WHEN on Topic: Towards a culture of empathy

Penelope: Welcome to WHEN on Topic. I’m Penelope Theodorakakou, and I’m back with you once again to talk about women’s professional and economic empowerment and equality at work, and sometimes beyond work as well. This season of our podcast is dedicated to care responsibilities and their equal distribution, and it comes to you thanks to CAREdiZO.

What is CAREdiZO? It is a project in which we participate as part of the European Commission’s CERV programme, which aims to bridge the gender gap in care responsibilities by promoting equality practices at home, in very small businesses and in small civil society organisations. The project supports family-friendly policies, encourages men to participate in care, and highlights the value of care in society more broadly — essentially everything we have been advocating for all this time.

Our other project partners are from Cyprus, Lithuania and Bulgaria, and they are currently creating their own podcasts as well, which you may have the chance to discover in the near future.

In this episode, I’m joined by Vassilis Kiosses, a psychologist and Doctor of Medicine, and we talk about something that concerns all of us, employees, employers and managers, but that we rarely name as something “essential” in the workplace: empathy.

And about how the presence of empathy  -that little word- or its absence, determines whether a workplace can truly support the people who make it what it is.

And I’d like to make a special mention here of one of the organisation’s volunteers, Nicoletta Roussaki, whose idea this episode was: to talk about empathy and the role it plays in the workplace. Nicoletta is the person who supports us with creating the transcripts of these episodes, in Greek and in relation to translation. Just as she did with the transcripts of all the previous episodes, she gave us this idea as well.

Vassilis, when I think of empathy, I think of you. And many other things, but I think of you. So, welcome, and thank you so much for accepting our invitation.

Vassilis: I’m glad that when you hear “empathy,” you think of me. It means either something has gone very well, or I’ve overdone it. History will tell.

Penelope: History will tell.

Vassilis: It’s good to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Penelope: It’s good to have you. Would you like to tell us a little more about yourself than what I said?

Vassilis: Sure. So, I’m a psychologist. The main part of my work is psychotherapy; that’s what I do. But I deliberately said “the main part,” because there are also some other areas that I’ve been actively involved in for many years. One of them is training healthcare professionals in empathy. I’ve developed a training programme around it; that was the focus of my doctoral studies. I’ve been doing it with a lot of love for quite a few years now.

And another part of my work involves interventions in companies and organisations that want to offer something related to emotional intelligence, I would say. And from there, it opens up a whole conversation about what that means for each person and what need they are trying to address.

Penelope: I’m going to go backwards for a moment, because you’ve just created a question for me. You also partly answered it, because you said that your work with healthcare professionals began with your doctoral research. But what is it about this particular field when it comes to empathy?

Vassilis: So, why do we talk about empathy within healthcare? That was actually my whole challenge during my doctoral studies: to prove that this was a conversation worth having. It was perhaps even more difficult than developing the methodology for the programme.

Penelope: Okay, okay.

Vassilis: Because I was in a medical school, surrounded by epidemiologists who were used to speaking in terms of data and numbers, while I was talking about a skill that they usually considered a “soft” skill. But even when we look at the data, the reason we talk about empathy in medicine is that we have an enormous amount of evidence. We have hundreds of studies showing that a healthcare professional’s empathy can affect even the length of a patient’s hospital stay.

It affects diagnosis. An empathetic doctor makes more accurate diagnoses, makes fewer medical errors and orders fewer unnecessary laboratory tests. We have studies showing that a patient with a respiratory condition has fewer asthma attacks. We have better glycated haemoglobin levels in diabetic patients. Even up to two days faster recovery in patients with respiratory infections. There are millions of studies. Millions, that’s an exaggeration. Thousands of studies.

Penelope: Let’s be exaggerated, it’s okay.

