Empathy

I just took this "empathy" quiz given to college students (apparently, they're not so empathetic). It's supposed to measure how well you empathize with others. Of course we all THINK we are pretty empathetic people, including me. But then a few of the questions really got me thinking:

-I try to look at everybody's side of a disagreement before I make a decision.

-I believe that there are two sides to every question and try to look at them both.

-When I'm upset at someone, I usually try to "put myself in his shoes" for a while.

Do I make a concerted effort to see everybody's side of a disagreement or do I just bulldoze through and make a decision? Was there some voice in the room that could have saved me from making a bad decision had I just listened? How do people with whom I work feel when they haven't been heard?

Do I believe that there are two sides to every question? How many times to we go into a story with a subsurface preconceived notion about what that story ought to be? Do we really have an open mind coming into a story-- or newsroom debate?

Finally, that last question. It is really easy to get hot under the collar sometimes in TV news. There are big deadlines, big personalities and sometimes those clash in the worst way. How many times do we really, truly, try to imagine what the person we might like to scream at is actually going through? Can we take a break from our anger, take a breath, surrender our ego and try to get to where the other person is coming from? Or do we stick to our guns and possibly make the matter worse?

I am in no way advocating that you be wishy-washy in your decision-making. As one former boss told me, "It ain't a democracy." But'll you'll go a long way in making good decisions by at least listening to what everyone has to say and empathizing with their position. Well informed decisions are the best ones.

You can take that quiz yourself here:
http://umichisr.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bCvraMmZBCcov52&SVID