by Rhett Powe
When you empathize with customers, you develop a deeper, more meaningful relationship with them. Empathy allows you to move raw past data points and start to see your buyers as real people. This doesn’t make your data any less important, of course. It simply allows you to see the “why” behind percentages and numbers.

You might think of empathy as a way to “read between the lines” when it comes to personalizing your consumer communications. When your emotional quotient (EQ) is high, you can better anticipate how to engage with customers. For instance, you might use empathy to know when to send reminders or recommendations at just the right moment. Or you might lean into your team’s EQ to identify which special offers and discounts would be levers to increase a customer’s purchasing habits — and simultaneously improve their lifetime value.

Businessolver's ninth annual State of Workplace Empathy report reveals 50% of employees have experienced a mental health issue in the past year, with Gen Z most concerning at 65%. CEOs report even higher mental health issues than the average employee at 55%, a 24-point jump over 2023 and a level not seen since the pandemic. Data likewise points to significant peer tension: a 23-point empathy gap between how employees and CEOs view each other and a 19-point gap between HR and CEOs.  

Despite these gaps, data overwhelmingly shows that all parties value empathetic behaviors in the workplace, however barriers persist to putting the empathy everyone values into tangible action. What will it take for today's organizations to walk the empathy talk? 

by Aimee Mckinnon

It’s the practice of being fully present and attuned to another’s experience, with the intent to understand and empathize rather than to respond or solve a problem immediately. This form of listening requires patience, openness, and a genuine desire to see the world through another’s eyes — to create a safe space where the other person feels seen, heard, and valued.

From my professional experience as a psychologist, I have observed that when people feel genuinely listened to, it creates a profound sense of trust and safety. Such environments are important for authentic communication and can lead to deeper, more meaningful relationships.

BY ADAM KROENER

Companies today face incredible challenges, and balancing factors like talent shortages, political debates, and increasing inflation coupled with the demand for better benefits is hard. Having empathy for an employee and providing an empathetic workplace — one that supports employee needs in such a divisive environment — is critical. Leadership is more than just being decisive, tough, confident or strong. A word many wouldn't instantly apply to leadership is "empathy," and yet, it is one of the most critical defining factors between successful leaders and those just making the grade.

Content
What is empathy
Can Empathy Be Learned
How to develop empathy

The “e” in the word FECK…can be empathy or Ebert,” she said, noting her late husband’s view of movies as being an “empathy machine” that allows spectators to walk in other people’s shoes. She even dedicated the book to him, “whose capacity for empathy knew no bounds.”

Where Roger Ebert championed empathy, in her talks, Ebert often spoke of compassion and kindness, two of the book’s other principles, which she said are the result of empathy.

She realized that once you empathized with someone, “it helped you to develop a compassion for that person,” she said. “And if they had a struggle or challenge, your compassion made you want to help do something about it to alleviate their suffering, and that’s where kindness came in.”

Such empathetic dialogue system can improve user's experience and establish long-term human-machine interaction. However, the existing empathetic dialogue generation models ignore the continuity of parties' emotional expression in adjacent dialogue turns, resulting in inadequate emotional perception. Besides, the emotions involved in empathetic response are flexible, it is difficult to set the specific empathetic policy.

By Thomas Fudge

“We use an arts and humanities based curriculum to teach listening and connection, team building. And through that comes empathy and wellness. That’s what we’re finding through our research,” said Evonne Kaplan-Liss, Director of Compassionate Communication at the Institute.

Neuroscientists said humans are hardwired to understand the feelings and needs of the other. Researchers at the Institute for Empathy and Compassion study those neural networks, and they teach medical professionals to make the most of them.

Narrative empathy is the phenomenon of experiencing empathy through the process of engaging with stories. It occurs when an audience emotionally connects with characters, experiences, and contexts within a narrative. This connection is in the first instance about feeling for the character but also involves understanding their emotions, challenges, and motivations on a deeper level too.

For example, in my practice as a psychologist, I often use therapeutic storytelling to help clients understand and articulate their experiences. I’ve observed that when clients relate to a character’s struggle in a story, they are more likely to open up about their own emotions, which is an important step in the healing process.

“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.” Here David shares the idea that by using some simple tools and applying gratitude to your daily life, success is imminent. David is national best-selling author of Connected To Goodness and recently released a new best-selling book, Compassionate Capitalism, which he co-authored with Blaine Bartlett. Compassionate Capitalism offers new perspectives on how to improve the world’s current economic driver.

Edwin talks about his search for meaning in his life and how he found it in his commitment to empathy. He is committed to building an empathy movement and talks about the empathy center in Santa Barbara, where the process of the empathy circle is taught and lived. He also talks about their use of empathy tents to connect people, for example at demonstrations. For him, true empathy is mutual empathy.

