Here's another of my tenets. There is no such as second hand empathy. So the right way to do things is to go out and do the User Research to determine who your personas and persona spectrum are. Then, introduce those people to the rest of the team. Ideally, you introduce them in person and invite them into the process. Barring that, the empathy map tool used in conjunction with a persona, approximates the empathy you're trying to achieve.