The data proving empathy is smart business has always been there, it’s all we talk about here – but now it’s bigger, broader, and more impossible to ignore than ever. Dr. Robert Coleman is Director of Research and Thought Leadership at Dale Carnegie and Associates, where he leads ongoing research into the issues facing leaders, employees, and organizations worldwide. He comes bearing serious receipts in the form of Dale Carnegie’s white paper, The Power of Empathy: A Key Soft Skill for the Future of Work. Now in its third consecutive year of global research with roughly 4,000 respondents. This isn’t a one-off survey. This is an ongoing comparative study that is building an airtight case for empathy as a core business strategy.
Robert walks us through what the data actually shows – and it is compelling. Employees in high-empathy workplaces dramatically outperform those in low-empathy ones on retention, satisfaction, and goal achievement. Teams in high-empathy organizations are significantly more likely to meet and exceed their targets. And here’s the stat that stopped me cold: only 14% of employees say they’ve received training specifically focused on empathy, despite its proven link to performance and retention. Not because employees don’t want it, they are craving it. It’s the interpersonal skills they know matter most. And yet companies continue to underinvest. We dive deep into the data together and then pull back out to make sense of what it means for your organization and why you need to pay attention right now.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- How one interaction can shape someone’s view of your organization.
- Why roll fit should be addressed from the front end, and not assumed to be fixed later.
- Statistics around empathy as a retention and job satisfaction driver.
- Why accountability is important for engagement at all levels.
“Without empathy, emotional intelligence loses its effectiveness, because empathy makes it actionable. It’s how people experience it, and it is that action piece that transforms emotional awareness into those meaningful leadership outcomes that people are looking for.” — Robert Coleman, Ph.D
About Robert Coleman, Ph.D., Director of Research and Thought Leadership, Dale Carnegie
Robert A. Coleman, Ph.D., is the director of research and thought leadership for Dale Carnegie and Associates, where he is responsible for ongoing research into current issues facing leaders, employees, and organizations worldwide.
Connect with Robert:
Dale Carnegie & Associates: dalecarnegie.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robertcoleman5
Dale Carnegie White Paper: The Power of Empathy: A Key Soft Skill for the Future of Work: https://www.dalecarnegie.com/en/state-of-organizational-health
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
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. The data proving empathy is smart. Business has always been there. It’s all we talk about around here, but now it’s bigger, broader and more impossible to ignore than ever. My guest today is Dr Robert Coleman, Director of Research and thought leadership at Dale Carnegie and Associates, where he leads ongoing research into the issues facing leaders, employees and organizations worldwide. He comes bearing serious receipts in the form of Dale Carnegie’s white paper, the power of empathy, a key soft skill for the future of work. Now in its third consecutive year of global research with roughly 4000 respondents. This isn’t a one off survey. This is an ongoing comparative study that’s building an airtight case for empathy as a core business strategy. Today, Robert walks us through what the data actually shows, and it’s pretty compelling. Employees in high empathy workplaces dramatically outperform those in low empathy ones on retention, satisfaction and goal achievement. Teams in high empathy organizations are significantly more likely to meet and exceed their targets. And here’s the stat that stopped me cold, only 14% of employees say they’ve received training specifically focused on empathy, despite its proven link to performance and retention, not because employees don’t want it. They’re craving it. It’s the interpersonal skills they know matter most. And yet, companies continue to under invest to miss the opportunity. We dive deep into the data together and then pull back out to make sense of what it means for your organization and why you need to pay attention right now, if you’ve ever needed hard data to make the case for empathy in your organization, consider this your latest refresh of ammunition. Take a listen. Welcome Robert Coleman to the empathy edge podcast. I am so excited to talk data and ROI with you around empathy. You are, as we heard in the bio that we and the intro, you are the Director of Research and thought leadership at Dale Carnegie. So tell us a little bit about your passion for this work of researching what makes leaders and organizations Great?
