Tag : empathy

I got an email from a client-turned-colleague-now-also-friend not long ago. It was a spontaneous reach-out and she really nailed it in terms of balancing competing priorities, like how to stay in touch in a genuine and meaningful way without inflicting more video call fatigue—or just plain fatigue—on either of us.

I’ll call her “PJ.” Here’s what PJ wrote:

Most people usually don’t think of empathy as having much business value. In fact, you might think if you start empathizing with your clients, you’ll lose your edge; you’ll appear “soft;” you’ll lose business. Here’s a compelling story* about a global firm that turned that conventional wisdom on its ear and transformed a big loss into a big win.

I write about empathy a lot on these pages because it can’t be emphasized enough as a critical skill in business—and one that’s missing from most business interactions (See “The Great Empathy Famine”). Today’s blog provides some specific tips for how to make empathy commonly practiced instead of commonly absent.

I spent the weekend in California. It started as a mini-vacation—joining a friend’s 50th birthday celebration. It ended with most of the time in my hotel room with the flu.

At first, my demeanor was positive (why compound physical misery with a bad attitude) but steadily declined as I negotiated all the logistical changes required to extend my stay until I could haul my ailing self back across the country.

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