The Business Case for Compassion
As the world enters the Fourth Industrial Age, characterized by increasing automatization and the Internet of Things, maintaining grounded interpersonal connections at work is vital to keeping human well-being at the center of economic efforts, enabling a peaceful journey into that future. Building and maintaining human connections depends upon emotional intelligence, which begins with empathy.
Empathy is the ability to perceive and share how someone else feels, from their point of view. With cognitive empathy you can imagine how another person feels and see a situation from their perspective. This comes in handy during negotiations and consensus-building.
Emotional empathy is when you feel yourself the emotion another is feeling; this can sometimes lead to the phenomenon of “caretaker’s burnout.” Compassionate empathy puts a little more distance between your emotions and another’s but you are still concerned for their suffering and seek to help. Compassion without strong emotion is a healthier response.
Businesses that display empathy have an edge. People are born with the ability to empathize, and empathy is not restricted to humans. Women tend to have a more fully developed ability to empathize than men, but all adults can learn to be better empathizers. Here are some summaries that might help you on your journey:
Admittedly, it is difficult to keep track of things and maintain the necessary interpersonal contact these days. So here are some important tips to keep your business together: