Recently, I was listening to political commentator Jon Favreau on The Bulwark podcast. This isn't a post about politics, but two parts of the conversation really caught my attention. Favreau talked about how many politicians and people working in politics are disconnected from voters.
He points out a fundamental flaw: "The people thinking about [strategy] aren't low-information voters." Basically, the people trying to solve the problem of reaching people don't understand how to reach people who get their news from TikTok or YouTube. Favreau says that this challenge has to be overcome by actually talking to people who fall into that segment.
Later in the episode, host Tim Miller brings up the assassination of United Healthcare's CEO. According to a poll, 45% of college-aged people sympathize with suspected killer Luigi Mangione.
Miller doesn't understand Gen Z's "righteous rage" because, as he points out, that cohort hasn't experienced the harms caused by the U.S. healthcare system that older generations have faced — at least, not based on how long they've been relying on healthcare. Miller can't figure out why people who haven't experienced direct harm could be so angry. He says, "That just doesn't fucking square for me."
This exchange stayed with me because Miller displays the exact lack of understanding that Favreau mentioned earlier in the same episode: a disconnect. Not talking to people to understand why they feel the same way. You want to understand Gen Z's rage? Go talk to Gen Z.
A similar disconnect exists in the workplace between the People in Charge and the People Doing the Work. Perhaps the disconnect has always been there, but I believe that people feel it more acutely now than they have in generations past. The gap between wealth is widening; workers are asked to do more with less. And, frankly, social media gives us the opportunity and connectedness to discover that other people feel the same way. We're not alone in our frustration that our voices aren't heard. Or maybe they are heard, but they're ignored.
You don't have to experience something directly to be empathetic
Miller points to Gen Z's lack of experience with the healthcare system as a reason that Gen Z doesn't have a right to be outraged. But one of our greatest strengths as humans is our ability to be empathetic. We can and should understand that systems cause harm to people, even if we don't experience that harm directly. People in power can and should use their power to make systems better for everyone.
People experiencing harm aren't necessarily in the best position to do anything about it. And that's one of the biggest struggles in the workforce, especially for individual contributors. How can you fight back against unreasonable expectations or low wages? Instead, it has to come from people with the power to change. Or, it's only effective when workers have strength in numbers, such as The Great Resignation.
The onus is often on other people to be empathetic and ignite change. The individuals with the time, resources, and mental bandwidth to consider the world outside of themselves. Empathy is understanding how people think, and talking to them to understand them better.
Empathy has to exist. It's what leads people to advocate for others. I don't have to experience harassment in the workplace to know that harassment is wrong and want it to stop. I don't have to experience unfair wages to want other people to be paid fairly.
(Gen Z doesn't have to experience an abysmal healthcare system to be outraged at its impacts.)
The signals are everywhere
What Miller refers to as "righteous rage" is bubbling as people are tired of feeling powerless. That lack of empathy that exists among many leaders? We've noticed.
Exhibit A, an article headline from Business Insider.
In the article, empathy researcher and author Maria Ross said, "We have this percentage of bosses that are sort of like, 'Oh the pandemic is over. You had your fun being treated like humans. Now it's time to get back to work.'"
Return-to-office mandates are on the rise. DEI programs are getting slashed. Salaries are falling as a result of the tightening labor market.
I recently interviewed freelance writer Hsing Tseng, and she talked about different times in her career when she (and others) were working to a breaking point. They expressed their stresses to leadership and were ignored. They weren’t believed. Empathetic leaders would have understood that when multiple employees are saying, “This isn’t working,” something needs to change. Not just to treat people as humans — but to maintain a viable business model.
And where is the empathy among these pressures? Nonexistent in a world dominated by power plays. People in leadership have to want to be empathetic. But many of them aren't. Caring impacts the bottom line. Robots are easier than humans because they don't require any empathy.
The lack of empathy concerns me because it leads to an even greater divide. Companies will continue to drive people downward simply because they can. It will take a greater resistence, a greater amassment of like-minded people to push back and demand something better.
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