Role of Empathy in Design, and Leadership

I love this article by David Kelly of IDEO on the role of empathy in managing others:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1746447/qa-with-david-kelley-of-ideo

As any UX designer will tell you, good UX Design requires a good understanding of who you are designing for: user centered design is predicated on insight into the target user (who they are, how they behave, and even their attitudes). UCD methods have lots of techniques to document that insight, including profiles, personas, scenarios, experience models, and others. As part of that insight, empathy is foundational component, although one that is sometimes harder to articulate. However, it's critical that a design team identify with a user's context (their needs, behaviors, and attitudes). It's that identification that is based also upon empathy: seeing the design challenge from the perspective of a user.

I love Kelley' points about how this relates to managing others. Also, I think his points have particular relevance to managing the wide range of others typically involved in the development UXD work. UXD work involves such a wide range of disciplines and practices (IA's and Interaction Designers, Visual Designers, Technologists, Content Strategists, etc) that it's critical for a the manager of the design process to identify and empathize with the various team member's perspectives on the design challenge (how an IA sees the challenge as compared to the Site Developer). UXD is such a particularly inter-disciplinary design process, that great solutions overall are based upon getting great ideas and input from all of the independent team members. And, in order to do that, empathy for those creatives is definitely required.