Transcript
Annalisa Holcombe (01:34)
This week, I am joined by Engels Tejeda. Engels is a trial lawyer focusing on consumer claims defense, cybersecurity, and privacy litigation. Engels is also a thoughtful and compassionate advocate for diversity and inclusion. He’s a naturalized US citizen, and he serves on several boards. Today, we’re talking about empathy.

Annalisa Holcombe (2:10)
You know that I always start the podcast with my famous first question, and I gave you a heads up. So let's talk about it. If you take away all references to work, school, volunteerism, sports, church-related activity—all those things that we talked about when we say this is what I do and what I'm proud of. You can take all of that away. I'm really interested in who are what are you most proud of, as a person, as a human being, and why?

Engels Tejeda (02:38)
It comes down to family for me. I think what I'm most proud of is the the role of that I have accepted and nurtured and worked on as a big brother to my sister, the best brother I can possibly to my little sister—who isn't so little anymore just 31/32 this next month. But I am I think, you know, my sister was born with a cognitive disability. There is a big challenge in this because it's it's not something that is evident or, you know, it’s blatant. And you don't recognize it and I certainly didn't become aware of it until you know it was way into my teen years, my late teens, when it finally it kind of clicked.

Engels Tejeda (03:40)
I was just discussing this actually last night with a friend of mine and saying that she’s been in the United States for a while. And so she was growing up in Dominican Republic where we don't have the infrastructure to deal with these issues. And I remember as a teen that I would start sending money back home to have her go to private schools because we're worried that she wasn't advancing fast enough. It was incredibly frustrating to go back home. I could me has always been easy for me. And so I would go by calming, we would try to do math problems thing. It just wasn't getting there.

Engels Tejeda (04:10)
And that was was frustrating. It was. It was just difficult, and I remember that that period of time in my late teens, early young adulthood, when I finally understood, “You know what, this is different. It's not something she can change. It's going to be a challenge forever.” And most importantly, for me I think, was the realization that this was a role that I would have to fulfill, that I had to… you know, this was an obligation that I think I have. And it to me, assuming that role is probably what I'm most proud of. I think it's a life-term commitment and I think it's very similar to what many parents experience. I'm not a parent.

Engels Tejeda (05:08)
But I think it's, it's that realization just having that realization that this is someone that I need to take care of. And I don't think it seems that time, there is no major decision that I've taken my life that hasn’t icluded that analysis. How is this going to affect my ability to be there? Again, I think you are very smart to start that kind of a question. It kind of gets to the core of it. But it is definitely, in my view, what's shaped much my adulthood and the rest of my life. It's just realizing that this is something I need to take care of thing. And I'm really proud of having developed an interest in that obligation. I think we're giving a lot of incentives to think of ourselves and to let people kind of deal with their problems and go on. And the big challenge, I think we're gonna be talking a lot about a lot about this today, but the big challenge is to pause and think about your impact on other people's lives, saying, you know, and how much of other people's problems you need to take on. I, for me it's led to a much fuller life. So I'm really proud of that.

Annalisa Holcombe (06:28)
I love that so much. I completely get it, and I see even in the conversation, as you describe that relationship there are little moments when you were thinking about it that I could see the emotion bubbling up within you. And those are the things that I wish we in our lives had more opportunity to talk about, because those moments are are actually where we see empathy, right? Where we feel it, where I can like when you were talking about how deeply important this is to you how every single decision that you make in your life, every major decision has that as a piece of it and how important it is to you, there's no way to separate the emotion of that with the decision-making of that as well, like how deeply important that is to you. And so I appreciate your willingness to start in that way and to talk about this because there's gonna be a bit of this in our conversation.

Engels Tejeda (07:29)
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure.

Annalisa Holcombe (07:32)
I think ultimately empathy is difficult to talk about. It seems like it might now be, but if we really talk about it it might be. This is going to be a very Brene Brown-centered episode because her research is so important to this. I wanted to bring up this whole aspect because her research is has shown that being truly connected to other individuals is something that we are wired for as humans. It's how we find purpose and meaning. It's what we do, it's the place that provides us that real humanity. And her research has also shown us that it's shame that disconnects us from that, from each other; but the antidote to shame is empathy.

