Leading With Empathy

When some people hear the word empathy being used in a business context, they think ‘What does that have to do with business?’ How do you respond to that mindset?

I would argue that empathy has everything to do with business. If you accept that innovation is about meeting the unmet (and often unarticulated) needs of your customers, you have to ask, “How can we get in touch with those unarticulated needs?” Only through our ability to listen to people, observe them, read between the lines and extrapolate. That requires a deep sense of empathy — making it a necessary ingredient for succeeding with any innovation agenda.

At , we are rising to this challenge by putting the necessary conditions in place for our people to develop empathy. One word we use a lot is respect. If you don’t start from a place of respect for the other person’s viewpoint — their history and their mindset — it will be very difficult to develop empathy for them. Way before you think