How do you actually practice empathy? How do you prove you have it — to employers, to clients, to the people you lead? And if you’re building a team, how do you hire for it?
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: most of us can’t answer any of those questions well. And in the age of AI, that gap is getting more expensive by the minute.
In this episode, Maria answers these questions as she discusses the importance of empathy in the age of AI, citing data from studies showing its impact on loyalty, efficiency, and job satisfaction. She dives into actionable steps you can take to hire empathetic leaders, gives practical tips for practicing empathy (and stresses the importance of practicing empathy under real pressure, in real-time situations), and discusses the need for better tools to develop, measure, and verify empathy as AI is accelerating.
Finally, she invites everyone to learn more about and register for the upcoming Synanim FlexEmpathy event at flexempathy.com.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- Why empathy proof matters more than ever.
- The AI factor.
- How to practice and prove empathy.
- How to hire for empathy.
“Empathy is not soft. It’s not optional, and in the age of AI, where human connection is simultaneously more scarce and more valuable than ever. It’s your most important competitive advantage” — Maria Ross
Episode References:
- Maria’s email list at: red-slice.com/newsletter/
- FlexEmpathy, coming up April 25, 2025 www.flexempathy.com
- Synanim: https://www.synanim.com/
- EY’s 2023 Empathy in Business Survey
- 2024 Businessolver State of Workplace Empathy Report
- McKinsey, It’s Cool to Be Kind Research Report
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books: Red-Slice.com/books
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Courses! Leading with Empathy and Balancing Empathy, Accountability, and Results as a Leader
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:00
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Welcome back to the empathy edge podcast. I’m your host, Maria Ross, and today I’m going solo on something I get asked about constantly, and something that’s becoming more urgent by the day. And I want to share an offer with you for a very unique contest to practice improve your empathy skills to future employers or for that next promotion. But first I have a few quick announcements. One, if you are a marketer, a coach, a consultant, a business or agency owner, I need you to raise your hand because I have something truly special for you that will enable you to better connect and engage your ideal customers with empathy. I’ve packaged up my body of work as a successful brand strategist to you know, low these many decades to make it available to support as many folks as possible drive growth and impact. So make sure you’re on my email list at red dash, slice.com/newsletter, to find out more, and raise your hand, trust me, you’re going to want to see this second. My speaking calendar is lighting up right now, and I’m incredibly grateful, grateful for all the organizations that are doubling down on empathy and leadership right now, but I always have room for more. So I got to share this attendees feedback that absolutely made my year from a recent talk, her feedback or his feedback. I’m not sure it was anonymous. It said, Thanks, Maria. This session was like Brene Brown meets Ted lasso. Are you kidding me? Right now. High praise indeed. I would love to offer similar magic and results and results driven insights to your next quarterly exec meeting, your next annual customer conference, or even your professional development program. But I’m booking into q3 and four of this year right now, so hit me up soon, especially if you’re in Canada or the UK, because I’m trying to plan trips to both of those places. So just go to red dash slice.com/contact, and we’ll find time to chat. That’s red dash slice.com/contact, okay. Announcements are out of the way, so let’s get to it. Here’s the question, how do you actually practice empathy? How do you prove that you have it to employers, to clients, to the people you lead, and if you’re building a team, how do you hire for it? Because here’s the uncomfortable truth that most of us can’t answer any of those questions. Well, in the age of AI, that gap is getting more expensive by the minute. So let’s dig in. First. Let’s talk about why empathy proof matters more than ever, and let’s start with the data. Because you know I love receipts, and I know you do too. So ey’s 2023 empathy and Business Survey, which was a study of more than 1000 employed Americans, found that 88% of employees say empathetic leadership fosters loyalty. Great the vast majority also agreed that mutual empathy between leaders and employees drives greater efficiency, creativity and job satisfaction and business solvers. 2024 state of workplace empathy report, which surveyed more than 3000
Maria Ross 04:06