Vassilis: And the data are conclusive by now. No one can really dispute it. And this isn’t something new. It’s not by chance that we have Hippocrates from much earlier saying: “Listen to your patient, they are telling you the diagnosis. Listen carefully to the patient, they are telling you the diagnosis.” And later there was another, less famous person, not like Hippocrates. Asclepiades, who taught his students that treatment should be quick, painless and empathetic. So we have writings going back to that time that speak precisely about the value of empathy.

That’s in the West, because in the East these things were much more developed. They saw the individual as a person, as a whole, anyway, so they didn’t fragment knowledge in the same way.

Penelope: As I listen to you talk about this, I’m thinking about two things. One is that I want us to hold on to the fact that you were talking to epidemiologists, they were speaking in terms of data, and you were talking about a skill they considered a “soft” skill.

And as soon as you said that, I found myself transported to the environment of a small business or a small organisation, where things are going well or they’re not going well, people leave, people join, we have clients, we don’t have clients. And someone brings up the subject of empathy in a meeting, let’s say. I’m keeping that as a little fantasy for us to discuss later.

But I want us to take a step back. Before empathy, I want you to tell me — because we’re not two people who… I mean, I don’t believe that we are… You are not professional Vassilis and human Vassilis, with a personal life, and those two things being separate. So I want you to tell me, as Vassilis, what is care for you? What does care mean?

Vassilis: Care? Wow. I think care has an addressee and it involves action. That’s what distinguishes it. Care is… I authorise a part of myself to become a provider, to become a source towards something else. So care has an outward direction, it has an inward direction, but it involves movement, it involves action.

Penelope: And where is empathy in that action? In other words, is empathy part of care?

Vassilis: It is.

Penelope: And how many times have you been asked that question?

Vassilis: Okay, okay. I’ll tell you. You can be empathetic without necessarily caring for someone. You cannot care if you are not empathetic.

Penelope: Or you cannot care effectively? Or you cannot care, period? Is there such a thing as effective care? I don’t know.

Vassilis: Exactly, exactly. Effective care, and effective for whom, ultimately? From whose perspective are we evaluating it? In any case, in order to care, it has to mean something to you. It is an action, a movement that has meaning. You give some meaning to the experience. It means that somehow you connect with a part of yourself in order to be able to provide it. Otherwise, without motivation, we’re not talking about care.

Penelope: Let me challenge that, though. I may not necessarily want to care for a member of my family. My mother, my father, for example, with whom I may have no relationship as an adult, and suddenly I find myself in a position where I have to provide care for them. Why? Because there is no one else. But I have the role of primary caregiver for these people, or I suddenly acquire it. Where is that movement there? I am forced to move in that direction. And if we take this into the professional, the workplace context, that can have a huge consequence for me. I may have to leave work earlier, say no to training programmes, to trips, withdraw from my hobbies, from other activities. Where do I find the motivation there?

Vassilis: That’s not care.

Penelope: What is it, then?

Vassilis: There I’m simply carrying out a task. I’m performing a role. It’s not care. So it isn’t experienced as care. That’s why it’s so burdensome. That’s why it brings up all sorts of issues afterwards, because it is something that isn’t compatible with me. I’m not doing it authentically. I’m simply carrying it out. I’ve been assigned this role, so it divides me, splits me in two.

On the one hand, I don’t want to be there at all. On the other, I feel I have to, perhaps for a moral reason, let’s say. I have taken on this responsibility. And that creates this state of incompatibility. I’m divided in two, and that is a source of anxiety, at best.

Penelope: Do you know why I’m asking you this? Because the truth is that we’ve talked a lot about care throughout this season of the podcast, and it is also something that motivates us as a team. Care is part of the culture and values of the organisation. But sometimes… you know, sometimes we idealise it. Sorry for the word, I can’t think of a better one.

