A Lesson in Empathy
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Last week I gave a webinar to 650 educators on Generation Alpha (yes, you got it... that's the generation that comes after Gen Z). Though my research over the past 2 years has specialized in the under-24 crowd, it still feels awkward speaking to teachers about kids... almost like I'm speaking about gorillas to a room full of Jane Goodalls.
In my prep for this webinar, though, I came across a story I had to share with you—and I chose to share it this week for a few reasons:
I think we all need a story to brighten our day right now.
At a time when injustice is everywhere, the heart of this story holds a message of empathy, about what can happen when we slow down, look around at our community, and tell someone “I see you.”
As businesses start to re-open, we are facing a new "abnormal," and the only way to really know how to shift our strategies is to listen to our customers.
The main character of this story is an 11-year-old named Emerson from Soux Falls.
Emerson is a 5th grader, and without a phone during this quarantine time, she decides that in order to keep in touch with her friends, she will write letters. Yes, real handwritten letters, brightly decorated. Take a look...
I love the way her father Hugh Weber describes her letters:
These letters are sent to her friends, yes. But they don't stop there. Emerson decides to write to someone else—someone who doesn’t get much attention, but who helps her every day with her handwritten habit that connects her to the outside world.
His name is Doug, and he is her mail carrier.
So she writes and decorates a beautiful letter for Doug too. It starts:
“I’m Emerson. You may know me as the person that lives here that writes a lot of letters and decorates the envelopes. Well, I wanted to thank you for taking my letters and delivering them. You are very important to me. I make people happy with my letters, but you do too…”
According to her father in this Twitter thread, here’s what happened next…
Doug the mail carrier is touched and shares this sweet thank-you letter with his Sioux Falls supervisor, Sara.
Sara shares it in an internal USPS newsletter.
Postal workers across the nation write beautiful, vulnerable letters to Emerson to thank her for recognizing them at this difficult time. These letters are not routine thank you’s either. They are heartfelt:
They also send her a grand total of 218 stamps so she can keep writing. (That part totally made me smile!)
Next, the US Postmaster General gets involved and sends Emerson and her parents an official Thank You letter.
The press picks up the story, and Good Morning America interviews Emerson and her father. When the host asks whom Emerson would most want to receive a letter from, Emerson doesn't hesitate: Taylor Swift.
And then, it happens…
A hand-decorated, handwritten letter from Taylor Swift herself arrives at Emerson’s home!
This story spoke to me on so many levels, and it brought back and old memory.
Years ago, I conducted a research study on empathy with FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss, now author of Never Split the Difference. As a part of this research, I volunteered 250 hours as a listener at a suicide hotline. What I realized in this singular experience is that 98% of the time, all we need to do is listen and acknowledge what someone else going through. I use that precise stat—98%—because by the end of the 250 hours, that was the percentage of calls I was able to consistently de-escalate through empathy techniques alone. Just by sharing with a caller: I hear you; I’m here for you.
In business and marketing, we talk a lot about empathy. Yet so few companies actually pay attention to their customers in a consistent way—and take action on what they are hearing.
Imagine how businesses would change if we could do this for our customers every day…
Imagine if we knew our customers well enough to know exactly how to say “I see you” to an audience as a whole…
Imagine if we could scale this, and show our customers that we truly care about them…
Scaling empathy for your audience is real. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons that when conducting research for our clients, our most common deliverable is a simple persona. It’s so that the businesses we serve will create products and marketing and content that really speaks to their audience.
Because when you know that you’re creating content or campaigns or products for Doug the mail carrier, it’s a lot easier. It’s a lot easier to speak directly to someone when we know their name.
I am so grateful to have read Emerson's story that I contacted her father last week to set up an interview with her. It's these kinds of stories that fill me with hope and excitement for this new generation, and the businesses they will create.