Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Designing Brave New Organizations With Amy J Wilson
51 Plays20 days ago
Amy J Wilson, founder of The Empathy Action Lab, shares her quest to build brave new organizations by centering worker voice and changing our relationship with change.
LINKS
- Amy's website
- Amy's LinkedIn
- Amy's Book "Empathy For Change"
- "New Power" by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms
- "Power Over vs Power With" and Mary Parker Follett
- Buddhist Impermanence
- "God is change" - Octavia Butler quote
HOSTS
- Andrea Goulet LinkedIn | andreagoulet.com
- Ray Myers LinkedIn | Craft vs Cruft on YouTube
ABOUT EMPATHY IN TECH
Empathy in Tech is on a mission to accelerate the responsible adoption of empathy in the tech industry by:
- Closing the empathy skills gap by treating empathy as a technical skill.
- Teaching technical empathy through accessible, affordable, actionable training.
- Building community and breaking down harmful stereotypes and tropes.
- Promoting technical empathy for ethics, equity, and social justice.
Learn more at empathyintech.com
Recommended
Transcript
Embracing Change as a Constant
00:00:00
Speaker
Change is inevitable. In Buddhism, they have this practice. It's impermanence, right? Nothing is permanent. Everything is changing. So if you start adopting that mindset um as an organization, is realize that change is something that is always going to happen. We need to change our relationship to change.
Empathy in Tech
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Empathy in Tech, where we explore the deeply technical side of empathy. And the critical need for empathy in technology.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm your host, Andrea Goulet. And I'm Ray Myers. Today on the podcast, we have Amy J. Wilson. Amy involves people and organizations to meet today's realities and prepare for the future. Working at the intersection of innovation, empathy, research and practice, she has challenged the status quo and redesign system centered on empathy and equity in action and more than a dozen organizations impacting thousands within both private and public sectors. Amy is the founder of the Empathy Action Lab. a
Amy J. Wilson's Empathy Action Lab
00:01:00
Speaker
collective that guides progressive, mission-driven organizations to meet current needs and prepare for the future. Through healing for work, she trains leaders in emotional intelligence and psychological safety to enhance workplace wellbeing and foster thriving organizations.
00:01:15
Speaker
As a member of the Guiding Council of either org, she leads research to re-sequence organizations challenging the dominance of traditional Western business culture prevalent in many business, nonprofit, and government structures. Amy is the bestselling author of Empathy for Change, How to Build a More Understanding World, which provides stories and frameworks to catalyze change. Thanks so much for being here, Amy. o I'm glad I'm here. Thank you for having me.
Creating Safe and Brave Organizations
00:01:43
Speaker
So to kick things off, how do you define a brave new organization? What got you interested in that kind of work? So when I think of what a brave new organization is, it's an organization that's taking a step into the future, um into not just creating just a safe space for people to engage with and to be with each other. with That's where the psychological safety comes in.
00:02:09
Speaker
but also a place where they're taking risks, being able to step into doing doing experimentation um and also just starting to live within their values um and and also starting to bring in the people and care about and bail build empathy for the people that work for them instead of just having top-down command and control.
00:02:34
Speaker
so Why do you think we need these brave new organizations? And then how does empathy fit into this kind of work? Well, first off, one of the things that's happening in today's workplace, there's high demands for agility and innovation, but that often clashes with stress and burnout and disengagement.
Balancing Agility with Emotional Well-being
00:02:55
Speaker
And ah while organizations are striving for efficiency, many are neglecting the emotional well-being of their teams.
00:03:03
Speaker
And you see with we're in a pilot crisis world. So that means multiple crises happen here at the same time. We feel it and it's being brought into the workplace. And so we're feeling that burnout. And so there there' are subtle signs of disconnection that happens. So we're avoiding conflict or masking stress with productivity. We're fearing mistakes.
00:03:28
Speaker
And it limits our creativity and stifles innovation, which is what we need in the world today. And so these behaviors, though often unaddressed, quietly undermine the potential of the organization and the people within it.
