People are complex. Understanding their motivations, behaviours, opinions and actions can be tricky sometimes.

A crucial part of design thinking, empathy is the ability to see the world from another’s perspective, to step into their shoes. This can be used for many outcomes – wherever it is useful to understand people more deeply.

This can be highly effective in innovation, in that empathy helps you understand the motivations and desires of your customers. And it’s also useful in leadership and communication, in understanding how you come across to others and how you’re perceived by others.

One of the most effective approaches to quickly gain a better understanding of colleagues, stakeholders, customers – or whoever you’re working with or for – is empathy mapping. It’s as simple as imagining yourself in their shoes and looking at things from their perspective.

Draw a simple Empathy Mapping template as above.

Write a name or draw a picture in the middle of the map of the person you would like to analyse. Then, work your way around the map, filling in the segments.

Use the Empathy Map to help you ask questions like:

• What is your subject thinking?
• What are they seeing?
• What kinds of things are they saying to the people they care about?
• What are they doing – either physical actions or projects?
• How are they feeling – what are their emotions at the moment?
• What are they hearing from colleagues, clients, friends?

We'd encourage you to use it often - for colleagues, bosses, customers - anyone you're working with or communicating with on a regular basis. The short time spent using the tool is well worth it in terms of the returns you'll receive as a result.