How to Show Empathy and Sympathy in Banking

  Introduction 

Sympathy can be defined as the act of feeling sorry for someone for an incident that has happened to them impacting on them negatively. Empathy, on the other hand, is not only the act of feeling sorry for the happenings but also putting in one's shoes and sharing the person’s sentiments. Empathy is not a onetime occurrence but is the habit that is cultivated through time. Bankers are in a profession where empathy was considered elite and had no room. The customers were meant to be protected, and their accounts milked dry, until of late when financial institutions have woken up to the reality of empathy banking that supplements the AICPA code that guides the professionals in the industry. 

When the AICPA code is complimented with Rest’s four components model, bankers get to develop ethical actions. According to Rest, these actions cannot be achieved by merely a single decision but from a combination of different psychological structures but also reasoning processes. The development of these ethical actions can further be cemented by the Theory of Ethical Obligations and Moral Sentiments and Decision Making in Accounting that asserts that ethical behavior by the corporate in their responsibilities to the public is critical in the establishment of a free economic market system . With the dynamism of the world today, it is critical that individual develop personal and professional skills that will assist them in comprehending the vast changes in both attitude and the surrounding. Hence, developing creative thinking helps a person manage all their daily activities in a humane way. 

AICPA Code of Professionalism 

This code governs bankers from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and that offers voluntary membership but requires high standards of self-discipline that go way beyond the necessities of the profession by law. These codes act as a guideline that calls for members to adhere to all form of realization of their mandate to the customers, the public, and to family and friends. Through set rules, the principles of the AICPA provide direction to members on acts of professionalism during their dissemination of services and put emphasis on the upholding of moral ethics at all times ( Sorensen, Miller, & Cabe, 2017) . Furthermore, the principles advocate for personal sacrifice for the benefit of the masses in an honorable manner. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants code is founded on six central values that include public interest, due care, integrity, responsibility, nature, and scope of services, and independence and objectivity. 

The Interest of the Public 

This principle upholds that individual members should conduct themselves before the public in a committed way that demonstrates professionalism as this is their moral obligation. They should further serve the interest of the public and at all times value the trust that the public has invested in them. By the sheer acceptance of the opportunity to serve the public, a member automatically distinguishes themselves as professionals ( Sorensen, Miller, & Cabe, 2017) . The public referred to in this code comprise of people who are dependent on the integrity and objectivity of the professionals to perform a function related to accounting or trade. They may be or include the financial and commercial society, clients, employers, credit providers, investors, and the government. Care should be taken to note that Adam Smith in his theory redefined capitalism to mean commercial society. 

Due Care 

Members should strive to continuously improve on the quality services that they provide and the proficiency with which they attend the public. While dispensing their professional services, they should stick to the ethical and technical standards of the profession and aim to be the best at what they do ( Sorensen, Miller, & Cabe, 2017) . The benchmark for excellence is the cores of due care and requires members to dispense their duties with diligence, proficiency, and competence. It emphasizes on the members' responsibility to perform their duties to the best of the capacity with the objective of attaining the best results to those being served, and in-line with the profession’s ethics to the public. 

Integrity 

The code also requires all professionals to broaden and maintain the confidence of the public by ensuring that they dispense their services with the highest integrity. The principle of integrity considers integrity to be a part of the member from which the public would identify them. It is the epitome of which public trust is upheld and the grounds from which all professional decisions are tested ( Sorensen, Miller, & Cabe, 2017) . Members are expected to be candid and honest when attending and handling customers privacy. Instances of the subordination for taking advantage or personal benefits should be avoided entirely. In the case of error during the dispensation of the service or honest dissimilarity in opinion is pardonable but not deliberate cheating and disregard to set standards. 

Responsibility 

While in the dissemination of their professional services, members should strive to ensure that they are sensitive to the decisions they make throughout their activities. Members under the AICPA are also reminded that they are part of the family of professionals and thus they should be cooperative with other similar professionals ( Sorensen, Miller, & Cabe, 2017) . Working together with other professionals is highly encouraged for the purposes of refining accounting with the intentions of maintaining the confidence of the public. They are further advised to promote and maintain the culture and work ethics of the profession at all costs. 

Nature and Scope of Services 

The principle of nature and the scope of service require that members in their endeavor to perform their duties should while determining its description and extent of work to be offered to a client observe the codes of conduct. The interest of the public in such matters regarding members’ quality of work should be in-line with the desired acceptable standards ( Sorensen, Miller, & Cabe, 2017) . With integrity, it is clear that members should not abuse the trust of the public by subordinating for personal benefits or with intentions of taking advantage. Therefore it is upon the members to consider individual principles in determining if they are in a position to provide specific services or not. 

Independence and Objectivity 

Members of the AICPA are further encouraged to stay away from issues pertaining to their interests while dispensing their services. They are advised to be independent in not only providing facts but also in the manner they present themselves during the period when they provide attestation services and auditing services ( Sorensen, Miller, & Cabe, 2017) . Being objective helps the members to provide services that are of quality and adds value to the members’ credentials. Thus they should focus on being impartial, free of conflicts, and intellectually truthful. Independence requires members to avoid associations that would clod their purpose in the provision of services in the attestation. 

Rest’s Model of Four Components 

James Rest in his model of ethical decision making asserts that these actions cannot be achieved through the choice of a single process but rather from a mixture of different psychological structures coupled with reasoning processes. Therefore the model would help the banker in identifying an ethical dilemma and processes it in his mind to find the right courage to react in an ethical man ( Malik, & Oberoi, 2017) . Rest insists that it is crucial that every part of the model should be available before the decision of morality is arrived at. Hence, he cautions that it should not be considered as a linear process but rather as a sequence that leads to gaining and giving responses. Therefore, for appropriate action to be taken, the banker needs not only one but all four components to act ethically. 

