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Excerpted from No More Status Quo: A Proven Framework to Change the Way We Change the World by Heather Hiscox © 2023 (forthcoming). Reprinted with permission.

This excerpt comes from my forthcoming book, No More Status Quo: A Proven Framework to Change the Way We Change the World, and is aimed at addressing common feelings of disillusionment within the nonprofit sector. The book tackles hard questions about whether passionately created programs really transform lives, or why nonprofits so often jump to solutions and waste resources, often without a process to guide their decision making. All of this is written with an eye toward creating tools to illuminate better paths forward. In this section, I take a look at empathy—and how to connect with others authentically, a critical component of so much social sector work.

NPQ readers can sign up to receive notifications when the book is ready for pre-order and to receive a copy of the first chapter here.

Empathy is complex, and there are several very important elements to consider when you are thinking about how you might understand another person’s perspective.

It is a myth that you can, through conversation or by mimicking another person’s experience, truly understand what it is to be them. We often hear about “walking in someone else’s shoes,” but I question if this is really possible. I like the idea that many share about how we need to “remove our own shoes before trying on another’s,” but I think there is tension and significant uncertainty within empathy that must be explored.

In an excellent article called “Stop Bastardizing Design with False Empathy,” Ovetta Sampson, VP head of design machine learning and responsible artificial intelligence at Capital One, says, “As a Black woman in America, I can tell you that few people in the world can know what it’s like to ‘walk in my shoes.’ And if you think that the result of empathy in design is all about you trying to really understand what another person is going through while leaving you unchanged[,] then you are an empathy offender.”

In the article, she goes deep into the many forms of empathy and how empathy transforms us. Sampson discusses the work of Daniel Goleman, who coined and defined the term “emotional intelligence,” and the three levels of empathy.

The first level is cognitive/intellectual empathy. This is the empathy most folks are familiar with and mistakenly refer to when talking about empathy in human-centered design. Cognitive or intellectual empathy occurs when we know what others feel and what they think. If you think about this in terms of the design process, this happens in the story telling phase, [t]he “what we heard” phase of our design research shares. In this phase, designers talk to people, write down what they said and share photos and quotes to communicate what they heard. A lot of folks stop here and expect this to build empathy.

The second level of empathy is emotional empathy. Sampson writes, “This is when you feel physically along with the other person, or feel what they feel, as though their emotions were contagious. Empaths famously have this ability. But research shows though we’re neurologically wired to have emotional empathy, that instinct can fade over time.” […]

The third level of empathy is compassion empathy, or empathetic concern. This is the level of empathy that moves you to action, as you not only understand what someone is facing and how they feel, but you want to try to do something about it. You can listen and not be motivated to do anything, or you can listen, and it lights a fire under you to be better, learn more, and cocreate. […]

While our positionalities can limit walking in someone else’s shoes, you can and should try to experience something similar to what stakeholders might be experiencing. Not in
an attempt to convince yourself that you have achieved full understanding, but to create a deeper connection between what you hear and what you do to support that person. For example, when the financial collapse that was caused by COVID-19 hit the United States, more people than ever before had to navigate government websites, bureaucracies, and delays to apply for unemployment benefits and loans. Some said that, for the first time, it exposed many wealthier Americans to the painfully frustrating and demoralizing experiences that many community members have endured to gain access to government benefits.

If you cannot or have not experienced exactly what someone is experiencing, like applying for government benefits, you can still connect with the feelings of confusion and powerlessness. Maybe consider how you felt when you got your first loan from a financial institution, when you filled out your first job application, last did your own taxes, or maybe filed for divorce. You probably weren’t sure whom to talk to, what questions to ask, what information to include and where, and you probably had some apprehension about the outcome. While the experiences and instances are different, the emotions are similar in many ways. You can add layers of imagination to this exercise if you envision that the only paperwork you can find is not in your first language and think of how you might solve the problem of finding support from someone to help you. Maybe consider what you might do if you had another significant barrier, such as lacking a social security number or ID. What do you do then? One response could be just thinking, “Yes, filling out paperwork can be confusing,” and another could be to connect the dots of the emotions embedded in other people’s experiences with something that was challenging, confusing, infuriating, and defeating for you.

Connecting empathetically is about opening your mind and embracing complexity. At its root, empathy is about understanding that your perspective is just your own and that you are providing space for another person’s experience and their truth to live alongside your own. To be successful empathetically, you are not only connecting to a feeling within you that is the same as or similar to the feeling of another person, but also detaching and untangling your own emotions and experiences from theirs. When you connect with stakeholders, you will hear stories, ideas, justifications, experiences, and explanations that might be very different from your own, and you must be open to challenging your own immediate judgments and assumptions. Without acknowledging this attachment-detachment dance, you might listen to the experience of another, unintentionally compare it to your own, form judgment, and potentially dismiss, undervalue, or even develop contempt for that person. Sadly, this happens every day, and we are all guilty.