Leading Cultural Change
00:03:45
Speaker
Could you give us some examples of organizations that have gone through this kind of transformation? And how did they decide to start doing that?
00:03:53
Speaker
yeah so First off, like there's a couple things there's um ah a statement that I like to say that um ah movements happen because um a culture change happens because of a movement, not necessarily a mandate. and um what What is interesting is if you look at the and research that happens when it talks about cultural transformations or change or innovation,
00:04:17
Speaker
All of these words are used synonymously. It is really focused on, um often, it is somebody who's in a leadership position who has power and says, we're going to go into the AIH. We're going to digitize ourselves. We're going to modernize. And that, I'm having air quotes here because that is just ah that is just like a new emerging tech, like artificial intelligence, for example.
00:04:42
Speaker
And we're like, we need to do this. let's ah you know I was just talking to somebody yesterday about this. And it's usually somebody in a leadership position saying, we need to change, we need to push in the future.
Innovation in Management Consulting
00:04:52
Speaker
But the thing is when we talk about culture change, a movement needs to be built because the thing is that it's not just if you mandate it, people are not going to just jump on board to to get that to happen. So you need to actually like appeal and and understand and have empathy for the people who will be implementing that change and the needs that they have. And so it's a very complicated process that needs to be had.
00:05:19
Speaker
and um And one of the things ah you had mentioned that there's, what organization has gone through this transformation is um it's a management consulting firm. And about 15 years ago, um I was working in the the company, it was getting ready to turn 100 years old. So it was one of the, like the OGs, if you will, of management consulting. And they realized,
00:05:45
Speaker
that they couldn't for the next one hundred years they were not able to um live in the same space and do the same things that they've been doing for the past one hundred years so they need new they needed to modernize and so in that experience i was actually working in the company at the time They put me on a team to say, building a culture of innovation um in in that work. and ah And that was where I was really thrown into this space of like entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship. How might you change ah ah like a dinosaur of a company and bring it into the modern world? So that kind of started getting me into that space.
00:06:27
Speaker
um of how might we be ah more agile, you know bringing agile development and agile management practices.
Emotional Intelligence and Continuous Improvement
00:06:35
Speaker
How might we bring in lean startup? So the build, measure, learn loop into how we do things and in an iterative way. And then also building bringing in human centered design into the process as well. So that was, those are just the, i that's one of the trifectas that I talk about is like, when you go into an organization, how do you become more agile and nimble? But then obviously that was 15 years ago and my thinking and work
00:07:01
Speaker
has gone deeper into into like actually at the heart of what we're trying to do and more research is going down this path is you need to be able to, in this space when you are talking about all the changes that needs to happen, you need to have emotional intelligence.
00:07:18
Speaker
and because you need to be able to navigate the waters and be able to manage your reactions, like communicate effectively, get clear on what you need. And so that's kind of how my work has evolved going from, you know, learning it, but then like, like I say, I'm like a Picasso in some ways and I learned the nuts and bolts of how do you do it? But then I started being like, how do we refine this and build upon this?
00:07:43
Speaker
so What were some of the outcomes of those transformations? Yeah, so when we talk about the transformations, I think you have to talk about it in the perspective of individual um transformations and then um and then cultural or organizational transformations. And actually I don't really love the word transformation, just like I don't really love the word innovation. I talk about that in my book um because innovation doesn't mean anything, right? Like it's just it's just a word that people, it's a it's a jargony word that people throw out and say what they really mean is we need to meet the needs of today. And that's why I put that in there is like, there's a lot of different things being thrown at us.
00:08:31
Speaker
there's um but The world is constantly evolving. How do we meet the needs of today, but also make ourselves um continually improve improve ourselves so that we can prepare for that future? And so when I think about about this work, it's not necessarily a transformation, right? We're not we're not we're not asking people to transform completely.
00:08:53
Speaker
It's about incremental um changes and shifts in what we do. And that's why when I talk about emotional build and talk about emotional intelligence and psychological safety, these are building blocks that you build a life of continuous improvement.
