A bank officer tells me, "I'm in financial services, and I never used the word empathy at work-until now. The key is tying it to our strategy: employee engagement, good customer experience. Empathy is a way to differentiate us from our competitors. Listen ing is key."
She's in good company; I heard the same message from the CEOs of the Mayo clinic and the Cleveland Clinic, two of the world's preeminent hospitals.
And the CEO of one of the world's largest money management firms tells me that the most ambitious of business school grads ap ply for jobs at his company, motivated by visions of huge salaries. But, he lamented, he was looking for people "who care about the widows and retired firemen whose life savings we manage"-in other words, an empathic focus that includes the humanity of those whose money is at stake.
On the other hand, a single-minded focus on people is not enough. Take an executive who had started out as a forklift op erator, working his way up to head of manufacturing for Asia at a global manufacturing company. Despite his lofty role, chatting with workers on the factory floor was where he felt most comfort able. He knew he should be doing strategic thinking, but he pre ferred being a "people person."
"He didn't have the right balance between his other focus and outer focus," says Spreier. "He was misfocused, and he wasn't com ing up with strategy well. He didn't enjoy it-intellectually he knew he should, but emotionally he just was not there."
There may be a neural challenge for getting the right balance between focusing on hitting a target and sensing how others are reacting. My longtime colleague Richard Boyatzis tells me his research at Case Western Reserve shows that the neural network that engages when we focus on a goal differs from the circuitry for social scanning. "They inhibit each other," says Boyatzis. "The most successful leaders cycle back and forth between these within seconds."
A bank officer tells me, "I'm in financial services, and I never used the word empathy at work-until now. The key is tying it to our strategy: employee engagement, good customer experience. Empathy is a way to differentiate us from our competitors. Listen ing is key."
She's in good company; I heard the same message from the CEOs of the Mayo clinic and the Cleveland Clinic, two of the world's preeminent hospitals.
And the CEO of one of the world's largest money management firms tells me that the most ambitious of business school grads ap ply for jobs at his company, motivated by visions of huge salaries. But, he lamented, he was looking for people "who care about the widows and retired firemen whose life savings we manage"-in other words, an empathic focus that includes the humanity of those whose money is at stake.
On the other hand, a single-minded focus on people is not enough. Take an executive who had started out as a forklift op erator, working his way up to head of manufacturing for Asia at a global manufacturing company. Despite his lofty role, chatting with workers on the factory floor was where he felt most comfort able. He knew he should be doing strategic thinking, but he pre ferred being a "people person."
"He didn't have the right balance between his other focus and outer focus," says Spreier. "He was misfocused, and he wasn't com ing up with strategy well. He didn't enjoy it-intellectually he knew he should, but emotionally he just was not there."
There may be a neural challenge for getting the right balance between focusing on hitting a target and sensing how others are reacting. My longtime colleague Richard Boyatzis tells me his research at Case Western Reserve shows that the neural network that engages when we focus on a goal differs from the circuitry for social scanning. "They inhibit each other," says Boyatzis. "The most successful leaders cycle back and forth between these within seconds."
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