Moral Sensitivity 

This component involves the realization that issues that are ethical are a segment of the situation, the ability to point out that it is appropriate to respond in an ethical manner, or the preparedness to initiate moral tools. Sensitivity can be referred to as the realization of how a banker’s action impact on people surrounding them ( Malik, & Oberoi, 2017) . Thus, the component can be considered as ethical sensitivity even though it makes a lot of sense when considered as moral sensitivity. For instance, when a banker fails to report accountants who are in perpetual fault professionally is considered a violation of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants codes of professionalism and this can be attested to low moral sensitivity. 

Moral Reasoning 

This component can also be referred to as moral judgment, and it encompasses the visualization of identified moral challenges and selection of the choicest mode of action. Others prefer to consider it as ethical development as it is not bound to matching identified challenges with the theories or rules that describe the choicest decisions. On the contrary, it has been proposed that levels of maturity in ethics should be applied in judging the right course of action to take pertaining to the moral challenges ( Newbert, 2018) . When the banker uses elevated levels of maturity in justifying their actions towards a perceived moral challenge, they are considered to have undergone an increased level of ethical development. For instance, when bankers caution themselves against taking a particular course of action because of the realization that they would lose a client or might be sued are examples of reasoning when they are responding to a workmate who is in gross misconduct. 

Moral Integrity 

This value should be ingrained within the banker and guide them into making most decisions on a daily basis. For instance, when a workmate is in perpetual misconduct and the banker assumes that not to be part of their responsibility, but another’s, they will be regarded to be in low self-integrity. In any case, this value has been regarded as commitment, motivation, or character. This value is critical to a banker as it defines their professionalism or identity and helps them in the prioritization of ethical conducts ( Malik, & Oberoi, 2017) . It is equally significant to note that in his theory, Adam Smith assumed that people are naturally selfish, but they stand to gain pleasure from the joy of others. Therefore, the banker should realize that integrity is related to the sign of the relevance of being consistently ethical and dominance of ethical conduct over personal, economic, and legal values. 

Moral Courage 

This moral value is related to the strength of conviction, ego strength, backbone toughness, and perseverance . The component is mostly connected to the character proficiency of the banker in demonstrating total control over a number of situations. Therefore, the skills involve bankers being competent in handling workmates who are in misconduct of their professional ethics without freezing or making ambiguous actions ( Malik, & Oberoi, 2017) . Hence, the bankers who are competent in handling and demonstrating morality in their professional line of duty are considered to be the ones with high moral courage. Thus, all four aspects are in totality considered to be a segment of practical moral attitude and can be worked out in a step by step manner to help the banker develop ethical character. 

Design Thinking in Banking 

Bankers might be overwhelmed with how to understand and enforce all these aspects that revolve around the development of sympathy and empathy in the course of their work while remaining professional. Hence, design thinking is meant to assist them in solving problems through the following steps methodologically; 

Empathy 

This is the initial stage in the development of an empathic comprehension of the challenge they are trying to overcome. This phase could encompass consultation with other professionals to get more knowledge of the challenge at hand through empathizing, observation, and engagement with people to gain an understanding of their motivations and experiences ( Itani, & Inyang, 2015) . Empathy assists the banker into putting aside their expectations with the aim of gaining more awareness of the clients and their requirements. 

Definition 

During the phase of empathy, the banker collects information that is put together in the definition phase. At this phase, the banker synthesizes the observations made after analyzing them with the intention of defining the major problem identified ( Itani, & Inyang, 2015) . The problem in this phase is described in a humane way. This description will help in the collection of several ideas that will assist in establishing different functions and features. 

Creation of Ideas 

During this phase, the banker is in a position to generate ideas since they have already familiarized with the clients and their requirements and went ahead and analyzed and synthesized the interpretations ( Itani, & Inyang, 2015) . It now becomes more comfortable for the banker to think beyond the client's expectations to come up with new and creative ways of resolving the problem. 

Prototype 

After sifting through the many ideas to come up with the standard version using one of the many ideation techniques, the banker will proceed to develop a prototype. This prototype is first shared within the staff or department for appraisal, and the aim is to develop the best possible solution ( Itani, & Inyang, 2015) . The solutions are typically embedded within the prototype, and it is at this phase that they are investigated further. 

Test 

In this final phase, the banker puts the prototype into numerous tests and the results generated are used in refining the trial product. These changes are made in order to reject problem solutions and in their place develop a deep comprehension of the product with its users in mind. 

References 

Itani, O. S., & Inyang, A. E. (2015). The effects of empathy and listening of salespeople on relationship quality in the retail banking industry: The moderating role of felt stress.  International Journal of Bank Marketing ,  33 (6), 692-716. 

Malik, G., & Oberoi, M. K. (2017). Analyzing the impact of elevated service quality in online banking services on customer satisfaction.  Aweshkar Research Journal ,  22 (1). 

Newbert, S. L. (2018). Achieving social and economic equality by unifying business and ethics: Adam Smith as the cause of and cure for the separation thesis.  Journal of Management Studies ,  55 (3), 517-544. 

Sorensen, D. P., Miller, S. E., & Cabe, K. L. (2017). Developing and measuring the impact of an accounting ethics course that is based on the moral philosophy of Adam Smith.  Journal of business ethics ,  140 (1), 175-191.