Mindset of Continuous Growth
00:09:10
Speaker
So you're always learning, you're always growing. So it's not necessarily in 12 months is going to be like, well, you're transformed. Good luck, right? And an analogy that I will bring into the space that informs a lot of my work is that I'm in ah and a 12-step program called Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. And in that program, you know you essentially come into this world and you recognize, oh my gosh, I grew up in a ah ah home with dysfunction. And so therefore I learned dysfunction and and therefore I now live in a dysfunctional way. And so in in some ways, what I see in the workplace
00:09:52
Speaker
um you know A lot of our dysfunctions that we have in our on our and our families and our homes actually show up um because we we are not you know healing from the work um and processing these things. so But what I've learned from being in this program for nine years and what we call ACA,
00:10:11
Speaker
is that you're always going to be evolving, you're always going to be in a healing mode. So embracing that, and that is a full on mindset around I'm always going to be improving, I'm always going to be learning. And I think that's ah that's but both an organizational thing and an individual thing, right? That we need to embrace that mindset.
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I really like the idea of like im not a mandate, but a movement. like I think that's such an important mindset.
Role of Innovators and Early Adopters
00:10:42
Speaker
but and You talked about kind of the individual contributors, how this can come from the bottom up. But what happens when individual contributors have 100 different types of movements that they want to ah implement. So I think that's that's kind of one of the challenges with the with more bottom-up systems is that when it does come from the CEO, it's like, this is what we're doing, everybody's in the same boat, right which is why sometimes maybe leaders and even you know contributors feel more comfortable just kind of all rowing in the same direction.
00:11:16
Speaker
But it can feel a little chaotic when different people have different ideas. So how ah do you feel like individuals, like maybe a software developer, project manager, like how can they be a catalyst for change and create that sustained change um towards that organizational outcome?
00:11:35
Speaker
you know One thing that I find is interesting is there's this ah this little bit of innovation theory here. It's called the innovation the fusion of innovations theory um that comes out. And um there's also a a lovely book called Crossing the Chasm by Jeffrey Moore that talks about this. But um essentially, this this it's a bell curve and um and essentially talks about how an innovation or change um gets adopted through a through a society in our world. right You can look at any kind of innovation. It usually starts with the innovators. So those are the people who are stepping into um and into like being like, you know what? Things don't feel right here. This you might feel like an interesting toxic environment, perhaps. um Or I feel like things could be tweaked a little bit. What I um try to do in my work, especially, is to empower people
00:12:29
Speaker
right Because power has been taken away from us, because you you mentioned that that hierarchy that were talked that you talked about is that often with mandates, it's just like you know forced upon you, as opposed to a ah movement has this idea of being like, okay, well, let's build momentum to get um ah a group of people um to to make a change happen in within an organization. And it starts with us, right? So when you talk about the innovators in that bell curve, there's the innovators, which is like about three or 4% of any population, then there's the early adopters. And that's, I think, something like 10 or 13% of the population. And then from that point, from the early adopters over to the early majority,
00:13:22
Speaker
which is half of most of the bell curve, is that the early majority. And the chasm that we have is is crossing over from the um the early um early adopters to the early majority. And so if you have that mindset in there, like you can actually be like, well, I want to make a change.
00:13:42
Speaker
how might I start with the people around me, right? The people who um who I can influence, right? Because I really talk about you know the circles of control and concern and influence. We are only and we can only control how we react and respond. We're not responsible for anybody else. um But what we can do is influence the people around us. And so bringing those two frameworks together,
00:14:12
Speaker
We build we can we can start building um our and shaping the team because that's much easier to do than a big bigger organization so. you know knowing that you have that, you can be an innovator. If you're an innovator, you can start thinking, I can change, I can empower myself and and and organize people around me to build that movement. So you can become an innovator, then become an early adopter. And then um then as as more people start adopting this, the system will change over time. So that's a little bit of what I would say about that.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah, it makes me think like um you had talked earlier about values and core
Guiding Core Values
00:14:55
Speaker
values. And I think there's that is so critical. And I think there's a small um nuance that people don't think of. like We had talked about innovation. like Innovation isn't a value, it's an outcome. but right like It is something that you achieve when you have done things correctly. And I think when I've led companies and when I've advised companies, I think the most one of the most important things that you can do is have a really clear and really well-known
00:15:27
Speaker
mission, vision, and core values. And the mission is like, what are we doing? The vision is like, why are we doing it? What does the world look like when we're done? And then the values are, how are we going to behave while we are doing it? And I think those core values are so, so important because when you have those, then people have some they have something to anchor to.