I experienced a gift when I first started doing this work that totally shifted my thinking about empathy. I was coaching a multiday event with an organization, and there was a woman on a team who seemed really grumpy about having to be part of the training. She appeared distracted, short-tempered, and easily frustrated. My brain immediately went to judgment. I made the assumption that she was pulling back from the work.
I judged that she was not participating in the ways I thought she should to really demonstrate commitment to the process. As the training continued, I decided to check in with her, so during a break, I strategically lined up next to her at the snack table and asked her how she was doing.

She told me it was her first day back from maternity leave. It was the first time she had left her infant in childcare, and she was in pain because she needed to pump breast milk and was trying to find a way to do that in the rapid flow of the workshop. She was feeling very mixed emotions: excitement about being back with her colleagues but also tremendous sadness and anxiety about being away from her baby. This interaction stopped me in my tracks, and I have never forgotten the shame I felt at that moment as a fellow mother who has felt those very same feelings. I was so ashamed that my judgment had created a story about and for this woman when I was totally uninformed.

Just as we all are biased, we all need to do internal work before we can be positioned for optimal connection fueled by empathy. We must acknowledge that what we think we know about a person from what we see on the outside might be in no way connected to what is really going on with a person on the inside. There are many times when the joyful person I have shown to others masked pain, sadness, and grief, and I think this has been true at some point for most of us.

We must also do the work involved in experiencing the shame, disappointment, and discomfort we might feel when we misstep, as this is an essential piece of self-empathy and self-awareness, which are key to connecting empathetically with others. I felt awful and was so angry with myself after I had wrongfully judged this new mother, but I sat with and processed those feelings, and the experience imprinted a powerful lesson I will never forget. None of us is perfect empathetically, but when we do the work to hone our empathy skills, not only will our potential solutions and organizations be elevated, but we will also be transformed.

Copyright:

Hiscox, Heather. No More Status Quo: A Proven Framework to Change the Way We Change the World, pp. 152-156 © 2023 (forthcoming). Reprinted with permission.

This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Quarterly. See the original article here.

Join us on October 20^th for a webinar addressing the themes of this article. Co-author Cathy Dang will be joined by Ingrid Benedict and Isabel Sousa-Rodriguez. Register here.

Much has been written about the wave of incoming BIPOC leadership at nonprofits and about how philanthropy needs to better support these leaders. Yet, we continue to hear that BIPOC nonprofit leaders feel under-supported and overwhelmed in their new positions. Clearly, something isn’t working.

While the general sentiment is that funders want BIPOC leaders to succeed, especially leaders who come from the communities they serve, stories continue to emerge about how these leaders have been set up to fail. Incoming BIPOC leaders often face impatience from staff to quickly get up and running, sometimes while cleaning up an organization’s inherited financial or programmatic woes. Often an organization’s first leader of color, they are frequently expected to reverse a long history of entrenched racism while serving a majority-white board. Leaders try to accomplish these Herculean tasks with little time to settle into their roles and often with meager support, especially from anxious funders.

Many experts have offered sound—but insufficient—ideas for how philanthropy can do better: provide more flexible money, build longer on ramps for transition, and embrace succession planning and transition as normal parts of an organization’s life cycle—to name a few.

We believe the problem is deeper. Poor funder behavior during transitions—whether it’s pulling back support, micro-managing, or prescribing unhelpful “best practices”—is rampant in the philanthropic sector. This behavior leaves nonprofits, especially nonprofits run by BIPOC leaders, confused, weakened, and vulnerable. It jeopardizes organizations’ visions, needs, and critical work to uplift communities.

As a former nonprofit executive director who faced these challenges and a funder who works alongside grantees during such struggles, we’ve seen and experienced harmful philanthropic behavior firsthand. Funders need to fundamentally reimagine how they think about leadership transitions to make such occurrences more equitable, supportive, and transformative for organizations.

Funders must honestly explore and shift the impact of white-dominant power structures that define what leaders look like, how organizations are structured, and who holds power. Philanthropy holds a set of harmful assumptions that show up throughout the transition process in ways that are both painfully obvious and dangerously subtle.

Who’s on deck? In the private sector, we celebrate succession planning. Leaders are expected to leave, and organizations invest time and energy in building leadership teams. But in the nonprofit world, funders have an overreliance on individual leaders. We celebrate and uplift them, and our relationships and leadership investments often stop at the C-suite. When leaders depart an organization, often no one is ready to step up and replace them because the executive pipeline has been neglected. This situation can lead to funder panic. In the worst cases, organizations fold because of a perceived inability to move forward, leaving gaping holes for underserved communities.

Boards as experts: The dominant narrative around best transition practices is that boards should take the lead. Funders reinforce this model through words and action, happily paying for consultants to work with boards on the transition process but rarely providing support for a more inclusive process where community members and staff share decision-making and input. Sometimes, communities and staff are asked for their input, but in superficial fashion—ultimately, the board will make the decision, often in opposition to community feedback. Without any real decision-making power for the community, when there isn’t alignment between the board and a community, the board’s preferences will always win. These dynamics may disenfranchise community members and devalue their perspectives. The outcome is often the hiring of a leader of color who meets the needs of the board but not of the community. While boards are legally charged with making hiring decisions, there are other stakeholders whose buy-in is critical to organizational transition and whose experience with the community’s culture and needs are often deeper than the board’s. These stakeholders should have a real say in the choice of leadership.