Dr. Robert Coleman 03:02
Yeah, I think it’s probably even broader than that. It’s just an it’s an interest in behaviors and actions and the psychology behind why people do what they do. So, I mean, I can get just as involved in this, if I’m people watching sitting someplace, as diving into the data, you know, behind specific, you know, topics, workplace topics. And it’s just something that, you know, we all have feelings, we all have visions, and we all have experiences of workplaces past, present and future. And it’s one of those things when we can along with emotion. Emotion certainly plays part of it. But when you can put the data alongside that, and you can either confirm or draw, you know, insight you didn’t realize before, or actually change your whole perspective about, you know, maybe what you have thought you were witnessing or what you see, but it’s something completely different that comes behind it. So I love that, that whole idea of discovery,
Maria Ross 03:55
yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 03:56
that just comes from high quality data analysis.
Maria Ross 03:58
I love that. And, you know, that’s where I started with this empathy work was just trying to convince the skeptics that there was a business case for empathy at work, even though we know, as human beings, we thrive in environments where we’re seen, heard and valued. But for some people, they just need the data to understand how it’s actually going to benefit them and benefit their bottom line. And even if they’re embracing it for selfish reasons, it still benefits everybody. So, you know, the rising tide lifts all boats, as they say.
Dr. Robert Coleman 04:26
It’s interesting, because we can have that conversation. You could say exactly what you just said right there in a personal conversation with probably most of leaders out there, and everybody would agree with you. But then when you transfer that to the business sense, and once you walk in the door or through the gate. It’s almost like it, you know, I think something like 37% of leaders don’t think it has a place in the workplace, 100%
Maria Ross 04:47
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Coleman 04:47
But you could take a lot of those people and they would say, yeah, absolutely, in our personal lives they should. And there’s a disconnect. And you know what that goes back to? I mean, we can, that’s probably a whole nother podcast. You. Know, it’s just something I think that’s not taught either in
Maria Ross 05:02
right?
Dr. Robert Coleman 05:02
I don’t think business schools traditionally teach that either as being a, you know, an underlying foundation,
Maria Ross 05:08
yeah. I mean, they’re starting to, which is great. I know I’ve guest lectured at some organizations, some universities and colleges that are actually creating management courses around leading with heart, leading with humanity, leading with empathy. I’m like, Yay, finally, but yeah, you’re absolutely right. And for me, and this is what I’ll be eager to hear about the data and your analysis of it, but for a lot of the work that I do, it’s about people just misunderstanding what we mean by empathy, right? And I always make this joke when I present that to skeptical leaders, that it doesn’t mean you have to be crying on the floor with your employees, like that’s not what we’re talking about. So let’s get to it. Let’s get to the study that Carnegie ran, I believe, in May 2025, how was the study conducted?
Dr. Robert Coleman 05:50
So it’s a global study. We run it, you know, every year, and finally, I’ve been here, I’m going on little over two years, and so it was a development to get to that point. But right now, we have this global study across a number of workplace topics, and one being empathy, that will run each year, which also allows to get trend data. But it’s we run all, you know, all the regions, there’s close to 4000 respondents each year. So we’re going on now something after this being the third year, you know, around 11,000 12,000 respondents in this year over year, not year of year, but, you know, cumulative, so right, running about 4000 a year. And it really, you know, it’s across it includes leaders, includes managers, individual contributors, the front line. It, you know, it’s obviously across genders, it’s company sizes, across age groups. And it also is by work location as well. You know, whether on site hybrid or, you know, we’re able to parse that out and fully remote. And so many other, you know, there’s, there’s so much more behind it as well. But this is something that we’re now in the third year of of running where, you know, we put an annual report out this think January on the state of organizational health, and empathy was one of those key topics in that. And it it’s a big report, but it’s report filled with data. It’s not a hard read. You can look through it and get that information right for your region or your you know or globally, and use that as a benchmark and just kind of see where everything is. And empathy plays a big role in that is a foundational element.
Maria Ross 07:24
I love that
Dr. Robert Coleman 07:25
that’s the you know, each what we’re running each year, and we’re adding countries as we go and but it’s a representative sample.
Maria Ross 07:33
Great, great. So one of the findings that you found was that empathy is a strategic capability, which, amen, I’ve been saying that for years, and it’s also a central pillar of emotional intelligence. It underpins resilience, collaboration, trust, all those things. Can you tell us a little bit about what the report revealed about that, and how is empathy the underpinning of that?