00:15:48
Speaker
Right. So one of the ones we had at Cory bites was calm the chaos. I was really bad at this one. It was hard for me, but in a meeting, like things would start getting frustrated and it's like, wait, wait, wait. We need to calm the chaos. Okay. Like here's how we're going to do that. And they can kind of get invoked is the end.
00:16:09
Speaker
I found that kind of helps individual contributors know kind of where they should operate in that domain. So in addition to being empowered, they also have something to help with their decision making process ah around what is something that would lead towards the outcome we're all looking for. So then that way it's not the mandate of here's what we should be doing in terms of process.
00:16:39
Speaker
But it's like, here's where we're going. And do when you think about core values, too, like um you know how do you help people identify what those what those are? like Where people want to go, what what are what is that vision that a lot of your organizations that you are working with are are trying to get to?
00:17:01
Speaker
Well, you bring up a good point because core values is, is I think everything is like, it's that's our North Star, right? And I talk about that in my book too. um is and But most of the time, core values are already prescribed when you join an organization, right? um in the you know That management consulting firm I worked at 15 years ago, they had core values, right? And this was like evergreen, right? Everybody's like evergreen core values.
00:17:31
Speaker
But the thing is, I think when we talk about continuous improvement is that those core values, we're not married to two of those core values um all the time. They can always be like, we can always shift them um slightly to what we need. So I think first off we have to, when we think about like um evolving for the future, we need to say this is our values right now in this moment. And often we are inherit these core values that don't really, people aren't living those core values.
00:18:01
Speaker
So first off, when I think about um um like when I go to my empathy and action framework, the first part of this this process is awareness. How do you build and it's it's linking to like this social and emotional learning, um the castle wheel, um when we talk about this, and every step along the way is building emotional intelligence, and psychological safety. Number one, awareness building. like Who are we? What are we doing? right You have to be like, okay, what are the current practices gaps and areas where we can enhance um the work that we do? and then Then the second step is alignment. so In that stage, we're we're aligning our values, our goals, and our practices with the principles that we co-create with each other.
00:18:49
Speaker
And I think um that is a big leap when we talk about Western business practices. Let's talk about that. That is that is not often done. and um And I think about this and there's another book that I um Think about in a in a bigger way when we talks about what society looks like in a bigger capacity is number one. um There's this book that's called new power that came in 2018.
00:19:19
Speaker
um but It talks about how technology, globalization, a lot of different things are are pushing us in this direction from going from old power, which is top-down, leader-driven, command and control, um you do what I tell you to do kind of situation, which has been historically where we've been,
00:19:41
Speaker
to a new power where power is a current and power is shared amongst different people so the world needs to be more participatory and newer generations are asking for that right and i think even even older generations too having experienced something like So such so such a tragedy as the pandemic are starting to realize maybe values of my organization aren't aligned with my values and people want their an organization to be aligned with their values a lot more.
00:20:14
Speaker
So I loved what you were saying. It makes me think about Mary Parker Follett back in the 1930s and her ideas around power over versus power with and I think there's just such a resurgence of that and I think it's really neat to go back to some of these ideas. We had John Willis on the show recently and he was talking about Edward Deming and like going back to some of these ideas that have really served us, but they've been kind of hiding beneath the surface a little bit too. So yeah, that's it. That's a good one. What are some of the biggest barriers to change and what should people be aware of and how to overcome them?