Annalisa Holcombe (08:19)
And so with that being said, I just want to be clear that we're, we're not going to be able to talk about empathy without also talking about other concepts like shame, belonging, and disconnection and what that means. So with all that being said, I provided many subject matters to you to talk about today chose empathy. So talk to me about why? Why did that resonate for you.

Engels Tejeda (08:45)
I mean, I'm a trial lawyer and my job is primarily to solve problems right to come out of a situation and and provide a solution for a client. And it's funny, what we see when we think of typically is we're going to go into courting we’re going to win. And we certainly want to do that. I certainly enjoy doing that, but most of trial work in the modern day is conflict resolution. Being a key part of conflict resolution is understanding not just your side, which we adopt entirely. I had a partner who used to tell me, you know, we just we become the client—we learn every detail. But perhaps the more important part of conflict resolution is understanding the other side.

Engels Tejeda (09:46)
You know, and we don't have to sympathize with them. We don't have to agree with their physician, most times we don't. But we have to understand it and you have to understand it at a core level. The more difficult the problem is, the more important it is that you understand the other side’s position. And the more challenging it becomes to do so. One of the reasons I wanted to talk about this, that I like this subject, is because I struggle with it on a daily basis. You know, so there's that part. And I think just in terms of, you know, kind of boring very meta level, it really… giving all the conflicts that that we've experienced during the past few years, probably most people experience at certain points in your life. I think, you know, we talked a lot about how there is so much tension. Now, I think if you asked if you went back and you ask people 20 years ago they would see a lot of conflict as well. But most of these issues that we see in a plural society deal with this notion of empathy.

Engels Tejeda (10:55)
How can I see things from your perspective, if just for a little bit. I don't have to agree with them, hopefully I'll be able to convince you of my way, to see the world the way that I see it. But it starts with, I think, understanding what the other person’s view is and where they're coming from. So that, to me, that's why it's such an interesting topic. I think I remember a guy… I tend to do this a lot. I realized recently I quote Barack Obama a lot, but I misquote him. But one of the things that someone asked him is “what is the most important quality for a Supreme Court justice?” You know, it's nine people who make decisions that affect so many people in not just in the United States, but globally, really. And his response was a great justice has to have empathy. You have to be able to understand where people are coming from to make the kind of decisions that they’re making.

Engels Tejeda (12:05)
I think it's it's a quality that applies to anyone in leadership or just to anyone really wants to be happy. We talk about the things that make people uneasy and unhappy. And this concept of empathy, I think, plays a big role in that. If you start understanding why people do the things they do, you tend to have an easier life yourself.

Annalisa (12:33)
I'm interested in how empathy shows up at work. I know that there is research that shows that empathy, especially expressed by leaders can make for a better workplace. But I'm also interested. I'm interested in a couple of things about that. So one is about, you know, how can leaders and colleagues exercise empathy with each other. Then given that, how can we do that without burning out because it takes so much emotional energy. And sometimes we just don't have time for that kind of emotional energy. So like, we're all feeling it so much right now in the middle of a pandemic that feels like we're spending a lot more emotional energy than we normally would.

Engels Tejeda (13:24)
Yes. The pandemic, the racial issues, the politics. All the noise.

Annalisa Holcombe (13:30)
The insecurity that we're all experienced. Yes.

Engels Tejeda (13:33)
And for me, I think you touched on a couple of things. One is empathy from leadership. I think most leaders now understand that concept, and I think that they all have for some time. I think all good leaders have for quite some time and they express it differently. The difference and the changes that we're seeing is that we're being challenged to to display more empathy and sympathy. I think that traditionally leadership, particularly in corporate settings, has been really all about sympathy. They care about… And you will see this. I mean, you see this historically, when you talk about when you read about the great business(men, mostly)…

Annalisa Holcombe (14:26)
It feels very like paternalism.

