Ruinous Empathy

I talk on here a lot about empathy and kindness, which are both great virtues to embrace but both of which can be troublesome if overused.

The idea I’ve shared a few times comes from Gary Vee’s concept of “Kind Candor”. If you’re simply kind to everyone and never speak the truth, it can be big trouble. In her book “Radical Candor“, author Kim Scott has a similar term that she calls “Ruinous Empathy”. From the book:

“Ruinous Empathy—you’re so fixated on not hurting a person’s feelings in the moment that you don’t tell them something they’d be better off knowing in the long run.”

She gives a great example on her website:

Ruinous Empathy is seeing somebody with their fly down, but, not wanting to embarrass them, saying nothing, with the result that 15 more people see them with their fly down — more embarrassing for them. So, not so “nice” after all.

I had a similar situation come up a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was repeatedly mispronouncing a word, and I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. I didn’t want to come across as being a jerk in pointing out the flaw, particularly because I’m sure there are various words that I consistently mispronounce all the time. In the end, I let them know, they fixed it, and all was good. It wasn’t a big deal in either direction, but I’m glad I was able to help.

If I’m mispronouncing something or if I misunderstand a situation, I hope you’ll take the time to let me know. If you do, I’ll be less wrong than I was before, which is always good. Just be sure to leave a bit of kindness in there when you straighten me out.