Hierarchy produces the best leaders: Many funders assume that one structure—usually a rigid hierarchy—fits all organizations and that hierarchical organizations are most efficient in their decision-making, but that doesn’t apply to all organizations and doesn’t develop long-term community leadership. This assumption means that organizations do not feel empowered to determine their own leadership structures to best fit their work. It also results in organizational structures that often burn out individual leaders, who hold the weight of so many decisions on their shoulders. Alternative leadership structures include co-directorship, collectives, or a leadership body led by community members—models that should be considered.

New leaders have the skill sets funders favor: When there is a vacancy at the top of an organization, philanthropy values leaders with traditional skills sets and a track record of executive experience in financial management and strategic planning. Funders also tend to trust leaders who can speak their elite language, with the use of philanthropy-friendly vocabulary and an emphasis on the written word. But this perspective does not consider the needs of an organization or community. Finding a leader whose culture, lived experience, and values match that of an organization’s community base is vital. Even if a person does not fit the traditional leadership mold, they might be best positioned to carry out an organization’s mission.

Transitions are “problems” that need a fast fix: Funders who support transitions usually emphasize the selection process as a “solution” rather than seeing succession planning and transition as a natural part of an organizational lifecycle. Instead of supporting a specific transition, funders should make consistent investments over time and include succession planning as part of their thinking on organizational strengthening. Focusing solely on the moment of transition deprives organizations of capacity development, making them less likely to succeed in the long run.

These assumptions and mindsets lead to misguided and harmful attitudes and actions. It’s time for funders to fundamentally change the way they approach transitions by centering organizations and communities. Here’s a helpful place to start:

• Ask questions: The most valuable thing you can do as a funder is to ask your grantees questions—before, during, and after a transition. This includes questions about succession planning, capacity-building outside the C-suite, community engagement during the hiring process, and how the leadership structure might evolve. All these questions signal that funders are open to listening and thinking outside the box. One of the most critical questions is what kind of support the organization needs during transition. Nonprofits may request that funders cover expenses like coaching or consultants, staff retreats, facilitated meetings of outgoing and incoming executive directors, trainings, health insurance and placement support for the outgoing ED, translations, interpretations, and even food costs for group trainings. Funding requests will vary based on organizations’ needs and complexity. Transition budget requests can be expansive, and funders should be open to all supports that an organization requires.

• Reconsider your timeline: Patience and an extended timeline are vital for successful transitions. Organizations should design transition processes that embrace the values and voices of the communities they serve—and funders need to bolster these efforts. Deeply inclusive transitions that build buy-in take time but ultimately lead to better and stronger nonprofits. Organizations must be supported before the outgoing leader leaves. The new leader requires time and support to settle into their role and build the resources they need to succeed.
• Think beyond the ED: Invest in the whole organization and its mission, not just the executive director. That means meeting with people working at different levels and in different departments and supporting their professional trajectories. This could include something as simple as inviting people in diverse roles to funder-hosted events to help them network and spotlight their work. This approach builds the capacity of the entire organization and ensures more continuity during transitions. It can also create a leadership pipeline that increases the likelihood of promotion from within when an ED leaves.
• Embrace discomfort: Transitions may result in leaders whom the community trusts but with whom donors aren’t comfortable. Sometimes, a new leader comes in with an approach that differs from that of a prior leader, causing internal tension. Discomfort is important. There is always tension with new leadership, and everyone—board, funders, staff, and community—needs to be ready for it. Funders must be prepared to extend new leaders patience and grace as they settle into their roles and sometimes make important changes. Stumbles and surprises will happen as an incoming executive director digs in. Funders must be comfortable with these unpredictable rhythms.
• Have their back: Help organizations prepare for transitions by offering every option for building a pipeline of leaders, organizational development, and transition support. A nonprofit should not worry about funding cuts in the middle of a transition; reassure the organization that funding will continue even if challenges arise. Most importantly: have honest conversations with the organization about what it needs throughout the transition process and offer information about what other organizations in similar circumstances have done.
• Look in the mirror: By nature, leadership changes are messy, non-linear, and uncomfortable processes. Funders should channel this discomfort to examine their own behaviors and consider: What do I need to change? How can I change and partner with grantees in a different way?

Sometimes, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, new leadership does not work out. Though disappointing, this need not be disruptive. An organization may require different kinds of leaders at different points in its evolution, leading to several transitions over the course of a decade. But if funders invest in the whole of an organization and its mission, these changes will feel like normal developments rather than scary surprises that jeopardize a nonprofit’s future.

Transitions are a healthy part of an organization’s evolution. It’s time that funders start acting that way by talking about and preparing for transitions alongside staff and community. This involves continual commitment to an organization’s mission and impact—and making that commitment clear through ongoing engagement and trusting dialogue.

This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Quarterly. See the original article here.