanding of how others may think or feel differently.
More than having access to the best technology, leaders will need to develop their people through understanding how to connect with them, earn their trust, and bring out the best of their abilities. Without building these crucial foundations in their people, the best technology cannot be used to its full potential.
AI will not help us build the workplace memories that matter
When we look back to our work, our memories will not be of the technology that we worked with. They will be of leaders who saw potential in us that we didn’t see in ourselves. These memories will be of connections and friendships that we formed with coworkers and people we came into contact with. While technology will change, come, and go, the relationships we build will form lasting impressions and memories that will stay forever.