Dr. Robert Coleman 07:54
Well, you know, empathy is one of the, you know, one of the pillars of emotional intelligence, and as I mentioned in the report, but you know, what makes it so, you know, I guess, so impactful is, you know, when you think about, I’ll back up a minute. You know, where emotional intelligence would be, things like that include self awareness, self regulation, motivation, social skills. And, you know, at the heart of that, you know, empathy. And I guess, what does make that so impactful when you consider all the other things that emotional intelligence entails is that without empathy, you know, emotional intelligence really loses its effectiveness, because empathy is what makes it really actionable. It kind of, you know, it’s how people experience it, and it really is that action piece that really transforms, you know, I’d say really transforms emotional awareness into those meaningful leadership outcomes that people are looking for. So, you know, it just, it brings it to life. I think it’s that component that brings that emotional intelligence to
Maria Ross 08:53
life. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Another great finding that I noted was that, and we’ve seen other reports on this about employees experiencing their organization through their direct leaders, their direct managers. But that experience creates a brand perception, if you will, of the organization as a whole. So can you talk a little bit about that, about how, how that demonstrates, you know, the experiences someone’s having with one person, one leader, one manager in their organization, can color their whole perception and experience of of the company at large.
Dr. Robert Coleman 09:29
Yeah, it’s interesting, because you know that leader, even at that local level, you know, no matter how large or small your company is, that that one interaction can shape the entire view of how your company is. You know what your company’s up and at an empathetic company, whether it’s part of your culture, whether you don’t value it or not. So it what? What’s interesting about that is, like you said, you can have one misaligned leader, and you can strategize. You could put empathy on paper. You could write down all these things that you want to do, and you can put. Posted on your bulletin board, but you could have that one misaligned leader that changes, you know, obviously, we know there’s micro cultures within, you know, the macro cultures, but
Maria Ross 10:09
Right?
Dr. Robert Coleman 10:09
But it really has an impact on, and this is the piece that’s really important, is it’s not just being with empathy, not just being a feel good, you know. Topic is that really has an impact on retention, job satisfaction, employee engagement, ultimately, innovation. How much am I engaging with this company, or am I just here? So anybody with direct reports or, and I’ll even take this further, you know, you think of a team, a group of people that my family’s all blue collar, from blue collar, you know, signs and, you know, we’re never in the leadership space, and we’re always, you know, the doing the work, I guess, the ones being led, right? The individual contributors,
Maria Ross 10:49
yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 10:50
but there’s leaders among them as well. When everybody, when nobody else is around, and you need have a question, Who are you going to in that group? And that person is a leader as well. So I think, as you know, we’ll just back up and kind of bring this all back together. Is that one interaction, that person who is looked up to, whether it’s positional leadership or just, you know, somebody that’s in a position where people look up to them, and if that interaction isn’t, I guess if it’s less than desirable, we’ll put it that way. If that empathy is not there, or they get a sense that, you know, you don’t care, or my opinions just don’t matter, all of a sudden, that’s a proxy for the entire organization. Well, it must not be something that we care about as a company, and that even you mentioned brand. You know, that even goes further, because now the customers are feeling that eventually, too,
Maria Ross 11:47
yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 11:47
well, it’s just
Maria Ross 11:48
like, you know, I used to do brand strategy work for many years. And it’s, it’s, you know, one negative experience with one customer service rep can kill your reputation in a second. And the same holds true internally, you know. And I wanted to just read this stat from the report. If people can view their leaders as empathetic, they can view the organization as sort of having their back and a place they want to be like, just to put it in layman’s terms, right? Yet, just 27% strongly agree their leader cares about them as a person, and only 21% feel their leader cares about how life outside work affects their role, creating a leadership empathy gap. So it’s like, yes, it’s important. Yes, it’s going to shape the experience. Yes, the organization at large, like you said, might have the pretty posters on the wall and the really nicely crafted mission and vision statement, but if that day to day experience with that manager, and this is where I get to in terms of toxic rock stars within an organization. If you’re not willing to have the conversation to either upskill that leader or let them go, you’re doing damage to so many more people. It’s a ripple effect within the organization.