Engels Tejeda (14:30)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And it also feels in you hear about how, you know, Ford wanted to make sure that everybody could buy a car. So you have all these stories and when you interview people who work closely, they'll tell you how fantastic these people were but what they are expressing is really mostly sympathy. These are people who care deeply about people who shared perspectives with them or life experiences. What the moment demands now it's empathy. We want people to understand, to give space particularly to folks who don't share their life experiences. The science and the demand is that by doing that, it will improve all outcomes including business outcomes.

Engels Tejeda (15:27)
That's hard. And I think leadership is still very much from a certain demographic, you know, statistically. So it is a challenge for them. I think it's also a challenge for employees to think about that and to empathize with their leadership. And to think about how did these people get there? And why do they act the way they do? And, you know, it's interesting because the, again, the moment demands that we not make excuses for people to act a certain certain ways. There is no longer an excuse—I've heard this said in many different ways, particularly around the racial discussion, the race relations discussions—I don't want to excuse your discomfort anymore or give you a you know, say that you're comfortable because of your background and this isn't really you. It's just the way you were raised or whatever. I don't want to make those kinds of excuses thing. I understand that perspective and I empathize and sympathize with that position.

Engels Tejeda (16:35)
But if we're going to change this, right, if we're going to change behavior around race relations and it's just like that in the work environment. We are going to have to empathize with both sides and we're going to have to give some room for people to evolve on those issues. So from the leadership, that's how I see it. And as individually, I think I spend quite a bit of time trying to understand the struggles that all individuals come with, all the insecurities that people come in with. Even your most competitive colleague has these incredible insecurities that if you just pass to look, to understand, to pay attention, you’ll notice. And there is, you know, the concept of privilege comes up a lot in this conversation because all of us in one way or another have an advantage over someone else at work, even though we may not recognize it. You know, this happens in my case it happens a lot in terms of gender with my women colleagues, right. I’m in the room, sometimes I hear things that are inappropriate, or I hear and see behavior that, if I didn't pay attention, would would just go by the wayside. But when you think about it, it kind of demonstrates why we still have issues with the wage gap and that sort of thing. And it's those moments where it's really hard to empathize and to drum up the courage to say something. And to act up.

Engels Tejeda (18:16)
And it's not a, you know, paternalistic being or I'm going to be your protector type thing. It's a basic notion of, if I were to think about, “Okay, this is why you know we're having these issues with the difference between how men and women are treated at work and how they're advancing.” You can you can draw on empathy in those moments. And I think we must if you’re going to change it. So that's where I see it mostly, it's both the relationship within leadership, but also the relationship with each other with colleagues who are are different. Again, I think a lot about it for underrepresented groups because that's my experience, right, it's there. I walk into a room and I'm the only black person or gay person or whatever. But it's also towards the majority, right? There is quite a bit of pressure. And I think there's a potential for backlighting, we have to figure out how to manage this.

Engels Tejeda (19:26)
And there's quite a bit of pressure on people who are from the majority—both the ones who want to be strong allies and the ones who don't and you have to wonder why is that? You know, how are they viewing this moment?

Annalisa Holcombe (20:30)
I know that you have done some of your own volunteer work in lots of different areas. I had questions about both of those. So in one place, I know that you have particularly been active in the diversity and inclusion efforts professionally, as well as personally. And I know that I've like personally asked you to mentor individuals. Related to that, I am interested in your thoughts about the ways that empathy plays a role in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts both either in a professional or community space. Tell me about that.

Engels Tejeda (21:13)
Well, it's, it's critical. Again, you know, the goal of inclusion in particular is empathy in a way. Right. It's easy to sympathize, to be inclusive, for people you sympathize with right so it's really easy for me to include in my circles, other immigrants, LGBTQ people, and like-minded “progressives”. That's all easy and we do that. I think it's harder to broaden that circle and to bring in all those other perspectives that make America amazing, you know, it's an amazing plural place. We just have this rich diversity and it doesn't didn't just happen. You know, it takes quite a bit of work. But we have folks from just about everywhere here in our communities, even in some of what we perceive to be most segregated and emerging as you will find people who are very different. And so, to me, inclusion is all about empathy. It's all about trying to look at things from a different perspective. And about some self restraint, right? You don't have to be right all the time and you don't have to share all of your perspectives all the time. I think this is going to be it, this has been something that it's been hard for me to grab, right? It’s sometimes we just need to worry about where to combine and where the commonalities are.