Learning from Change
00:20:56
Speaker
Well, I think people are the biggest biggest barriers to change. um But i what I think about this is that um
00:21:06
Speaker
Change, I think what we need to do is is um often is to think about what is our relationship to change. there's this thing called meta-emotions. like And when i when I think about like emotional intelligence, I start thinking about what are your, but it's very meta, right? But it's like, what are your feelings about feelings and emotions, right? So what I would start with is when I think about individuals and like the barriers to change, is that what is, um and this is an individual and an organizational level, is what is our feelings about change?
00:21:43
Speaker
what are our thoughts about change and and that interest that that makes you start thinking about, oh, like what is what is the what is the language? What is the stories we've told ourselves about change? Because honestly, if you go back to talk about going back, let's go way back to like Buddhism, right? like And i bring I talk about this in our book, and then I also am invoking um Octavia Butler, right? God is change. And so change is inevitable, right?
00:22:15
Speaker
um and And in Buddhism, they they have this practice. It's impermanence, right? Nothing is as permanent. Everything is changing. So if you start adopting that mindset um as an organization is realize that Change is something that is always going to happen. We need to change our relationship to change um and then get get okay with it. And then also when we talk about relationships to change is also that change is not something to be feared. Change is something to be embraced because what you're doing
00:22:52
Speaker
is you might not know where it we're conditioned to like what certainty. We're not gonna, we don't have certainty, right? So if you start accepting we don't have a, we don't, there's no nothing certain in this life really. um If we started saying that and we're like, well no, this process of what we're doing is a learning process, it's a growing process, then things start flowing, things start changing for you. um so and So that's some of the things that I try to do with the leaders that I work with.
00:23:20
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I love this. I want to start getting into some more concrete and actionable things. So, you know, folks are listening. They're like, this is great stuff. I want to exist in an organization that is like this. What is one thing that they can start doing immediately? Right now, as soon as the podcast is done, they can change this one behavior to start making a difference.
00:23:46
Speaker
ah So the number one thing that I think people can do is to step into their values to do some personal reflection. um It doesn't seem like it's so actionable because people want to be like, I'm in the organization changing stuff, right?
Aligning Personal and Organizational Values
00:24:00
Speaker
But really, it's like, are my values aligned to the workplace that I'm in, right?
00:24:05
Speaker
um and like who What I really care about, what is my identity? I'm about to do next week, I'm going to be doing four workshops with one of my my clients, a pharmaceutical company, where I'm going to be on the front lines on um in ah their manufacturing sites to do identity, like like conversation about identity and storytelling around identity.
00:24:29
Speaker
is we have to think about where do we come from? What has our workplaces taught us about how we should be and think? um And that that unto itself like will be illuminating. And I think i think that's that we don't do enough like personal reflection about how our work has shaped us. And then that will allow you to start, once you have that awareness,
00:24:54
Speaker
you can start moving into being like, okay, I'm accepting that this is the way life has been. I don't and then you start realizing I don't have to. I don't have to take I don't have to do this anymore. Like if it's not if it's not aligned to what I really want.
00:25:10
Speaker
there's choices I can make, right? um And you know it doesn't necessarily mean leaving a job that is very privileged place to be. Not everybody has that opportunity to do that, but you can change, um you know like I was saying, influence the people around you, um but we have to start with ourselves first. So that's what I would say.
00:25:29
Speaker
Great. Are there any resources you would suggest to people that want to learn more
Resources for Building Empathy
00:25:34
Speaker
about this? Yeah. So we have um a number of resources that we're we're building actually currently within both Healing for Work and the Empathy Action Lab um and even either org. And I will tell you about these three things. And so we're kind of in a and like we're always constantly learning. We're actually taking we've been working with clients for several years now.
00:25:58
Speaker
And we're actually taking that learning and applying it and creating what we call the new emotional intelligence, um which is the things that I've been talking about today um are hitting upon this. So probably by the time that this podcast comes out, you can actually go to our website on um healingforwork dot.com.