You can find out more about Edwin, the Empathy Center and Circle here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinrutsch/

https://www.theempathycenter.org/
https://www.empathycircle.com/

Dialogue is critical to defusing the crisis at Columbia University and improving relations between Jews and Palestinians. Absent dialogue that engages students in a process that works towards common ground, the conversation will be dominated by extremists with little interest or empathy towards “the other”. A historical dialogue focuses on the past to promote mutual understanding about what happened and thereby mollify passions in the present. It is a tested technique in conflict resolution relevant to today’s stand-off on campus.

Listening To Understand
Patient engagement centers on the idea that patients and researchers must work together to create studies and programs that achieve the best outcomes. There are many different ways to engage patients in research, such as patient advisory committees, co-creating patient-facing materials, and involving patients when setting strategy, but I will not explore all of these now. However, the one thing they all have in common is they all start with listening to the patient.

Active listening is the first step in building trust because it indicates to the other person that you value their experience and that their effort is worth your time and attention. A quick internet search will show several different listening styles, and each style has pros and cons

We loved today’s discussion with Empathy Activist Rob Volpe, on how to channel our empathy for better customer service. It’s easy to get frustrated at customer service when things don’t go your way, but using a little empathy can help reach a positive outcome.

A study in 2021 found that 97% of customers said empathy is the most important element in customer engagement. It can be really difficult in those moments, because we can be more emotional than we might be otherwise. That’s why it’s important to use our empathy to get to a positive place.

An international network which is driving forward empathic healthcare across the world has staged its first ever meeting in Leicester.

The International Network for Empathy in Healthcare is made up of key empathic healthcare organisations and leaders from across the globe who are working together to encourage countries to put empathy at the heart of healthcare.

Enabling machines to communicate like humans is a long-term goal of open-domain dialogue generation. To achieve this goal, more and more studies on dialogue generation focus on the key factor, emotion. The empathetic dialogue system aims to recognize user's emotion and situation, then generates responses accordingly.

Such empathetic dialogue system can improve user’s experience and establish long-term human-machine interaction. However, the existing empathetic dialogue generation models ignore the continuity of parties' emotional expression in adjacent dialogue turns, resulting in inadequate emotional perception. Besides, the emotions involved in empathetic response are flexible, it is difficult to set the specific empathetic policy.

At Cosgn, empathy isn't just a buzzword—it's a guiding principle that informs everything we do. We're committed to walking alongside startups on their journey, offering support, guidance, and solutions that are rooted in a deep understanding of their needs and aspirations. Together, let's step into each other's shoes and create a world where empathy is not just a concept, but a cornerstone of success.
 

How To Increase Your Empathy
Becoming a more empathetic leader requires intention and practice. Here are some strategies to help you enhance your capacity for empathy:

1. Become Emotionally Self-Aware
Develop a keen awareness of your strengths, challenges, biases, and emotions and learn how they influence your behavior. Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence and is crucial for developing empathy. It’s also the first step in the personal branding process. By understanding your emotional responses, you can better manage your interactions with others and enhance your presence

by Shahram Heshmat  

Empathy allows for the perception of another’s thoughts and feelings.

Music can increase our ability to be more empathetic individuals.

Music is thought to be the social glue that strengthens feelings of unity.

Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand other people's feelings and, specifically, how our actions affect them. There are 400 people who will no longer have a job, and McCarthy is accountable for that decision. 

Previous research has demonstrated a link between the administration of analgesic drugs and the reduction of empathy levels in humans. This apparent blunting effect of pain medication has been explained through shared neural mechanisms for the first-hand and the empathic experience of pain (simulation theory).

Considering that analgesics are among the most consumed drugs in the world and the ability to empathize with others is fundamental to human social interactions, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether the typical day-to-day analgesic consumption rate in Austria and Germany is associated with a reduction in empathy and prosocial behavior.

We therefore collected self-reports of analgesic consumption behavior as well as empathy for pain and prosocial behavior measures in an online survey (n = 940). Analyses revealed no significant association between the analgesic intake frequency and measures of empathy or prosocial behavior. 

Discover the power of global collaboration and networking at the Virtual School Australia Global Empathy Conferences. Connect with peers & gain new insights.

The 6th Global Empathy Conference commenced with a "Welcome to the Country" address delivered by student ambassador Ruby Hand. This was followed by a welcome message from Taryn Hand, Ruby's mother, who is both a parent and an educator from Queensland, Australia, often referred to as the Sunshine State.

Background
Empathy is essential for effective doctor-patient communication. It enables doctors to understand patients' emotions and concerns, facilitating personalized care and support. Empathy can be cultivated through various methods and training programs.