employees HR leaders and CEOs, found that 77% of employees would work longer hours for a more empathetic employer. Not that that’s what I’m advocating, but just file that one away, right? And 60% would actually take a pay cut to work for one and further McKinsey research confirms that people who feel genuinely empathized with they innovate more, they take more creative risks, and they work harder and faster. So we have all this data. That’s why you’re here, right? All this awareness leaders nodding along in workshops that I do, saying yes, empathy matters, and yet business solvers, own research surfaces a troubling gap. Even though empathy is widely valued, it’s poorly executed. Huge gaps exist between the behaviors that employees rate as empathetic and. What they actually experience, an even wider gap exists between what they say matters and what they demonstrate themselves. So we don’t just need more empathy awareness like that’s a great start, don’t get me wrong, but we need better tools to develop, measure and verify it, and we need them now, because AI is accelerating the stakes. So let’s talk a little bit about the AI factor. As AI takes over more routine cognitive tasks, the skills that remain distinctly human are moving to center stage, empathy, judgment, collaboration, the ability to read a room, to build trust and lead people through ambiguity. Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said it powerfully. He said, In a world where so many forces are pulling us apart, choosing community is how we stay human. Now, McKinsey’s research is equally clear, when people feel connected to empathetic leaders, they work harder, faster and more creatively. We’ve already talked about that empathy is what unlocks the creativity and adaptability that organizations need right now to navigate complex challenges. And there’s no more complex challenge right now than the rapid disruption of AI across every industry. But here’s the thing that keeps me up at night in a productive way. I should say, as AI gets better at mimicking human communication, the bar for genuine human connection is rising. It’s not enough to sound empathetic in a Slack message or on a social media post or in a performance review, people, employees, clients, colleagues are getting better at detecting when empathy is authentic versus performed. I’m sure you’ve seen it too. So the question isn’t just whether empathy matters, it’s whether you can actually demonstrate it when it counts. Now, empathy, remember, is not a personality trait that you either have or you don’t. It’s a skill. It’s a muscle, and like any skill or muscle, it gets stronger with intentional practice. So here are some of the practices that actually move the needle. And I want to share these with you, because I know I talk about them on this podcast all the time, but I want to give you a little bit of a checklist to just get you started. There’s a lot more, but let’s go through some of the highlights. Number one, active listening without agenda. So most of us, and I’m guilty of this too, listen to respond, not to understand. So practice listening with the sole intention of understanding, without preparing your rebuttal or steering the conversation back to yourself. This is harder than it sounds, and it’s the foundation for everything else. Second is take some perspective before hard conversations. So before a difficult meeting or a decision, pause and ask, what does this look like from their side. What pressures are they under? What do they need that they might not be saying out loud? Yes, even if it’s contentious, even if you feel you’re perceiving that the person is an enemy, try to do this. Try to look at it as what’s behind this person’s behavior, this person’s demeanor, this person’s actions, and force yourself to think of ways and think of options that might not be apparent if you just assume the person is an enemy.
Maria Ross 08:32
Third is reflection after interaction, so after a challenging collaboration or conversation, ask yourself, did I make that person feel heard? Did I understand what they actually needed? What would I do differently? Right? The element that you can control in the interaction is you and your reaction to them, so that structured reflection accelerates empathy development faster than almost anything else. And then this one’s the hardest one, practicing under real pressure in real time. And this could mean that maybe your capacity is low that day, but you need to try, right? This is where most development programs fall short, so you can read and reflect all you want, but until you’ve had to demonstrate empathy in a live situation with real stakes. You haven’t really tested your skills. Which brings me to something that I am genuinely excited to share with you. So I’m proud to be a strategic collaborator with a company called synonym. That’s S, Y, n, a, n, I m. They are the platform behind flex empathy synonym has built something that I genuinely haven’t encountered before. It’s a platform that enables real human connection and consensus at scale. It’s not another video call. It’s a purpose built collaboration experience where authentic empathy and leadership have to show. Go up or you don’t advance, you may have to admit that someone else’s idea or wording or thinking or insight is better than yours, right. You got to put that ego aside. So I almost fell out of my chair when I found out about this. Offering synonyms, consensus building, online platform guides groups of any size from hundreds to 10s of 1000s to discover mutual understanding and surface the best ideas as measured by the participants themselves. And what makes it really unique is that it narrows the focus strictly to ideas and values. So it cuts through the noise. It cuts through the social influence, so that only the best thinking rises to the top, and participants consistently find the process not just productive, but genuinely enjoyable. Like I want you to imagine that for a second. Imagine all the conversations you’ve been in where we’ve always heard like you can’t decide by committee, or too many cooks in the kitchen, right? All of those things, imagine if you could create a platform, which these folks did to not only solve for that, but enable you to practice empathy in the process and enjoy the process.