As if we should provide care effortlessly or lovingly, or because we genuinely want to. Otherwise, I’m not good enough, or I’m doing it out of obligation. Whereas, in reality, I think there is also a middle ground that says: yes, but…

Vassilis: When care is translated into a condition in which I live and am also supposed to be very happy, and it doesn’t cause me any discomfort at all…

Penelope: Yes, yes, yes. And I’m supposed to put up with it, and it’s okay, and it is expected — especially of women, as the group of the population that we, I would say, are burdened with it. And “burdened” is a very specific word I’m choosing. We don’t choose to be primary caregivers. It is placed on us. It is placed on us because that’s how stereotypes work, because socially we have inherited it as a role. I can’t always do this with movement, and always with love, and always with ease. Nor does that mean it is always just a task I’m carrying out. But I also want us to talk about care as… We’re going off script now, but that’s okay. Isn’t care sometimes also an obstacle?

Vassilis: Of course it can be an obstacle.

Penelope: Isn’t care an obstacle to movement?

Vassilis: Okay. We need to take a step back and say that a person is made up of different parts. That means different identities, different roles, different needs, and those needs can be heterogeneous and even deeply conflicting with one another. That is also what makes us completely human.

So, having the role of a caregiver, being perfectly okay with it, having given meaning to that experience, does not mean that this role monopolises me, that it is my one and absolute need. Of course it will come into conflict with other parts of myself, and when care prevents those parts from being fulfilled, it will also cause me distress. The point is not to talk about care as if it were the absolute, ultimate good. Or empathy, for that matter, as if it were going to solve all our problems.

Can we see the bigger picture? For me, that has value. Care as a configuration of the self, as we call it in psychotherapy. A configuration, a way of being, I am not only this. Of course, even something very simple: I want to go see a film, I want to see my friends, and today is the only day I can do it. Today is the only day I have.

Penelope: Right.

Vassilis: One of those things won’t happen. It can’t. What does that mean? That I’ll do the other one reluctantly? Maybe I’ll be divided, maybe I’ll think twice about it, maybe, but… And you know what? That is also what makes us alive.

Penelope: Right, right. I mean, the way you’re putting it helps me, and it brings me to this: say you are an employer, or a manager, and you have a team. And we’re always talking about this because in the CAREdiZO project we are talking about small teams and small organisations. So we’re not thinking about, you know, some huge building somewhere in Marousi in Athens, where all the big companies are, or at least used to be.

We’re thinking about a team like WHEN, which has ten people. How… and before I get to the how, this team also consists of people who provide care, who have care responsibilities, who have these internal conflicts we were talking about earlier. So what does empathy look like in the workplace? And what happens when a management team practises empathy? I don’t know if that’s the right verb, applies it? I don’t know. You’ll tell me. And what doesn’t happen?

Vassilis: Okay. I’ll take another step back and say that, in order to start this conversation, we need to make sure that we believe it is worth the effort. Why discuss it if we’re not sure why? Why are we talking about empathy in the workplace? Or how can I be empathetic? I prefer “I am empathetic” to “I show empathy,” because the latter…

Penelope: Or “I practise it,” let’s say.

Vassilis: Or “I practise it,” yes, yes. Because that makes it technical and takes away some of its value. So for me, we need to start with “why.”

Penelope: Perfect. I’ll tell you why. I read it somewhere.

Vassilis: Okay.

Penelope: Because I went to a training and they told me I probably need to do it because it’s a buzzword, because I saw it on LinkedIn.

Vassilis: Yes.

Penelope: That.

Vassilis: And because it’s good to have empathy, right? It’s better than not having it.

Penelope: Right.

Vassilis: Because it’s good.

Penelope: But I don’t know what it is, what I’m supposed to do, how much priority I should give this skill. Should I have it? Should I be it? Should employees have it? I don’t know anything. Where do I start?

Vassilis: Exactly. I don’t know anything. I only know that it’s a very clichéd word, that we hear it everywhere, and that we know it’s good to have. I think that’s where we need to intervene first.

Penelope: Go on.

