empathy and business

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

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. 

Resistance to Empathy (Part 1): Organizational Resistance to Empathy and How to Overcome It

that make organizations successful are not always the qualities that enhance their empathy. Hear me say it, and not for the last time: the things that make us good at business, including the corporate transformation of American medicine and education, do not always expand our empathy. What to do about it? The battle is joined. The recommendation? Let your customers, constituents, or stake-holders train you in empathy: Realize that if you do not respond empathically, the customers are just going to go quietly to the competitor that does. Empathy is good for business. If the customer has a complaint that he is having trouble expressing, then use one’s listening skills to get to the bottom of things.

Empathy, Capitalist Tool

Business leaders lose contact with what clients and consumers are experiencing. Leaders get entangled in solving legal issues, reacting to the competition, or implementing the technologies required to sustain operations, and lose touch with the empathic core of business. Yet empathy is never needed more than when it seems there is no time for it.