Training for an Empathy Decathlon® – A Spotlight on Shelton Davis

My weekly Purposeful Empathy newsletter is dedicated to amplifying the voices of people from around the globe who believe the world needs more empathy - and are doing something about it. In September, I’m highlighting the work of two incredible empathy scholars and two inspiring men who understand the power of empathy to change lives, workplaces, and the world.

Shelton Davis is an accomplished product and UX designer, with over 15 years of experience in human-centered innovation.

His calling to the empathy space can be traced back to a realization that our collective empathy muscle has atrophied, and he was determined to help flip that script.

So, in 2018, he launched The Empathy Lab, to bring empathy into center stage - especially within organizations. According to their website: “Through our expertly crafted practices, engaging dialogues, and super soft t-shirts, we equip individuals and organizations with the essential tools to embody empathy for self (me-empathy) and empathy for others (we-empathy).”

P.S. It’s true, their t-shirts are incredibly soft! Check out yours truly in Wadi Rum, Jordan, in March, 2024.

In a recent conversation on my podcast with Shelton, he shares how innovation and empathy are best friends. But “if there is low empathy within [a] workplace, it makes the innovation cycle very hard.”

That’s why he created the Empathy Decathlon®, a framework that helps develop ten mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual skills from the inside out. He delves into each one at length on my podcast, but here’s a quick summary:

Step 1: Energy – Enhancing our capacity to take on life's experiences through self-awareness.

Step 2: Baggage – Recognising that we are carrying personal and collective burdens.

Step 3: Self-Awareness – Knowing how you feel, helps you see how you show up.

Step 4: Inventory – Taking an intentional pause to reflect on Energy, Baggage, Self-Awareness, as well as Power & Privilege.

Step 5: Hearing – Identifying how you absorb information and distractions, through our five senses as well as cognitive biases.

Step 6: Responding – Learning how to respond in a way that is neutral and clarifying.

Step 7: Asking – Requesting additional information in a way that is also neutral and clarifying.

Step 8: Meaning – Taking a second intentional pause to carefully interpret any new information you’ve heard or gathered. 

Step 9: Feedback – Sharing information in a focused way that moves things forward. 

Step 10: Lead – Leading in a way that cultivates a safe environment that allows for individual growth and teams to feel empowered.

A final thought about American former decathlete and Olympic gold medalist, Dan O’Brien: “The decathlon includes ten separate events and they all matter. You can't work on just one of them.” When it comes to empathy, I'm sure Shelton Davis would agree.

Want to learn more about empathy? Order my debut book, Purposeful Empathy: Tapping Our Hidden Superpower for Personal, Organizational, and Social Change.

Watch my Purposeful Empathy interview with Shelton Davis on YouTube here or listen to it as a podcast on your favourite platform (Spotify or Apple Podcasts).