Vassilis: The fact that it’s not simply a “good skill.” That sounds almost romantic. Come on, let’s all be empathetic, because we’re romantic people and we have a humanistic perspective out there. Let’s look at the studies and see what they say, especially in business, especially in corporate environments. Empathy from managers towards their employees, in sales, customer service, customer care, across the board, is associated with higher sales, greater productivity, more innovation. Employees feel more comfortable expressing themselves freely, and that brings more ideas. And greater enjoyment and satisfaction, both with their work and with collaboration. So we need to keep in mind that when we talk about empathy, we are essentially talking about relationships. I don’t want to describe it as a good tool that I’ll use when things get difficult.

Penelope: That observation is very important.

Vassilis: It’s a way of being. It’s the way I exist, the way I show up and the way I relate. If I’m interested in building relationships of trust in which I don’t want my employees to be afraid, but rather to feel comfortable, that can only be a good thing. And it will be beneficial in terms of innovation, creativity, productivity, sales. That is not up for debate. We have all the studies. It’s not negotiable. That’s how it is.

Penelope: That’s how it is. It’s a fact. End of story.

Vassilis: Yes, yes, yes. So, to come back to your question, what do I actually do? What can this mean in practice, especially with people who have these kinds of roles? And let me tell you something: not only that.

Penelope: I agree. And you separated the two without me having to intervene, because that’s how I started the question. But indeed, now we’re talking about something that needs to be a way of being, and it has nothing to do with whether people have care responsibilities or not. It’s for everybody.

Vassilis: And you know what? It’s about seeing the person who works in my organisation, in my company, as a whole person and not only as an employee. And why do we say this? Because it changes the way I approach them. It’s enough to know that the people who are here, working with me or for me, have different starting points. Empathy helps me understand that each person has different potential, a different starting point, different resources, different reserves. And that’s not so that I can lower my expectations of their work.

Penelope: That’s perfect.

Vassilis: Not so that I lower what I ask of them or the boundaries I set, but because it changes my perspective. It’s one thing to say, “Why were you late?” and another to say, “What happened that made you late?” It’s one thing to say, “You’ve been doing terribly this past week,” and another to say, “You know what, I see that you’re distracted, I see that something is weighing on you. Is there something you want to talk about? Is there something on your mind?” What does that say? It says I move away from evaluation and create a bridge where I am interested in listening. And if I listen to you, I then look at how I can respond. And most of the time, I don’t need to do something for you. I simply need to give you space to reflect on what might help you. And I can facilitate that in whatever way I can.

Penelope: If I can, as long as I can.

Vassilis: If I can, and in whatever way I can. But what does empathy do? It creates a framework, it creates an environment in which an employee is not afraid, does not operate out of fear. Decisions made out of fear are very different from decisions made out of understanding. That makes a huge difference. It creates an entire culture. Not being afraid to speak up in a meeting because I know someone will listen to me. How many ideas are lost because someone didn’t feel comfortable speaking?

How many really important solutions were there, but were never voiced by people who didn’t feel that their voice would be heard, or who were afraid they would be belittled? And if I add one more thing: the biggest conflicts that happen inside companies don’t come from people who don’t know how to collaborate. They come from people who feel they won’t get a fair hearing.

Penelope: Ah, another favourite topic.

Vassilis: Who feel they won’t be heard. That is what creates rupture. Being there with a willingness to listen reduces irritability. It reduces tension.

Penelope: And the sense of injustice.

Vassilis: First of all, I belong. It makes me feel that I belong. If I’m there, I feel that I belong. If I feel that I don’t belong, I have no reason to invest in you. And if we look at the logistics of it, when I feel that I belong, I’ll stay longer, commit more, dedicate myself more, produce more. Otherwise, I’ll leave.