Maria Ross 11:14
And here’s what I love most, the kinds of projects that synonym has been used for are exactly the ones that require deep empathy and collaboration to get right. Let me give you some examples. A peace, not poverty declaration. It was prepared by 13,600 people and presented at Riverside Church in Manhattan in 2005 that project was supported by Ben Cohen, who’s co founder of Ben and Jerry’s. So again, you might think, Oh, our team size of 15, we can’t agree on what to have for lunch. They were able to create consensus with a group of 13,600 people located around the world. Another one was a global mission statement for the Center for nonviolent communication. And I know you’ve heard guests on my show talk about that center. This global mission statement was developed in 2015 by more than 300 board members and certified trainers spread across the globe, again, putting ego aside, collaborating, practicing empathy to bring the best ideas forward. Another example that used synonyms. Platform was policy prioritization for the Women’s Policy Institute. So hundreds of participants from diverse backgrounds came together to surface new ideas and align on priorities within hours, within hours, right? These are not small, controlled conversations. These are messy, complex, high stakes human challenges, exactly the kind where empathy and the ability to truly hear one another makes all the difference. And synonym made consensus not just possible, but efficient, and that’s why I said yes to this collaborative partnership. This isn’t like a paid ad. I just wanted to share what these folks are doing and what’s possible when you bring empathy together with technology to foster collaboration. So what I want to tell you about is this contest that I am collaborating with them on. It’s called Flex empathy, and flex empathy is their live, synchronous online competition, where you prove your empathy, collaboration and leadership skills in real time. So the format is tournament style. You know, we just gone through March badness, very similar. Top performers advance through up to six rounds. Everyone who advances earns a certificate of achievement, which is verifiable proof of leadership and empathy practicing for your resume or your LinkedIn profile. And the finalists, the top finalists, share in a prize pool that scales with participation. So it’s up to 36 cash winners. So it’s an opportunity to build your skills to take part in a very unique collaboration and empathy experiment. And, you know, get some creds for it, right? So the next event is happening on Saturday April 25 at 10am Eastern Time. That’s Saturday April 25 at 10am Eastern Time, centered on this question, how does AI challenge our search for purpose? So everyone from all over the world is going to come together on the platform for this contest and share their thoughts and their perspectives on how does AI challenge our search for purpose? The entry fee is 20 bucks. US dollars. Future Events are already being planned with topics shaped by the community of these initial registrants, so they want to do other flex empathy events. This is going to be sort of the first one. Now this isn’t a quiz, it’s not a self assessment, it’s a live, real time demonstration of your human skills. That is a fundamentally different kind of proof. So I want you to find out more and register at WWW dot flex, empathy.com. I will, of course, have the link in the show notes, but it’s literally just flex, F, L, E, X, empathy, all one word.com, check it out. It is mind blowing. It’s a little bonkers. It’s just sort of the best way to combine empathy and community and technology all at once. And I geek out when people are able to bring those things together to solve very human problems. So I want to talk about this from the hiring side for a second too, because let’s flip there. If you’re building a team, you need better tools as well to discern who truly has, the empathy, collaboration, emotional intelligence, the humility and the ability to synthesize diverse points of view to make smarter decisions. So you know all those skills that everyone is required to have in the age of AI now, most behavioral interview questions about empathy are really easy to gain.