Engels Tejeda (22:55)
I think that many people, the reason that inclusion as it relates to diversity is so difficult is that many people's perspectives—the things that get in the way—are deeply held beliefs and they are sincerely held beliefs. Right? It's not superficial, it's not a lack of intelligence or, you know… People think the way they do in many times, many times because of a sincere belief belief. Rephrase. People's deeply-held beliefs are are typically very sincere right there. They truly believe that, you know, open borders—that allowing only limited numbers of immigrants is going to be the result of some of these policies that we're pushing and that that's going to dramatically change the character of the nation for the worse. You know, to talk about one of those politically charged conflict, or they genuinely believe that the notion of pushing diversity and inclusion at work is really to push a certain group to give us an advantage to a certain group who isn't any longer discriminated against.

Engels Tejeda (24:29)
That's a generally held belief by some of these folks, though it's a complex one. There is no longer this whole notion of discrimination is because people aren’t really being discriminated. Number two, these policies are going to give any advantage to my disadvantage. And so we have to address those things if we're going to move forward as a society, and I think we we have been addressing these issues. I often say that the United States, from my perspective, deals with race issues much better than most places that are struggling with it. We are. It's a constant struggle. Here is a constant discussion and as we work…

Annalisa Holcombe (25:10)
I love that you’re putting that in context, though. Because, you know, those of us who live in the United States think this is super hard, and you're saying, yes, it is. But you’re doing pretty good job in terms of that, or at least you're doing better than other places.

Engels Tejeda (25:30)
Yeah, I think, I think we do a very good job on this front. And I think there are very few places that are showing results better than ours. And in fact, I can't think of any at our scale. I've had the privilege of traveling quite a bit and having family living in many different societies, you know, afar abroad, what I always say we're kind of just nomads. We've left from our small island in the Caribbean and just kind of, you know, I've got family in Europe in several countries and Asian so on, in South America. And we deal with this issue of race better, in my opinion, than most of us do. And I think we play a huge role in that, in the world stage on that issue. It's a hard thing to deal with, but we deal with it and I personally am fairly proud of that thing of being a part of that conversation. So, you know, those things that you were talking about earlier—to me, that's my contribution to this to this mission that the nation is taking on what being a plural society and understanding and advancing humanity through empathy.

Annalisa Holcombe (26:58)
I love that. I know that you did some volunteer work at with doing legal counsel for individuals who were trying to integrate.

Engels Tejeda (27:08)
Yes, people seeking asylum.

Annalisa Holcombe (27:12)
How would issues of inclusion or shame or blame, I guess, how did those show up in those spaces? I feel like that's a pretty particular context for where that exists.

Engels Tejeda (27:28)
Yes. I spoke about this at my firm. So here's the way I looked at this. I spent time in the military as well, in the US Army, and we did two tours — one to Kosovo and one to to Iraq. And both of those have large numbers of refugees, particularly Kosovo, where there were a lot of displaced people and we were placing folks around. So I viewed my missions with my missions. The military informed quite a bit of how I perceive the issue of refugees or people seeking asylum in foreign lands. When it cames to our own shores—and because wearing a politically charged environment, I should say that from my perspective, this is something that affects both parties—I think we're about to see it. We saw a little bit during the Obama administration. Then we it during the past administration. I think we're going to see it again this coming administration pretty quickly here. That this is that this is a difficult issue right. And like all difficult issues, they can be politicized is the leading but this is a very tough thing to address no matter where you're coming from.