Penelope: You said two very important things. I’ll start with the first, which is that we need to see the person not only as an employee who works with or for us, but as an individual. And I’m very afraid of something here. I’ll say it again: this is my question. Is there a risk that I cross the person’s boundaries? I mean what we often hear in Greek businesses: “But we’re all one family. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

Vassilis: laughs

Penelope: Exactly. So that’s one important thing you said, and I want us to discuss it. It made me wonder: how do we avoid crossing that boundary? And the other thing I want us to stay with for a little longer is this. You saw me smile when you said it. How do we operate like this, with openness, asking effective questions, moving away from evaluation, while also maintaining boundaries Because, okay, we also have a job to do. I say this because when I talk to people who run small businesses and small organisations, this is something that worries us. Because we are always small teams, and what happens in small teams? A few people do a lot of things. And there’s this, it’s not exactly fear, but there’s this anxiety about not being too soft. Or about not crossing the line and getting too close, when you, as an employee, don’t actually need to get close to me. Why would you?

Vassilis: Okay, okay. Wow, there’s a lot there. I want to say something first. There is nothing soft about soft skills.

Penelope: Say that again.

Vassilis: There is nothing soft.

Penelope: We’re putting that in bold in the episode.

Vassilis: Seriously. It’s the difficult path. The easy path is to be sharp, demanding, rigid, sometimes even a bully, to belittle people. It’s easy. It’s not difficult. It requires no investment. I keep my distance, I demand, I’m a killer. There is nothing soft about it. And do you know why I say there is nothing soft about empathy? Because empathy contains a lot of vulnerability. And you’re right to bring up boundaries. Empathy is, first of all, a choice. I choose. It’s impossible to have empathy towards everything, towards everyone, towards every situation. It’s not possible. That would be extremely taxing for our nervous system. It can’t happen. So we also need to keep in mind that we usually show empathy towards things with which we have some familiarity.

On the other hand, precisely because it is a vulnerable choice, we need to know where our limits are. How far are we okay going? Because I can have every good intention in the world and come closer, see how you are, what you need, listen to you, or genuinely create that space to listen to you. But sometimes I may have absolutely no reserves left to do that, and protecting myself may be the most protective thing I can do. And I need to know that.

I’m saying this more to take away some of the guilt around those moments when someone may think, “Oh, I didn’t do it right. I didn’t show enough empathy. I didn’t do well.” That will happen too, and that’s okay. And empathy also has darker sides. It can even become a tool for manipulation.

Penelope: Ah, say that again.

Vassilis: Someone can instrumentalise it, use it precisely for that reason. So I come back to this. It is one thing to say that, because of my willingness and intention to understand you and tune into where you are, I lower my expectations. And in a small organisation, precisely because I can. Proximity is different. Relationships are different. What I can focus on there is the idea of alliance. You know what? I understand that you had to do this, you were delayed, it has fallen behind. This needs to be done by the end of the day. What can we do? What do you think we can do? I’m not there as the saviour, giving instructions.

Penelope: And solutions and everything else.

Vassilis: Exactly. But I’m there to make that invitation, to ask the open question: “You know what? I understand. You’ll need to find a way to get this done.” I remember something very clearly, and I’ll give this example. When I started training in psychotherapy after my studies, it was a programme of around 800 hours, lasting three years and something, and we had training weekends. At some point I was going to miss one. We had very few absences we were allowed to take. Obviously.

Penelope: Yes, obviously.

Vassilis: And something was going to happen. I think my sister was waiting to give birth. And I was trying to decide whether I would miss the weekend when she gave birth or not. So I went to discuss it with one of my teachers, assuming she would tell me, “Okay, no problem, don’t come.” And she said to me, very calmly and with a lot of understanding:

“What a beautiful moment. You want to be there, you want to be close to her. You’ll need to decide what you’re going to do because there is also the issue of your absence. Evaluate it.”

I didn’t feel like she had backed me into a corner. But she gave me the full picture. And she said, “It’s wonderful, perfect, you want to be there. But we also have this here. There is a specific number of absences, and because we still have a long way to go, think about it.” She didn’t say yes or no. She told me the responsibility was mine. I went to the class as normal.

Penelope: Did your sister give birth that weekend?

Vassilis: No, no, no. It would have been for nothing, yes.

Penelope: Your absence would have been for nothing.