Dr. Robert Coleman 12:57
Yeah, absolutely. And you’re talking somewhat about role fit as well, right? And that’s something that I don’t think that’s addressed. Is enough in the front end. I think we expect training, and we expect things later to overcome these things. And that one toxic leader, yes, it might be fine in the age of a speed the other thing I wanted to mention, in the age of speed and efficiency, are we empowering or giving, you know, we talk about leaders, and we want to be clear, we’re really talking about everybody from the C suite through managers and supervisors and people you know that are, you know, closer, much closer to the front lines? Are we giving them the ability to they have the time, and do they have the power to just stop for a minute and pause and maybe treat somebody or enter a situation with empathy, instead of speed and efficiency in a production. So that, I think that’s the disconnect, and I think that’s where that’s where it gets it can go from a great idea to something you really want to do to maybe losing out on the action side, just because we might talk about it in something great, but at the bottom line, if we’re still measuring output all day, is our primary board,
Maria Ross 14:09
absolutely. And it’s expensive to replace workers. I mean, again, maybe there’s some workers you do want to replace, I don’t know, but it’s expensive to replace and hire and get people up to speed. And you know, when you lose that momentum continuously, you can never compete well in the market. And so I’d love if you can share some of the statistics around statistics around empathy as a powerful retention and job satisfaction driver, what happens in low empathy workplaces, and what did you find in the high empathy workplaces?
Dr. Robert Coleman 14:40
So, so in those in those companies that were more hot high had high empathy cultures were perceived as high empathy cultures, because that’s what we’re talking about people, right? See them being high empathy cultures, 60, I think 67% reported a high intent to stay with that company, whereas those in compared to those in low empathy cultures. Perceived low empathy cultures only was only 4.7%
Maria Ross 15:03
Wow.
Dr. Robert Coleman 15:03
So basically, that means that those in higher high empathy cultures reported almost a 14x you know, times greater intent to stay than those in low empathy cultures. And you know, what’s interesting about that is those numbers, you could talk about it the other way, those in low empathy cultures, those numbers just flipped right. Yeah. People,
Maria Ross 15:24
yeah. I think it was 64.1% of employees in low empathy cultures reported an intent to stay or a low intent to stay.
Dr. Robert Coleman 15:34
Low intent, yeah, you have it right there. Great,
Maria Ross 15:37
yeah, yeah.
Dr. Robert Coleman 15:38
So you know that that’s huge. And when you consider, you know, take sherm’s numbers to 50 to 200% of replacing somebody, you know, the cost of replacing somebody, yeah, you know. And those are, those are people with the intent, you know, high intent, low intent, to stay. But you just mentioned a few minutes ago about, well, maybe, you know, we should consider, or some should consider getting rid of, maybe some of those leaders that don’t fit, but what happens about the employees that are choosing to leave as well? I mean, that’s certainly part equation, and not because maybe they’re not, they don’t have high empathy or low empathy themselves, but because they’re not treated with low so it’s not just a one person that one person can cost you so much that, I mean, that comes down. We always talk ROI, ROI, ROI about the numbers. So if you could just retain more of those employees, that’s a huge impact to the bottom line. And and those numbers that you’re talking about are not, they’re not overall turnover numbers or anything like that. Those that’s the specific, you know, in the model that was running, that’s the specific impact of empathy on turnover alone.
Maria Ross 16:45
Yeah, it’s
Dr. Robert Coleman 16:47
huge.
Maria Ross 16:47
It’s huge. So I want to talk about one of my favorite topics, because that’s what my second empathy book was about. Was balancing empathy with accountability and performance, right? So empathy without accountability is a daycare. Accountability without empathy is a prison camp, right? So, so tell me about the numbers behind that. You found that proved that when empathy, while empathy improves trust and engagement, that it’s more effective when it’s paired with clear expectations and accountability.
Dr. Robert Coleman 17:20
Yeah, the accountability in our study was, again, I’m going to think back to this when I think there was something like 32% but was that right? So strongly agreed that there was accountability in their organization, which is low on its own. I mean, you just take accountability on its own, right, right? But you know, when you, when you pair that, would that be, let’s, let’s take a company that says, All right, we’re focused on accountability. Now, we’re, we’re, we’re an accountability, you know, organization, well, well, that’s great, except for the fact that you really can become very coarse, very directive. You’re always, you know, you’re always giving directions. You’re not allowing people to, you know, I guess, share ideas and those kind of things. So if you I don’t, I would say the accountability side. I think more most companies just lean that direction already. And you might have found that, in your book, accountability is pretty easy to do because it’s easy to micromanage. That’s a default, right? It’s easy to give direct
Maria Ross 18:18
Yeah,
Maria Ross 18:18
it works for the short term, but not for the long term. Yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 18:21
right, right. But that’s where I think most companies have, have anchored traditionally, is in that accountability phase, which is why empathy has such a hard time trying to get break in. Because, yeah, used to doing that, those two together, but, you know, the empathy side of it, if you have that alone, like you said, you mentioned, I think your daycare, that’s, I mean, it’s a great, great phrase, because it is, it becomes, maybe it’s a fun place to work for a while, and everybody feel good. Yeah, you’re listening and sharing stories all day long, but, but nothing gets done and without the accountability. You know, it might sound great to work in a company full of empathy, but there’s no purpose right there either.
