We started 2021 thinking about “mutual empathy.” It’s a framework we use to approach relationships, and it’s pretty simple. Two people say:

• I have worked hard to understand and acknowledge what you want and need.

• Please understand and acknowledge what I want and need.

• With this mutual empathy, we are both invested, we can hold each other accountable, and together we can achieve a better (and usually more creative) outcome.

And our current very complicated moment gives us a lot of opportunity to practice mutual empathy. As the Covid pandemic continues to unfold, there’s a continued debate and discussion about safety and the economy. These are often juxtaposed as opposing forces: either shut down businesses and keep people safe, or open them up and put the population at risk. 

As in so many other “us vs. them” scenarios, it’s not a matter of which “side” is right, but how to meet the needs of both. Understanding and acknowledging the needs of both, and coming together to forge a creative solution that addresses the needs of both, is what mutual empathy is all about. 

One example is when the owner of a restaurant in Washington state, Railroad Pub & Pizza, was frustrated by having to shut down in the pandemic. As reported in the Washington Post, the owner truly didn’t understand why he needed to shut down his indoor restaurant when he had huge windows that he could modulate to in effect create air flow equivalent to being outdoors. With 70 employees to take care of, and the business he built at risk, he was vocal about his needs.

By coming together with the state, they created a proxy for air quality by monitoring CO2. While this is just one data point, and has to be used in context with the specific environment, it’s a new and innovative way to measure air quality which has already been adopted by other businesses. Mutual empathy with an open dialog about needs led to a creative solution that met the needs of the state regulators, the business owners, and the community.

Silo Example #1: Product Team & Field Sales

One day when I was working in field sales, I  got a call from the VP of my company’s product division celebrating the fact that his product team all got bonuses for hitting their targets. As field sellers, we were none too pleased. You see, the product division was measured on profit. But those of us in the field were measured on revenues. Earlier in the month, we’d been working on some high-value deals, and we had requested additional discounts to meet competitive pricing. However, because the product team denied us, since they were being measured on profits. Which meant we missed our targets. The field organization was beyond frustrated that not only did we miss our targets, but another team was celebrating at our expense. This was an early lesson in mutual empathy across an organization.  

How to Apply Mutual Empathy in 3 Steps

How to turn this into a mutually empathetic relationship? 

A good place to start is to understand and align the key drivers of the various business units. While it’s important to have a system of checks and balances, it’s also important to not pit one team against another with mutually exclusive goals and targets.

1. Understand what each team needs. In this case, the product team needed to meet a profit target in order to stay viable. The sales team needed to hit a revenue target to pay for themselves. Another way to ask this question is to look at metrics and compensation plans. In this case, each team had an incentive plan based on optimizing their own goals.

2. Set goals that show mutual empathy. In reality, both the product team and the field team needed to be mindful of both revenues and profit, but were compensated only on one or the other based on their role. A good question to ask here is how to structure mutually beneficial or aligned goals. In this case, both teams could have a target on both revenue and profit. This way, the front end and back end of the company would be motivated to work together and would be mutually empathetic to each other. 

3. Set a plan to win together.  Once the goals are aligned, set a time and action plan to execute on the jointly developed and agreed goals. What will each team sign up to do? Will the sales team agree to increase their pipeline for a new product? Will the product team agree to meet with customers? What creative approaches could you uncover to win new customers together?

Silo Example #2: Sales & Marketing

I’ve seen this play out many times at many companies and across many silos. Another common example is when sales and marketing point fingers at one another. Sales tells marketing, “If you gave us good leads, we could make our numbers.” And marketing replies, “If your sellers were stronger they could close the leads we send over.” Another non-productive relationship.  

So what could be done differently in this situation? One constant is that there’s never enough marketing budget to build awareness and demand in every customer segment (small, mid, enterprise), in every industry (from Agriculture to Manufacturing to Water) and in every geography.   

Following the three guidelines above, the first step would have sales and marketing sitting down together at the planning stage to determine priority customer segments, products, industries, etc. so they are on the same page in terms of where they’ll place their bets. 

Once these priority areas are defined, the next step is to understand the needs of both teams. For example, what pipeline multiple does sales need? What is the target ROI that marketing needs? And importantly, what are the right metrics to track going forward to ensure the right behavior from both teams? 

• Is there a co-developed lead flow?

• Is there an agreed definition of MQLs and SQLs?

• Is there an agreed upon pipeline target for each team (sales and marketing — and partners)? 

• What about tying a percentage of the marketing team’s pay to sales performance? 

And now it’s over to the plan: what are the activities, dates, owners, and expected results (pipeline and ROI)? Importantly with a documented plan, you can now hold one another accountable. At this step, it’s also important to agree to a review cadence so you can make course corrections or celebrate. 

If the Steps Are So Simple, Why Is This So Often Missed?

It’s easy to become so laser-focused on our task at hand that we can forget about “the other.” I’ve seen product teams deliver a beautifully engineered product just to have it fail because they missed being empathetic to what customers need. I’ve seen newly recruited partners fail to launch because the vendor neglected to be empathetic to what the partners needed. I’ve seen fingers pointed between groups because they simply failed to pick up the phone or get together to unite around a common understanding and a common goal. 

A good discussion starting point when meeting with the other teams is to ask what they need, what obstacles they are facing, how they measure success, and what their goals are. Then share yours to start to seek the best path to move forward together.

Bottom line: When you stop looking for tribes and start looking for common ground that meets both needs, you’ll get innovation, alignment, and results.