00:26:20
Speaker
And we will we will have a white paper available to learn more about this this new emotional intelligence that we're having that we're talking about and you know learn some services. And we also, one of the things we want to do is do awareness building. So what we are going to be doing is toolkits and tip sheets and other things that are going to help you guide you to start building empathy and emotional intelligence and psychological safety within your organization.
00:26:49
Speaker
Um, and so that is healing for work, but for the empathy action lab, um, we are actually, that's where we started moving from these foundational elements of the new emotional intelligence into, um, this five step process. That's the, fra the empathy and action framework. And, um, we're,
00:27:09
Speaker
and with Empathy Action Lab, which is empathyactionlab.com, um you can actually, we and I will be releasing this as well, um the new Empathy Action and Framework will be like, here are the steps that you can do that you can like actually embed empathy, emotional intelligence, and psychological safety within your organization.
00:27:32
Speaker
Here's the steps along the way. And then with either org, um I, ah with a guiding council, um we've been doing this thing called vision summer. um This fall, we are, and I was just talking about this like an hour ago, with my co-conspirator on this.
00:27:47
Speaker
We are putting a case for change together um for organizations to rethink and this is the organization that's rethinking our Western business practices. So how do we genetically re-sequence ourselves? What should we do? How should we do it? We've been deeply thinking about that and we have an opportunity coming up very soon, um which we call the We're trying to define and do some storytelling around what does a liberatory future of work look like? Like all the different components of it start defining this to see like, what is our vision? What are we working towards? What's our North Star? So if you want to participate in that, um you can follow me and reach out. um um Next week we're going to be, and for two weeks we're going to be accepting applications to
00:28:37
Speaker
participate in the storytelling workshop and project that we're doing. um But it is really and a collective and I think the future is in the collective. So I think we need to stand up and say, you know what, things don't seem right. Let's come together and start figuring and this out together because we're not alone in this. I know that because of the work that I've been doing.
00:28:58
Speaker
When you say this sort of re-adaptation from the Western business practices, what specific Western business practices might be holding Western businesses back?
Re-evaluating Traditional Business Practices
00:29:11
Speaker
There's a whole list um that that I could talk about. What's holding us back, um you know I mentioned earlier, um old power, new power.
00:29:21
Speaker
and you know that is That is something that I've seen firsthand. If you read my book, there's a whole story about how I was confronted with that when I was leading innovation in in um in the White House you know as the director of innovation.gov. um and so And so I got to see from a 10,000-foot level like what is really blocking us.
00:29:41
Speaker
But um that is that is definitely something that we we're holding onto this old power, um but we we need to go closer to a new power. It's kind of like a polarity that we're managing. um Another thing is perfectionism um that we're trying to fight is that there is like perfectionism is subjective, right? And it has been defined by our organization, right?
00:30:05
Speaker
Um, this idea of, um, avoiding conflict, right? Because we're very conflict avoidant. We need to like to maintain harmony, right? Because you know at the end of the day, the the thing is like conflict is good and we can change our mindset is like, when we have conflict, that's what you want because you're going to make a better product, a better, more, you're going to have more innovation with diversity of thought. Um.
00:30:29
Speaker
you know This idea of efficiency and results over well-being, those are some of the things that we're talking about. and we have um We actually have a list of, when we talk about a liberatory future of work, there are 10 things that we're thinking about, um and we're going to co-create a little bit more of those. so um and We also have bringing in strategic foresight, right which is this idea of like what how can we strategically look towards the future?
00:30:57
Speaker
And I think um with my my work around that is trying to to think about what what might the world look like in 20 or 30 years. um and um what And also look at the trends. There are lots of trends that are affecting our world today that is forcing us to move away from the those Western business cultures because climate change, for example, we are our our idea of capitalism is really um it being extractive and taking away. So how might we be go from a place of competitiveness to cooperation with not just each other, but with nature, you know? So those are some of the things, i've got i met I could talk all day about this stuff, but those are the things that we wanna do. And it really is has resulted in us being burnt out
00:31:48
Speaker
And that is really the one thing that I hear over and over again, is that that is the problem that many people are experiencing right now.