Maria Ross 19:01
Well, and, yeah, and my work is all about that those two things can coexist. They’re not polar opposites, right? The idea of holding someone accountable with empathy by, you know, seeing what they need. How can you support them? How can you get them to the level you need them to be, versus lowering the bar for them, right? What do they need? What’s going on for them? What skills are they missing? What, you know, maybe it’s a, maybe it’s a neurodivergence issue, like, maybe it’s a, it’s a, you know, overwhelm or stress issue, whatever it is, it’s solving for that with the ultimate goal of getting the person to perform and thrive. Not just like you said, not just feel good.
Dr. Robert Coleman 19:42
No, it’s the need to you have to perform. You have to perform. But alongside with that, you need that humanity piece as well. And that’s, that’s the balance of both sides.
Maria Ross 19:54
Yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 19:54
I would say, if you could ask organizations, that would probably obviously, you know, or accountability is the. Way we want to go, because we can drive bigger numbers,
Maria Ross 20:02
right
Dr. Robert Coleman 20:02
But if you look at the other side of that equation with, you know, the the interpersonal skills in the, you know, the workforce, that’s where the empathy plays. Empathy plays a huge role with that. So there’s a balance between the two where they need to meet in the middle, and one that’s out of balance will definitely be felt by your workforce,
Maria Ross 20:19
for sure. And nobody said that accountability has to be punitive, like we always look at accountability as like a bad thing, like someone’s in trouble, right? Accountability just means I know my role, and I know what I’m here to contribute, and I’m going to honor that, I’m going to commit to, that I’m going to I’m going to take responsibility and ownership for that. It doesn’t have to mean I’m in trouble or I broke the rules, or, you know, again, I’m being punished for something, and I don’t know where in our culture, we started equating, you know, hold someone accountable with punish them. It’s simply just clarity of expectations and roles and outcomes. Well,
Dr. Robert Coleman 20:55
what’s interesting about that is not in it’s not in that white paper or anything, but our it’s just part of the data we collect. And one thing that popped into mind as you were mentioning that was even leaders. When you ask, I have a clear understanding of my role in the organization, it’s a low number of even leaders, where so many people are unsure about their about their their role. And when you think about that, when it comes to being accountable, if I’m not sure, especially in the leadership position, if I’m not sure about what it actually is I’m supposed to be doing, maybe no fault of mine, but maybe the communication is not great. Maybe telephone game has got to me and I don’t know what’s going on, or it’s contradicts something I was told three days ago, if I’m not really sure, a lot of them will disengage themselves. So So that leads to leader disengagement, because who wants it should be it shouldn’t be an issue. But let’s be honest, who wants to be the leader in the C suite, or wherever on the C level that walks into the meeting says, Look, I’ve been working. I’ve been here eight months. I don’t know what we’re doing, right? So right comes silent,
Maria Ross 22:03
yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 22:03
and it just, it trickles down. So it’s hard to be accountable for things. Yeah, it’s almost like that you think about quiet quitting, or I would think of it more of this stage of like, just that quietly disengaging, but yeah,
Maria Ross 22:16
yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 22:16
which is also a cost at that point, right?
Maria Ross 22:18
right
Dr. Robert Coleman 22:19
But without being accountable. You know, two sides of that, it’s hard to be accountable for something you don’t truly understand what it’s supposed to be. And I’m not even, yeah, I’m not sure what accountability looks like if I don’t understand the clear goals of our company.