Engels Tejeda (28:50)
And when you go there, when I showed up to the border a couple of years ago with a couple of colleagues to represent immigrants who were seeking asylum, my perspective was that I was there as their advocate. And I expected our government to have their best attorneys doing their best jobs to make the case on who should come in and who shouldn't to evaluate. I assume good faith, even though many of the folks who are involved in the space would point to evidence otherwise. But my job was to assume good faith; my opponent’s job, the government’s attorney, was to demonstrate that this person wasn't entitled to admission through that silent process because of X, Y, Z evidence. And my job was to do the opposite, to put together evidence that this person was. And then we would submit it to processing, I think, you know, talking about…. when it comes to empathy, the challenge for both sides (for both professionals in this environment) is to think about the other side's perspective.

Engels Tejeda (30:15)
And it's difficult, because in this case the it's not just any case we're talking about people's lives. And if you believe the stories that they're telling you, which many times I found very not just credible but verifiable, and this was truly a matter of life and death. And so it becomes not just a philosophical discussion, it becomes a matter of of that. Where are these people are going to leave if you don't get them in? If you don't do a good enough job?

Annalisa Holcombe (30:50)
Gosh, that's so much pressure.

Engels Tejeda (30:55)
It’s incredible pressure and, you know, the work that I do is all commercial litigation, a lot of commercial bankruptcies. I mean, it's just money. People will come out fine, right, we have a system. But this case is where you know I interviewed people who had these horrendous stories and sometimes they seemed and fantastical, they they seem unrealistic. Then you would go back and you would do some research and you would pull up some newspaper articles that you would see photos of, you know, everyday evidence supporting the stories of they're talking about— rape and kidnappings and torture and those sorts of things. That is happening today. We're not reading about it. You know, I wasn't reading about it in a textbook. I was hearing it from folks who had experienced it.

Engels Tejeda (31:45)
And so I think, again, you know, it's critical to that to stay on topic to the issue of empathy. I think empathy is critical to figuring out those cases. Now, I think the challenging part was both seeing the other side, the government side, in terms of the argument—we heard heard many arguments. A few that stuck with me where you know… This is a very dangerous journey. And so you shouldn't put your kids through it. I heard the argument of many people have used this system. And, you know, I actually had some familiarity with that and just kind of seeing the counter argument is challenging. It is also challenging, I think, to empathize with the people who were trying to take advantage of the system, right, who heard you can get through if you go and you claim that you've been persecuted. Then you think, you know, why are you faking this? Why are you pretending? You have to think hard about why is it that they're doing. So if you were in their position, would you? If you heard that you could migrate to a place where there was security, where there was relative food security, relative peace and prosperity, wouldn’t you try it, too? And I think it's a big challenge for for folks to work through. It was a challenge for me. But it was, it was a great opportunity. I think one of the things I'm really grateful I've been able to do there in the last few years.

Annalisa Holcombe (33:32)
One of the things I wanted to ask you about, especially, in terms of how empathy can show up as a practicing attorney. When I think about, I think that as you talked about the adversarial nature it was difficult for like a kind of a juxtaposition to an empathic response, but I'm interested that there… It could be, I was thinking about this, that there's a difference between blame and accountability. And accountability may be the space that you sit in when you're in those situations.

Engels Tejeda (34:08)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, I mean, that's really well put. I think there are definitely consequences to our actions and and we have to get there. You know, that's the role of law is to try and balance those things out. For me, where the word empathy comes in a lot is in just trying to figure out what is it that will help solve the conflict. What is it that will help the other side and both sides really feel like, “Okay, I'm okay with this outcome.” And that's hard. It's hard to to get there because I think you're right that the easiest, the easiest path is blame—to say it's your fault. And so because it's your fault, I am not giving an inch.

Annalisa Holcombe (35:03)
And that makes a lot of sense, especially that adversarial nature because blame is how you discharge your hurt. And people are always in some space of hurt in those situations.