Addressing Workplace Burnout with Empathy
00:31:57
Speaker
I literally had somebody said, I want to survive to 25 yesterday. Wow. You know, like, that's the phrase that he's saying in his colleagues, because financially, but also mentally. And I think that's been weighing on a lot of people's minds right now. And we need to be aware of that. And that's where empathy comes in, you know,
00:32:16
Speaker
um my god Amy, I could chat all day with you about this. like I think you and I are so aligned in why we've become such good friends is this idea of empathy and action, of recognizing, yes, it's important.
00:32:32
Speaker
But what do we do about it? And I love the way that you're bringing the Empathy Action Lab and everything so that people have very tangible and tactical ways to start moving forward on this. So I hope people definitely check out your work. We have one final question that we ask for all of our guests, which is what is the most important thing that you think should happen at the intersection of empathy and technology?
00:32:57
Speaker
I think when it comes to empathy and technology, I think that the idea, ah because I live in both of those worlds, I didn't talk about that in a big way, but um I do spend a lot of time in, you know, I'm an advisor for AI at a government agency, for example, and I work with Stanford in um talking about ethics.
00:33:21
Speaker
technology and public policy and I facilitate a course with that. So I i think the number one thing is ethics is what it comes down to it and that's the intersection of empathy and tech is like when we When we talk about this world of artificial intelligence, how do we make sure we're doing it so we're not creating more harm in the world? And I think about that in a big way. is like not just you know And like there's plenty of games, because I do game design, too. like There's games out there that is helping us rethink and reimagine
00:33:59
Speaker
um ah Is is to reimagine like what these things might be but i think what we do is we have a good ethical boundary where we start talking about like what um how might we not just build better products but learn how to be better with each other and hold.
00:34:19
Speaker
space and care for each other. um What does that look like? Like, I think if we can do that, then I think if we can model that behavior, it will show up in our technology, it will show up in our AI and what we design in the future. So I think for me, like, that ethical like ethics is such a sticky wicket, um which is why i I focus on it a lot. But like, that's that intersection, I think is so meaningful and important. And we needed to be able to like,
00:34:46
Speaker
to really like push and um influence um the people around us to be better and to care for each other. So that's what I would say. So this has been a ah great conversation. One more time, just let people know how to get in touch with you and engage with your work.
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah, you can reach me at AmyJWilson.com. um I'm also at Amy at AmyJWilson dot.com. um So if you want to email me. um And if you want to if you want to engage in like emotional intelligence, the new emotional intelligence I was talking about, go go to healingforwork dot.com um or with Empathy Action Lab at at EmpathyActionLab dot.com. And then with either org, if you want to participate in our um collective and the work that we're doing, go to eitherorg.org with a G. like It's not eitherorg, it's eitherorg. So and so but those are the places you can go. There's lots of resources. And if you want to just have a chat, I'm open to that. I love i love meeting new people and talking about ideas. So I'd love to hear from you.
00:35:54
Speaker
Thanks so much, Amy. And we will include links to those in the show notes. So you can definitely check those out. Thank you, everyone, for listening. I hope that you got just as much out of this conversation as we did. And real quickly, empathy and tech, what we are, we are on a mission to accelerate the responsible adoption of empathy in the tech industry by doing four things. Closing the empathy skills gap by treating empathy as a technical skill.
00:36:19
Speaker
teaching technical empathy through accessible, affordable, and actionable training, building community and breaking down harmful stereotypes and tropes, promoting technical empathy for ethics, equity, and social justice, which is exactly Amy why we were so excited to have you on the show. So if you found this conversation interesting,
00:36:39
Speaker
Share it. Tell your friends. Go over to empathyintech.com. Keep the conversation going and join our community of compassionate technologists. Thanks so so much for listening and we will see you all in the next episode.