Empathy is not just good for society, it is good for your organization’s performance.
(Yes, if I have to speak to selfish motives to make the world more empathetic, I will!)
Empathy has been shown to have a direct impact on everything from customer loyalty to innovation to profits. When embraced with genuine intent and not simply as a glossy PR veneer, empathy can offer your organization countless benefits beyond just, well, being a good corporate citizen and doing the right thing for people!
Caveat: While empathy offers all these wonderful benefits, it must be genuine. Your organization can’t just paint a glossy empathy veneer on for good press.
It must truly embed empathy at the leadership, culture, and external brand levels. (Tweet This!)
Here are 5 proven ways that empathy benefits your business:
- Empathy spurs innovation: When you understand your customers, you can keep pace with changing needs and desires. Internal studies at Google found that their most innovative and profitable ideas came from teams leading with soft skills, such as empathy.
- Empathy aligns you with customer wants and needs: The more in tune you are with your customers, the faster you can deliver best-fit products or services before your competitors catch on. In order to know what customers desire, you must see things from their perspective. Building an ideal customer profile will help you know what their life is like. Steve Jobs, for instance, focused on understanding a customer so well that Apple’s product designers knew what the customer wanted before they did.
- Empathy improves employee performance: Employees with more empathy and collaboration skills can often outperform and advance faster than those with purely the technical skills to succeed. Organizations find that having these skills aids in team members’ individual successes.
- Empathetic brands — and workplaces — appeal to millennials and Gen Z: As professionals, they are among the most diverse generations in the workforce and seek to leverage diverse perspectives to solve tough business challenges. They stick with employers who embrace new perspectives and value their points of view. As consumers, they’re loyal to companies and brands that care and make a difference.
- Empathy drives sales, growth, and market performance: The best and most progressive corporations have begun to adopt and employ compassionate business tactics, which have improved their standing in the market. Many companies report improved metrics such as a healthier stock price, higher valuation and increased revenue.
Want to read more about how empathetic mindsets and practices specifically benefit your leaders, culture, and brand performance? Please download this free guide: Five Ways Empathy Benefits Your Brand, Performance, and Culture
And don’t forget to check out my new book, The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success (A Playbook for Brands, Leaders, and Teams. You’ll get an even deeper dive into research and case studies that process these benefits and get actionable steps you can take right now to make yourself and your organization more empathetic.
