Author Archives

Dedicated and committed that empathy becomes less of a rumor and more of an expanded reality in the community...

  • Empathy in Time of War – Red Team, Red Team!

    Cover Art: RED TEAM by Micah Zenko

    In time of war, the power of empathy consists in putting yourself in the shoes of the enemy, thinking like the enemy, and thereby anticipating and thwarting the enemy’s moves. 

  • The Empathy Diaries by Sherry Turkle (Reviewed)

    Cover Art: The Empathy Diaries by Sherry Turkle

    As Tolstoy famously noted, all happy families are alike. What Tolstoy did not note was that many happy families are also unhappy ones. Figure that one out! Sherry’s answer to Tolstoy is her memoir about the successes and breakdowns of empathy in her family of origin and her subsequent life.

  • A Rumor of Empathy in Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart (Reviewed)

    Cover Art: Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

    People who are able to name their emotions and feeling experience expanded power in getting what they want and need from other people. They also get expanded power in contributing to building meaningful connections and community. community. Try substituting the word “empathy,” for “connection.” It works. 

  • Top Ten Empathy Trends For 2022

    The author in his Rigorous and Critical Empathy t-shirt after getting yet another shot!

    A new year and a new virus variant? Being cynical and resigned is easy, and the empathy training is to drive out cynicism and resignation – then empathy naturally comes forth. If given half a chance. People want to be empathic. The prediction is that with a rigorous and critical empathy (and getting a very high percent of the population vaccinated), we are equal to the challenge.

  • The holocaust of sex, entitled: The Right to Sex by Amin Srinivasan (Reviewed)

    Cover Art: The Right to Sex by Amit Srinivasan

    Srinivasan’s book is the holocaust of sex. The fires of the “holocaust” in question are not ones of passion or desire, but rather of anger and rage. Note the small “h” this time since there is only one Holocaust with a capital “H”. This holocaust is filled with the suffering of innocents, widespread injustice, and an awful lot of violence. It accurately paints a picture so bleak that further consciousness raising will likely expand our consciousness of misery and pain, nor do I here want to debate the need for it.

  • Empathy and the Novel by Suzanne Keen (Reviewed)

    Cover art: Empathy and the Novel by Suzanne Keen

    A significant aspect of the interest in relating empathy and the reading of fiction is to make the world a better place. Read some quality fiction; expand one’s empathy; and take action to improve the world. Wouldn’t it be nice? 

  • Empathy: Capitalist Tool (Part 3): Let’s do the numbers

    Follow the money – by all means – but don’t follow it off a cliff. Take a walk in the shoes of the other person in order to sell them another pair!?

  • Empathy: Capitalist Tool (Part 2): “CEO” now means “Chief Empathy Officer”

    Google Founders, Larry and Brin, from the back back cover of Forrester Magazine, 2005: Don't be evil, man! The front cover shows them wearing saint halos.

    Empathy is one of those things that are hard to delegate. This role shows up like another job responsibility with which the CEO of the organization is tasked—along with everything else that she already has to do. As if she did not already have enough alligators snapping at various parts of her anatomy, one has to be nice about it, too? But of course empathy is not niceness, though it is not about being un-nice. It is about knowing what others are experiencing, because one has a vicarious experience and then processing that further to expand boundaries and exercise leadership. 

  • Empathy: Capitalist Tool (Part 1): The Empathy Deficit in Business is Getting Attention

    Mr Money Bags (Penny Bags): Image Credit: Trademark Parker Brothers Corporation

    Testing a person’s decisions and preferences using probabilities, bets, and lotteries is an engaging exercise, and nothing is wrong in doing so. However, unless one also adds empathy to the mixture of economics and logic one misses something essential—the person!

  • Empathy and Literature: Grand Rounds Talk (rebroadcast): Oct 13, 2016

    Gerda and The Lieutenant playing passionate duos on the violins

    The four phases of empathy – receptivity, understanding, interpretation, and responsiveness- are exemplified in literature in rebroadcast of this Grand Rounds talk from Rush Medical in Oct 2016…