Engels Tejeda (35:15)
You’re an attorney, so you've been through this. You understand that. Your case is the strongest the first day when you hear your client’s perspective. Your first claim after the interview, you have the best case possible. You know, because you've just heard this perspective and it's emotionally charged thing. And everything is on your side; then you start hearing the other side. You got to balance that out. But a lot of that has to do, you know, it starts with the blame. Man, it's their fault, and so on and so you got to work from that backwards and something, you know, most times our job is to say yes you're right to to our clients. But but i think true conflict resolution, I think in terms of access to justice and the cost of justice and all of that. You truly add value when, in my line of business, when you pause and think about these issues and you employ empathy in thinking “what is it that both sides want?”

Engels Tejeda (36:15)
If you are really going to do this, it's very draining to try to understand the other party's perspective, every single time. And to truly understand it, to dig in. That's going to be to training and too big of a mission. But I think I start there because it allows me to be okay with the differences. It's fine if you disagree with me on some of these points. Now let's talk about the outcome of that and how much we can we can share, where can we intersect and when we can’t. Let's take the women issue. You know, I believe that women should be allowed to have leadership roles in my firm and if you disagree with that, I may be okay with you not agreeing, I may have to understand why you get there, whatever, but here's where we have to draw the line. We are going to have women be partners and they’re going to lead the firm. That's just going to be something that we're going to have to agree to. So my job now is to, you know, figure out how to see it from your perspective and to understand where you're coming from. But at the same time make sure that I make a clear, you know, line and say “I don't have to have you agree with me for us to share the space.”

Engels Tejeda (37:55)
I think that that's the first thing. You're not gonna be able to change everybody's minds on this thing. It's not really as though your job to change it, but you do need to understand where they're coming from, or at least what their perspective is so that you can, you know, move forward on some of these things. I'm often surprised how how much we share in common with people that don't seem at all like us. Many of the fears, the shames, all the negatives are the same—even with people who are living a life of privilege. And I think it's for me, it starts with just this acknowledgement that my perspective is fine. And then the third thing I would say is that I often also, when we're going in that process, I think, it's okay for me to change my mind. It's perfectly fine for me to change my mind. I believed this back then, now I believe something different. Why? Because I learned something new in the middle and it's perfectly fine to change your mind.

Engels Tejeda (39:03)
I think that's it's really hard for people to give permission to themselves to change perspective. But that's what we are all—that's that's what this place is about. It's about growth and if you don't change your mind, you're not growing. And so I gave myself those. These are what I call like my liberties that I did myself to assume that, you know, my beliefs are honest and sincere and they're valid. And then the other person's are as well, and then give myself the opportunity to change my mind. If yesterday, I believe… It’s funny I had this happen to me. I was young, I was in high school and I was taking a class at the community college, they they allow you to do that. And it was a speech class—I took a lot of these classes because I wasn’t born an English speaker, so I would go through this class is trying to force myself to get more comfortable speaking English. And my topic was on the use of contraceptives, condoms, and whether or not high school should hand those out to kids and I give. But, you know, my whole speech was about how this was social horrible policy and I got up and I, you know, had all of this evidence and all of that.

Engels Tejeda (40:34)
And I believed that genuinely strongly. Of course, you know, that was relatively easy to say for someone wasn't sexually active and was very young, but over time I changed my mind and I realized it was like, “No, you know what, that's actually a good policy to have and you can teach both things that why are many different ways to approach this problem and that's a valid one.” And that changed dramatically, you know, for me it was a big change because I genuinely believe that it was a bad idea to put a condom in from a teenager back then. It was only with time that I realized, you know, that was wrong. There is there is science to back up the alternative, and it seems like such a simple thing. But if you think about it, it drives many of the policies that we embrace and that we make part of our identity early on. Men and women, you know, marriage should be a man and a woman. That's what we've been taught, it's okay to believe that initially. Then you hear the other argument then you say, “Oh, well, it won't matter to me. What impact does that have for me, you know, two men getting married. That process, allowing yourself to evolve and change, it's really critical.

Annalisa Holcombe (41:58)
I'm deeply grateful. I'm deeply grateful for you to take the time to do this and for the wisdom that you impart because I think you have so much and I learned from you. Every single time I have the honor of having a conversation.

Engels Tejeda (42:10)
That’s very kind. Thank you so much.