Maria Ross 22:34
Yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 22:34
and I could understand those better if I had a culture of empathy, where I was able to come out and have that conversation without fear of whatever, because I’m part of the conversation, and yeah, we care about others,
Maria Ross 22:47
amen. I mean, clarity is one of my five pillars of being an effective and empathetic leader, and it’s because of exactly what you said. You can’t hold someone accountable to an expectation you haven’t clearly set, and that’s no one’s fault, but it’s, it’s sort of like getting in the car and telling someone to drive, but not telling them where you want them to drive to. So it’s like, yeah, I can drive, I can drive you around town. I could drive you to, you know, to Texas and back. I could drive you to the store. But where, where are we going, right? And, and I love the point you made about who wants to be the person that’s going to say, you know, and you have to be really brave to say, Do we even know where our car is going right now? And it’s those leaders that actually, you know, ask the question and get the clarity, and everyone else is like, thank you.
Dr. Robert Coleman 23:39
Yeah,
Maria Ross 23:39
and that’s
Dr. Robert Coleman 23:40
For sure there are others that feel that way,
Maria Ross 23:42
right and then that and that. The reason I call that empathy, it’s because you’re taking somebody out of fear and anxiety into movement that is empathetic to do that for somebody, it’s not empathetic to keep someone in limbo or in fear or in I don’t know what’s happening next. I don’t I don’t even know which next right step to take that doesn’t feel good to anyone. So I love that you brought that up. Okay? I wanted to talk about, you know, again, the macro, what this whole show is about, what all my work is about, is that empathy improves team outcomes and business results. And you had a finding that said, each incremental increase in perceived organizational empathy makes teams 11% more likely to meet goals and 21% more likely to exceed them. How did you measure that?
Dr. Robert Coleman 24:33
It’s so so we obviously collect team team data on that as well, and then we you go into the statistics behind all that, not to get all nerdy and everything, but, but you can run some, you know, binomial lend, the logistic regressions, and just depends how you break the data out. There’s so many ways that you could do that. So it really comes down to, you know, running, running that stuff behind the scenes, between those groups, and breaking those groups out, and then seeing where they compare in how they. How they reported achieving their goals over the past year.
Maria Ross 25:04
Could you share how you asked those questions? What were the questions you asked to get to that
Dr. Robert Coleman 25:10
so, so the team goals portion, that the team portion, was one, you know, obviously they work as part of a team, or they’re, they’re, you know, they don’t answer those. So if they work as part of a team is, you know what, what types of things you know whether they, their team, exceeded, met failed goals. I’m just going to do this as kind of a broad overview, you know, also had them added some qualitative, you know, collection behind that of, okay, well, if, if you’ve exceeded your goals, you know what, what were the bet, biggest things that helped you achieve those goals, and if you failed, what were the biggest hurdles, or the things that were in your way? So trying to get a broad understanding, but I say broad with many questions around it, but, but then a deeper understanding of that as well. And then, of course, if you go back to the data side mentioned in the introduction, it’s we collect so many different levels of data, we’re able to parse that out, you know, in many ways.
Maria Ross 26:07
and so was it the delta between the groups that claimed, and I don’t know how they self assessed whether their organization or their leader was empathetic or wasn’t, but was that where the percentages came from? Was mapping that those answers to, were they part of the empathetic leader group or the non empathetic leader group? Is that how that happened?
Dr. Robert Coleman 26:26
Yeah, that’s another, another layer of that as well. Right? Of those that were working either in the one the cultures of low empathy, because there’s different aspects of culture that we have empathy in the culture where we collect as well and are able, you know that that empathy topic has several dimensions under it.
Dr. Robert Coleman 26:42
You know, there’s a personal empathy side. There’s an organizational culture, you know, the perceived empathy of the organization. So then it’s breaking that out as well with that data. So you can, you know, parse that out in a way that, you know, very insightful. I’ll be honest with you. I mean, we could assume, okay, people in high empathy environments more likely to meet their goals, but, but when you see those numbers, maybe the differences, yeah, there’s a big gap. I mean, 21% and I think what was the other one for 14%
Maria Ross 27:14
it was 21% versus 11%, oh I’m sorry
Dr. Robert Coleman 27:17
okay,
Maria Ross 27:17
no empathy makes teams 11% more likely to meet goals and 21% more likely to exceed them. So take that. When you take that together, that’s what 32% are meeting or exceeding. Yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 27:29
yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would look at it this way though. We you know, you either failed to meet goals as a team, you met goals, or you exceeded goals. The expectation is that you’re going to meet goals. So I wouldn’t even look at that as a big win, like we met goals great, because you’re expected to do that. Yes, it’s a win.
