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It sounds like science fiction or fantasy, being able to predict emotional responses... But displaying empathy is one of those key skills that every information marketer needs to have available.
There are a number of skills that are needed to create information products well. One of the more valuable is empathy. It sounds silly enough but being able to understand and predict another's feelings is a key skill. Possibly one of the top five for developing successful products.
Be it expanding on self-awareness or empathizing with juniors, effective bosses have set guidelines that drive their work.
How do managers express empathy in their leadership role? The examples of “practicing empathy” in a management role are virtually limitless. Certainly empathy is expressed in all of these day-to-day leadership situations and circumstances:
=================== How do managers express empathy in their leadership role? ====================
Empathy is what everyone wants…to speak to a caring person who can identify with our problem and understand what it feels like to be in that situation.
When you show empathy you can “see” the situation through the eyes of the customer. The customer then feels cared for and valued .
Stop Training Customer "Service" and start training Customer EMPATHY!
"We define Customer Empathy as the ability to Identify, Understand, and Respond Appropriately to your customer's emotional state...before, during, and after the transaction."
The power of watching and talking to real humans. - One of the core themes of my latest book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, is that the best bosses go to great lengths to develop empathy for both the people they lead and the customers served by their teams and organizations.
Managers and executives sometimes claim to me that just by looking at sales statistics, aggregated demographics stats, and -- now and then -- reading compilations of customer complaints and compliments is enough to understand their customer's needs.
Intentional Workplace: Leadership and Emotional Contagion says: “Employees are not emotional islands.
Rather, they continuously spread their own moods, and receive and are influenced by others’ moods. When they work in groups, they can literally catch each other’s emotions like viruses, a phenomenon known as emotional contagion.”
A University of New Hampshire study took a look at how the emotions of leaders affects workers. The researchers were astounded at how thoroughly a leader’s own mood could spread among group members and how negative moods spread more pervasively than positive ones.
The difference between healthy, unhealthy, and in-between workplace environments is usually tied to how those organizations treat their people.
Treating people uniformly with dignity (esteem, worthiness, honor), respect (regard, admiration, veneration), and compassion (empathy, sympathy, love) is often a prime differentiator.
Face it: Most work environments during this recession are strained and stressed out. Perhaps you’ve been laid off or doing more work for less pay and shrinking benefits. …
That can generate a whole lot of stress, especially when management seems unable to feel your pain.
A recent MSNBC.com article looks at the benefits of empathy in the workplace. From the article: “Empathy has gotten a bad rap in the last 25 years in business,” says Dev Patnaik, author of “Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy.”
The best organizations (and the ones that survive economic tsunamis), he says, are those with empathetic cultures and managers who are able to step outside themselves and walk in someone else’s shoes.
====================== “Empathy has gotten a bad rap in the last 25 years in business,” =========
We could all take a lesson from nurses about being empathetic. Time and again, nurses rate as the most trusted profession. They make people feel safe and cared for.
Even the best nurses, however, can learn tools for improving their empathy. In fact, most people who score high on assessments in the area of empathy often have no idea what they do; they just know that they like people, they enjoy working with and helping people, and they value people as individuals.
In a recent presentation to healthcare professionals on empathy in New York City, the audience concurred that healthcare professionals do exhibit empathy most of the time - to their patients. When asked about the use of empathy with colleagues or with family or even with themselves, the audience seemed pretty certain they could do a better job.
================ Even the best nurses, however, can learn tools for improving their empathy. ============
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On July 9th we held a workshop on business empathy with 4 major Dutch companies, all leaders in their category: banking, supermarkets, rice and cable companies.
This workshop was part of the Dutch Empathy Monitor 2010, conducted by Ruigrok | Netpanel in cooperation with Fronteer Strategy.
One of the interesting outcomes: there is a positive correlation between empathy and attractiveness.
Discover the benefits of empathy. Learn techniques for getting out of the 'anger trap' and dealing with emotional people.
[a company that does empathy training]
Empathy minimizes conflicts and promotes prosperity. In business, it creates a better experience for everyone involved—customers, employees and management.
Customers feel taken care of. Employees feel appreciated and become more loyal and efficient, strengthening the company and making it more profitable. Empathy improves every situation it touches, setting off a chain reaction of positive events in a self-perpetuating circle that Tom Ward calls The Empathy Effect.
So as I’m diving into research for this workshop on developing empathy in project managers, I’m overwhelmed by Google search results that show me exactly how much stigma and misinformation there is out there on the concept.
Informed solely by the various websites out there, empathy is something best taught to children, hippies, lousy doctors and people with Asperger’s Syndrome.
My idea of EMPATHY is the ability to try to realize how other people feel and adjust one’s behavior to take into account these feelings.
As a marketer or sales person, understanding the feelings and needs of the customer is crucial to making that sale or exchange and for maintaining the long-term relationship. But yet, look at these people and organizations trying and sometimes failing to survive and how they have completely disregarded the concept of empathy.
===================== how they have completely disregarded the concept of empathy. ========
Compassion has three main factors that can make a company more successful: - affective (I feel you),
- cognitive (I understand you),
- and motivational (I want to help you).
By being compassionate, the workers are driven to feel and understand what the customers’ or surroundings’ want. When they have those feelings, they will be more motivated to help the society be a better place for everyone.
Furthermore, it turns out that these three factors are the factors required for a good leader.
New research suggests creativity in the workplace is enhanced by concern for others’ needs, and a willingness to walk in their shoes.
Creativity is usually thought of as internally motivated, but new research suggests that, at least in the business world, the link between inspiration and ingenuity is strengthened by focusing on the needs of others.
==================== the link between inspiration and ingenuity is strengthened by focusing on the needs of others. ===========
In Dr. Judith Orloff’s book, Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life, she discusses the benefits – and dangers — of being empathic in the workplace. Here, we talk with her about how to best harness empathy for personal and professional success.
Why does empathy belong in the workplace?
In the book Emotional Freedom, my message is that empathy is the most beautiful quality in human nature. It means that you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It’s about having a gut feeling and intuition for how to communicate with others.
================== empathy is the most beautiful quality in human nature. =========
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