It's hard to know what you haven't been taught.
Most of us didn't receive any purposeful instruction on how to be empathetic and connect with others.  We seldom teach it in our MBA programs or our onboarding.  

And yet, we need our leaders, managers, and team members to operate in this skillset again and again.

Maybe solstice is the invitation you need – if you don’t feel abundant or generous - if this year was hard and cold and only looks to be more of the same. 

The end of the year is a naturally reflective time where we set revenue goals and resolutions.  For forward-thinking companies, it is also a time both to celebrate and to mark loss.

At it's heart - empathy demands that we value people enough to sit with the gravity/impact of their stories/perspectives - to be affected.

Violence is awful, reforms are necessary when systems repeatedly fail people.

And there is definitely room for reform + increased empathy within these systems.

Holidays can be hard: instead of being marked by Hallmark charm/glowing gratitude, they can be an aching reminder of pain.

You can choose to spend a lot of time and energy in judgment/annoyance - or you can engage your curiosity and wonder

The reality is, in the working world, you are (probably) going to have to continue to be in contact with people who vote differently than you do. 

And, I get it, you might be so emotionally flooded right now that curiosity and relationship seem out of reach.  However, I encourage you not to burn bridges.  The way that people change their minds is through relationships with real people who think differently than they do. 

Whether it is 1992 or 2024, elections come with high stakes and big emotions.  And 2024 is no different.  A recent report from the American Psychology Association found that 3 of every 4 Americans are stressed about election day (next Tuesday!).

A helpful question to ask, at work and in life, is –

What else might be going on here? or Why might that person be responding the way that they are?

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. And, until you enter that bleak landscape of grief, there is much you would not know.

Every time we talk about AI, we are necessarily talking about human-centric skills.  As we ponder what tasks/capabilities that we can/should offload to artificial intelligence we are, by necessity, talking about what we should not offload - what are the tasks, the interactions, the capabilities that we want delivered to us from other humans?

"I love DC but I hate it here right now" a friend confided. Perhaps you feel it too - a certain exhaustion + dread six weeks out from the election.