Vassilis: My absence would have been for nothing, yes. But what I want to say is that it didn’t undermine our relationship, but neither did she lower her standards by saying, “Come on, I’ll do you a favour.” Because we’re not talking about favours. Nor are we talking about politeness. And we should say that, right?

Penelope: Very important. Let’s make that distinction. Yes, yes, yes, let’s make that distinction because sometimes we think, “Oh, so what does this mean?” So, empathy means that tomorrow, now, on Tuesday, I have to go to school, I don’t know why I was going to say school, I have to go to work and be polite. And okay, if I’m polite, then we’re done, right?

Vassilis: Yes, politeness is nice. I’m a polite person. I like polite people. I like us to be polite to everyone out there. No, it’s not that at all. Politeness can be a kind of performative empathy. It can. It could. But no, that’s not what it is. It is an opening I make within myself to listen and make room for how the other person is showing up. Maybe we should also say what empathy actually is.

Penelope: Go on.

Vassilis: Because I’m sure we’re all using the same word, but we don’t all mean exactly the same thing.

Penelope: Let’s establish a shared vocabulary for this podcast.

Vassilis: Exactly.

Penelope: And generally.

Vassilis: Exactly, exactly, exactly. So, empathy is not saying, “I understand you.” It’s not. It’s not compassion. It’s not agreement. It’s not unconditionally accepting what you tell me. It’s not. It’s not any of those things. It’s not pity.

Empathy is what we mean when we say “putting myself in your shoes,” but people often think that means understanding you. Understanding you is a cognitive process. It’s a process of the mind. Understanding what you’re thinking. But empathy is also allowing myself, for a moment, to move emotionally as if I were you.

Penelope: Give us an example in the workplace.

Vassilis: An example in the workplace. You know what? It’s not something different in the workplace. It’s the same thing.

Penelope: Yes, yes, yes, yes, okay.

Vassilis: You come to me and say, “I’m at my limit. I’m exhausted. I have this going on, that has happened.” As I’m listening to you, how am I? As I’m listening to you, can I pause for a moment, put my own story to one side, and make room for yours? You’re asking me for an example, and I find myself not knowing how to describe it, because it’s a skill that is experienced.

Penelope: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I understand.

Vassilis: I mean, how do you see a frightened person and suddenly your eyes widen? How do you see someone trip in the street and suddenly move your torso backwards to protect yourself, or pull yourself in? What is that? That is our nervous system being activated precisely because of empathy. It’s being able, in that moment, to enter into it, to see what it is like, how you feel right now. You come to me and say, “I have this problem, and this, and this, and this.” Beyond what you’re telling me, beyond the description, the narrative, how does this person feel about it? They’re angry. Can I share that feeling? Can I share in their anger? And why am I saying this? Because inside ourselves, we very easily evaluate what we see. We automatically evaluate it as right, wrong, excessive, too much, dramatic.

Penelope: That’s what I was going to say. We evaluate it based on what we would feel ourselves. So, if you come to me and say, “I have so many deadlines, I can’t cope, don’t give me another project,” I may try to empathise with what you’re telling me. But it’s also very likely that, as a manager or the owner of a small business, I’ll say, “What are you talking about? Do you know what I have on my plate?”

Vassilis: Exactly.

Penelope: And there is no empathy at all. And I’ll experience what you’re telling me based either on what is happening to me or on what I would do in your position. “You know how many hardships I had at your age? How much work I did? Or you can’t handle a difficult client?” I don’t know.

Vassilis: “I used to walk two hours to get to school.”

Penelope: “And carry my own water,” etc., etc.

Vassilis: Exactly, exactly. You know what? We struggle because it’s difficult for us to approach another person’s hardship. And we want to do something about it. Whether that is good or bad, history will tell. But this devaluation; “Oh, I had more to do,” this dismissal of “Oh, I know what really difficult things are”, happens because we struggle to approach the other person’s anxiety, their pain.

