20 Stakeholder Landscapes: Empathy Mapping
Empathy mapping
[the images are not added in this chapter as yet]
The first action you want to take is to explore the empathy mapping technique.
[1] Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2019). The designing for growth field book: A step-by-step project guide. Columbia University Press.
Empathy Mapping, what we sometimes call the ‘Think-Feel’ approach, is the process of capturing in a visual format an individual’s answers to empathic questions on a specific topic. These questions will usually be framed around a specific problem, opportunity, product or service. The core questions focus on what people think, feel, hear, see, say and do. When you really want to understand what it is that your user wants to do and you need to know more about the why and the circumstances, empathy mapping is a great place to start.
The Empathy Map is a single page outcome of this process. An Empathy Map can also be used to represent a group of people when individual responses can be all put together as one.
This tells us about the ‘state’ of the use or potential in the process you are proposing. We also need to know what the user is doing, or ideally wants to do, to achieve their goals and needs. How do we find out about their actions?
What is an Empathy map?
Empathy maps are a very useful tool to systematically unpack a market segment’s psyche. The Empathy Map Canvas is an investigation device which asks the right questions to help dig deeper into people’s drivers to really understand ‘why’ they do what they do and behave and react as they do.
Why use the tool?
Empathy is an essential skill we need to be able to create innovations, especially those that involve people. . It can however be difficult to connect with all research subjects. This tool is a great hand holder to ensure you ask the right questions and get the right information. It is a little bit of structure at a point that is critical to delivering a Human Centred outcome.
How to use it?
The Empathy map could be as simple as asking what do the subject group of people see, say, hear, do, think and feel. The Empathy Map Canvas goes a step further to create a staged process to follow. This is a very useful tool to use during qualitative research to build personas and Journey maps. It can also be used many other qualitative research scenarios.
Since most of our work in the Army is about people, for people, and by people, how do we go about exploring what we need to know about those people? Of course, we use the empathy map as part of the process. We also need to know what it is that our user wants to achieve, what why want to do and what are their frustrations with the current ways of doing things. To do this we use Journey Maps and Jobs to be Done techniques.
[1] Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2019). The designing for growth field book: A step-by-step project guide. Columbia University Press.
[2] Ibid.
In previous chapters about stakeholders you carefully examined the concept of a stakeholder landscape and you applied a set of analytical processes and frameworks to a situation and context that is relevant to you and your practice of the art of good thinking.
At the completion of the unit you completed the The Power Legitimacy Urgency diagnostic1 exercise. You categorised a group of stakeholders and we asked you to place your list of stakeholders in the respective categories using the The Power Legitimacy Urgency diagnostic.2
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We want you to choose at least two of the stakeholders from your categorisation. It is a good idea to choose one from the Definitive category and another one that you believe it highly important to your situation.
You have worked on your stakeholder landscape in detail. We want to show you another layer of investigation that will help you with successfully applying the art of good thinking.
Badly paraphrased, we suggest you know your audience well and know your enemies even better. You may not have an actual enemy in this exercise but you can imagine the impact of an antagonistic stakeholder with a strongly-held differing view to yours.
We want you to apply an empathy mapping approach to understanding the stakeholder landscape. You will apply two concepts here.
- We want you to think of the overall landscape noting our reminder about the people who are the stakeholders.
- Then we want you to explore at least two of the stakeholder groups using empathy mapping.
HINT: This technique may be very useful for you when you are completing your @Work2 activity.
You can see this approach with the following image.
Each of the quadrants is a single example of an empathy map template.
The template is set up with an image in the centre to remind us that we are dealing with people’s thoughts and actions, their pains and desired gains.
We put four together to remind us that there are multiple stakeholders in most stakeholder explorations.
[Templates as in the Rise folder]
A Empathy Mapping the Stakeholder Landscape map
Adapted from3
Empathy Mapping, what we sometimes call the ‘Think-Feel’ approach, is the process using a series of exploratory questions to through a series of questions to understand a stakeholder’s views about a topic or issue. For you since you are using this process to understand the stakeholder landscape will be wanting for find out their view about the topics and situation that are relevant to you.
The core questions focus on what your stakeholder or stakeholder group think, feel, hear, see, say and do. You might use this approach when you really want to understand what it is that your stakeholder wants from that situation, or if fact even cares, about circumstances.
Empathy Map Template
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The Empathy Map is a typically a single page outcome for an individual or group you are exploring. An Empathy Map can also be used to represent a group of people when individual responses can be all put together as one, as you would for a stakeholder group.
It can help us understand what the stakeholder wants in the situation.
Applying the empathy mapping process to understanding key elements of a stakeholder landscape means that you will choose the specific stakeholder group you want to explore. You will apply the questioning process and gather insights and observations that are relevant to you.
When we are using this process for other purposes such as designing a new process or way of doing things we would most likely directly interrogate the person or group.
When you use it as a landscape exploration tool it is more likely that you will be able to research and figure out enough information and detail to be able to understand enough. Another trusted source might be someone such as a mentor or close team member. You don’t have to do a major research project in most cases. You just don’t want to be caught out or get an unwelcome surprise because you don’t know the battlefield.
Empathy Mapping the Stakeholder Landscape
Adapted from5
Activity
Continue working on the situation you used in the previous lessons when you were thinking about a situation where you dealt with or will deal with stakeholders in a specific context for a specific reason and outcome.
Action
Choose at least two of the stakeholder groups from The Power Legitimacy Urgency diagnostic activity.
Apply the empathy mapping process by standing in the place of the stakeholder or stakeholder group. Systematically work your way through the questions.
Here are some tips for you.
The easier parts are what the stakeholder or stakeholders might be hearing, saying, seeing, and doing. More challenging is to figure out or imagine what they might be thinking and feeling. However, by carefully working on the map from their point of view you can made a good guestimate. Most challenging is to figure out their pains and gains.
For stakeholders, pains might what they are fearful of, what they might lose, or have to do that they don’t want to do, or perhaps a loss of influence or power. You have some good clues in your analyses from the previous lesson. Gains might be that they can possibly stop something they don’t want to happen, or get an outcome they really believe in.
Here is an example. Coal seam gas exploration and extraction is a complex process and is one that divides communities and people. A careful plan of the stakeholders is a typical part of the process. Many companies set out to manage stakeholders, usually for their own benefit. Sometimes this works and other times it leads to poor outcomes. Part of the reason is that the business doesn’t really understand the deep motivations and thinking of the groups. Often as stakeholder might be allocated to perhaps the dangerous category in the diagnosis and the action is to try to shut them out. What is really going on?
Very often companies have little or no understanding of minority groups. Attributions are made and mistakes are made.
Exploring deeply into the mindset and actions of a stakeholder can really help you to put it all together.
To wrap up this part of the exercise, put together all the pieces of evidence.
Revisit all the pieces of your stakeholder landscape analyses.
You are now Stakeholder landscape ready!
[1] Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2019). The designing for growth field book: A step-by-step project guide. Columbia University Press.
[2] Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2019). The designing for growth field book: A step-by-step project guide. Columbia University Press.