Maria Ross 16:12
Tell me about a time you demonstrated empathy well that rewards really great storytellers, but not necessarily empathetic leaders. So what actually works? Here’s a few ideas for you, if you are hiring for empathy. And again, this is about, you know, this whole hot take episode is about proving empathy, both from the I have the skill and now the Do you have the skill, right? So number one is situational judgment scenarios. So instead of asking the candidate about their past present a real time scenario and watch how the candidate thinks through it, do they ask clarifying questions, or do they just jump to conclusions? Do they account for different stakeholders? Do they show genuine curiosity about perspectives other than their own? And there’s really no right answer here. You just want to see how they respond and what their thought process is. Number two, this is an oldie, but a goodie that I’ve heard for decades from people watch how they treat everyone. How do they treat the receptionist, the coordinator, the recruiter, the person who gets them water right that tells you far more than any rehearsed answers ever will ask about failure and its impact on others. Don’t let them just talk about where they’ve succeeded. Ask them about a time where they failed. Ask them about a time where they had an idea and nobody wanted to listen to it. Ask them about a time that they were committed to something and bulldoze their way to doing it that way and it flopped right. Empathetic people don’t just reflect on what they did to fix a mistake, they reflect on how their actions affected the people around them. So listen for that distinction, listen for that humility. Listen for that you know, if only I had listened to multiple points of view, if only I had thought about that other person’s feelings or the customer’s feelings, listen for those things. Again, there’s no right answer here. You just need to be discerning. Here’s another one. Give real time feedback in the interview. Now this is one that I stumbled on when I was researching the empathy edge. So if you read that book, you probably remember this story, a company that gave real time constructive feedback during the interview to see how candidates responded. Did they get defensive and argumentative, or did they greet the feedback with curiosity and humility, that is a sure sign of emotional regulation and a capacity for empathy. And then, you know, yes, look for verified credentials if they exist. And this is where contests like flex empathy become genuinely valuable from a hiring perspective, a certificate earned through a live, real time competition is evidence of demonstrated behavior under pressure. It’s not a self assessment, it’s not a performance review, and whether you win or not, this is the beautiful part. You can say you participated in this experience, and as better tools for verifying our human skills emerge, and they will, smart hiring managers will start looking for exactly this kind of proof. So here’s what I want you to take away today. Here’s what I’d like to invite you to take away today. Empathy is not soft. It’s not optional, and in the age of AI where human connection is simultaneously more scarce and more valuable than ever. It’s your most important competitive advantage. But talking about empathy is no longer enough. The leaders and organizations that will thrive in the next decade are those who practice it consistently, prove it credibly and hire for it intelligently. So I really hope that today’s hot take gave you some concrete tools for all three of those things, and if you’re ready to put your skills to the real world test, join me on April 25 at flex empathy. Again, that URL is Flex empathy.com so I would love to hear more about your journey with both building your empathy, building that muscle, building those skills, and in finding it in others. So you know you can always hit me up on the socials. Red slice Maria on Instagram, Maria J Ross on LinkedIn, or check out my contact page on my website. Red slice.com, but let me know what you think of today’s episode, and let me know if you’re going to do any thought experiments with any of the tactics I gave you as ideas today.
Maria Ross 20:52 But again, consider flex empathy. It’s a super unique competition that, if anything, it’s going to give you something great to talk about an interview in a promotion assessment with your colleagues at your next Executive Board Meeting wherever. Take a look and encourage others you know to check it out as well, especially, especially especially young professionals who really need to prove these skills to compete in the job market today. Thanks everyone again for being here, for listening, for supporting this podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review and share it with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
