Trading Places: A Hack for Practical Empathy

Paul is the principal of Bird Advisory in Perth, Western Australia.

  Career Development   Leadership   Risk Management  

Empathy is a trait that helps society to function. That great student of human nature, Adam Smith (1759), saw that “through imagination, we have an ability to put ourselves in another’s shoes; an ability both innate and learned which has great utility.”

By the 1990s, “emotional intelligence” had come into common parlance and a positive correlation was drawn between empathy and success in life by researchers such as Daniel Goleman. The way to learn the capacity to place oneself in another’s position was said to be focusing and paying attention to weak signals.  

It sounds tough. And a little theoretical. But there is a hack for understanding what it’s like to be in the other person’s boots—and that is to try them on. “Trading places” can be a very practical way to supercharge empathy and all the good that can come from it.

The Tandem Bike

My riding buddy Dave and I formed a team on his tandem bicycle for long-distance events. The conventional approach is to specialize in the positions of captain (front) and stoker (rear)—each requiring the development of certain skills. As stoker, I had to contribute power in synch with the captain and learn to listen, feel and trust the shifts in body weight and momentum.

At first it felt totally unnatural. I’d want to resist leaning blindly …

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