Sometimes other emotions too, happier ones. But it serves ourselves. It doesn’t serve the company, the organisation, anything, or the other person. It serves ourselves. “I’ll feel better.” It sounds selfish. It may be, and we may do it completely unconsciously, without any awareness of what we are doing in that moment.

So, if I want to have an empathetic stance, I would suggest that before I respond, I take a small pause. I gain that moment of reaction time. And in that small pause, I ask myself: how does the other person who is speaking to me right now feel about what they are describing to me? How do they feel? Before I move to the practicalities, before I move to what needs to be done. How are they? If I reflect that back to them in that moment. If you come to me and say, “Vassilis, I have to do this by the end of the day, and I have this, and the phone rang, and then that happened.”

Before I start suggesting solutions, if I sit for a moment and say: “Wow, Penelope, you must be freaking out, right? It sounds like a lot. How are you? It’s a lot. I’m listening to you and I’m getting anxious just listening to you.” And you say to me, “Yes, yes, I’m freaking out. That’s exactly it.” Okay, let’s see. Let’s see what we can do. It’s not that it will solve our problems or…

Penelope: No. We’ll pick up the thread from a different starting point, which may be more effective. So as not to say “softer.”

Vassilis: It will give you the message that you’re not alone. That alone brings relief. Knowing that, at the very least, there is someone here who understands me. But the relief comes from understanding. It doesn’t come from solutions. Because solutions can come without any understanding at all. So the next day I’ll go back to work still believing that I’m going to collaborate with people who don’t understand me. Even if they give me very good instructions about what I need to do.

Penelope: To solve the problem or the challenge or whatever it is.

Vassilis: Our relationships hurt us. Relationships, whatever kind they are, hurt us. And relief from that pain comes through relationships. So professional relationships are relationships too.

Penelope: Absolutely.

Vassilis: We’re not family. We don’t want more families. We have one, and we’re already trying to manage it. We don’t need a second one. But precisely because these are relationships, because we show up with many different parts of ourselves, we need to think about what we want those relationships to be like.

Penelope: And you’re giving me a very nice opening to say this. I’m listening to this episode after it goes live. I’m listening to the episode. I’m having coffee with five people and I say, “Okay, Vassilis made some good points. He really did.” But I can’t see myself doing it. I mean, I’m probably, as someone who has listened to this, more likely to judge, or jump in to offer a solution, or just rush.

So I want to turn some of these things into actions, somehow bring them into the team and start developing this culture of empathy, and therefore care, more intentionally. So, okay, one thing: I’ll pause. Someone from customer service comes to me and says, “I can’t cope with this and that, and the shifts are difficult,” and I’ll pause before responding. Okay. What else?

Vassilis: Listen. Listen. The pause is good. But listen. Listen while keeping in mind not to get triggered while you’re listening. Because if I get triggered, if I feel personally offended, then it will be difficult for me to listen. Someone comes to me, I invite people to come to me, and I say, “Okay, come on. I see you. We’ve been working together for so long. I want to hear how you are, what’s going on, what would make your work easier, what is difficult for you at work, what you would like to be different.” Without that meaning that I am now committing to everything that everyone tells me…

Penelope: That I’m going to fix it, take care of it, solve everything.

Vassilis: Exactly. But I’m opening up this space that says: I’m interested in listening, I’m interested in understanding. Can I have that?

Penelope: So, dedicate time to listening. That’s what it is.

Vassilis: Dedicate time to listen. So the pause comes after I listen. And I pause in order to avoid judging immediately. Because if I call you in, I have my small business, and I say, “Okay, I listened to the podcast, and that guy said, let’s listen.” And I go to my employees and say, “Okay, what’s going on?” “Yes, we have too much work and we can’t keep up.” “Yes, but don’t I pay you well? Aren’t you paid more than…?” You can listen without adding a “yes, but.” Then I pause and reflect. What are they telling me? What is it? But without getting triggered. It requires attention. But I also understand the people who manage a company. It’s their child, it’s their vision, it’s something they’ve built. And it’s difficult when someone challenges it. It will probably hurt. If I take it personally, I can’t listen. But if I see it as an opportunity, because I want us to function even better, then it’s worth the effort.

Penelope: So, I listen. Time to listen. A pause while I’m listening. And I would add: we practise this skill. Because it is a skill. Not taking personally what comes to us as feedback. Unless it actually is personal. “You’re treating me badly,” for example. But generally, not taking it personally. And I would also add, from the employer’s side, not promising that I will fix it, that I’m here to listen and that tomorrow I’ll make everything different.

Vassilis: Exactly. Don’t promise.

Penelope: But also set a… I don’t know what it is. It’s not exactly a boundary. A level where I say, okay, I hear you. Because isn’t that also a little dangerous, Vassilis? To say, okay, I’ll listen to you, I’ll pause. But tomorrow morning everything is exactly the same and nothing has changed. So how do I know that we’re actually working towards a situation where things change? That I didn’t just listen so that you could later tell your friends, “Wow, this team has amazing empathy. They listened to us, you know.”

Vassilis: Yes, they listened to us. I think the people listening to this episode right now probably want to see what they can do. They probably want to know how they will move forward the next day. And you know what? Sometimes an employer doesn’t have all the answers, nor all the solutions. And that’s okay. But I can say, “You know what? I care about looking at this. It’s difficult for me right now. If you have an idea, tell me. I’ll keep it in mind. I can’t commit to anything. But I want to make this as easy for you as possible. As manageable as it can be. How can we help?”

Because, really, I may not be able to promise someone outside that I can stop the rain. But I can say, “You know what? I do care that you don’t get wet. I’ll see if I have an umbrella.” I can’t promise that the rain will stop. Nor that the umbrella will protect you 100% from the rain. But the fact that I’m here and I’ve listened to you definitely puts me on the same side as you. We’re not opposite each other.

Penelope: We’re not opposite each other. We’re alongside each other. I’m almost going to close with that. I want to make a full circle and return almost to my first question, which was: what does care mean to you? And because this whole conversation revolves around empathy, but empathy also revolves around care and is part of care, my final question is… And this is something we’ve discussed a lot throughout this season.

How do we, as a society, and I’m moving beyond small organisations and small companies now, I’m talking about society, learn to value and reward care? So that it’s not something you simply have to do, “it’s okay, what else are we going to do?”, or something invisible. So that it isn’t treated as a virtue, or as something sacred.

Vassilis: So that we don’t turn caregivers into heroes.

Penelope: Yes, yes.

Vassilis: Let’s move away from that. This is entirely a matter of culture. It’s very Greek, very Balkan, this idea of care. You know what I’m thinking? How can this shift? It will shift. What is society? We are society. It starts with our internal inclination. I don’t know if I have exactly the answer, but I’m thinking about how I relate to myself, how I keep this in mind.

What does my own belief system say about this? But don’t we do the same with stereotypes? Don’t we do the same with gender discrimination? We don’t change those things somewhere “out there.” We choose how we ourselves will shift.  Through our own reflection. Through the way we deconstruct these identities, little by little. To validate one value and deconstruct another.

Yes, the fact that this conversation is happening. The fact that we are having this dialogue now. That we are putting, that you have put, care at the centre, trying to approach it from every possible angle. That is a movement. It’s an important movement. It’s not a small thing. I mean… yes, we have reached this point. The heroine, this or that. Let’s recognise exhaustion. Let’s recognise fatigue. Let’s recognise that nothing should be taken for granted.

Penelope: It’s not a given.

Vassilis: Nothing is a given. And perhaps that is where we can offer some validation. Some additional validation of what is happening.

Penelope: We’ll close with that. Thank you so, so, so much for this conversation.

Vassilis: Thank you too.

Penelope: What did you think of what Vassilis and I shared today? What else do you think CAREdiZO could create that would bring us one step closer to equality, both within and beyond the workplace?

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