Maria Ross 27:47
Yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 27:48
right, but, but we’re expected to do that,
Maria Ross 27:51
right?
Dr. Robert Coleman 27:51
But you look at those numbers, and it was 11 and 21 11% more likely for every increase in empathy, and 11% more likely to meet goals, and 21% more likely to exceed goals. And it might not be intuitive. It doesn’t. It seems kind of counterintuitive, intuitive when you look at those numbers, because you would think, well, wouldn’t it be higher to meet them first and then fall off? But what those numbers show is when empathy increases by a point, it has a huge impact on the on exceeding goals, on the those people that want to achieve, who want to feel part of something. And that’s why that middle number is lower than the higher number. It’s not that we skipped over it in the analysis or anything and we got them backwards. It’s that when you increase empathy by a point, it has a big impact on how people show up and come to work. So it went from we failed goals. It can take you from failing goals to exceeding goals, and you might skip right through the Met. Yeah. So those that nuance behind those numbers was something I think was a part of the white paper. I think it was in there, but, yeah, it’d be hard to ask.
Maria Ross 29:00
I’m curious if you can share how you got them to measure what a point improvement in empathy looks like.
Dr. Robert Coleman 29:07
Well, the point in empathy is, you know, whatever the scale we use to measure it.
Maria Ross 29:12
Ah, okay,
Dr. Robert Coleman 29:12
right. So if you’re using whatever scale you’re using for every increase, so I’ll just take a simple example. Yeah, you’re using a scale of one to seven of low to high, one to seven or one to 10. Let’s just say one to 10.
Maria Ross 29:25
Oh, the people between five and six, that was even just that one, if you were Yeah. So if you went from fives versus sixes,
Dr. Robert Coleman 29:33
right?
Maria Ross 29:34
Okay, got it,
Dr. Robert Coleman 29:35
yep, if you could get somebody to go from, you know, mildly to, you know, just that next one, yeah, that one point in measurement increase that resulted in that 21%
Maria Ross 29:47
it’s pretty telling. I mean, it’s pretty telling, all right, I need to ask you, before we run out of time, I need to ask you about the one that basically justifies my existence, which is empathy in training. Meaning, right? So empathy is underdeveloped despite its impact. First of all, do you have a theory on why, or was that actually not part of the What’s your theory on why? Why is it underdeveloped?
Dr. Robert Coleman 30:11
Of why it’s underdeveloped because it’s not seen. I mean, I met when, I’ll go back earlier, 37% of leaders don’t think it has a place in the workplace. And if you don’t think it has, if you don’t think it has a place, or you don’t see it as important, you’re not going to invest in it.
Maria Ross 30:23
No, exactly,
Dr. Robert Coleman 30:25
not going to get trained.
Maria Ross 30:25
So I want, I want to just talk about these numbers. Only 22% of employees report receiving emotional intelligence training in the past three years. Just 14% say they have received training specifically focused on empathy, despite its proven link to performance and retention. So there’s a huge opportunity here that organizations are missing to catalyze results. And did you get the sense, I know, that some of this was quantitative and somewhat of it was qualitative, but did you get the sense that employees were craving it?
Dr. Robert Coleman 30:54
Yes, because you can look outside the empathy topic itself. You know, we actually have a scale. We create a scale to measure it in 12 other components underneath it. But if you look at the broader some of the some of the questions, I say, the broader survey, right? If you look at some of those questions elsewhere in the survey that speak to how people feel their managers treat them, and just all these other questions that speak to how empathy is perceived. They absolutely are craving it and those interpersonal skills. You know, nobody is really saying, I need more technical training.
Dr. Robert Coleman 31:30
They’re saying they they want, like, the technical trainings come it’s there, right? People are getting trained in tech, in technology and AI. And again, we’re back to that speed and efficiency. What they’re saying is these interpersonal skills matter. So if you want me to be effective in this into the future, I need this as well along the way. They have to be parallel in our training. So yeah, I absolutely get it. And it’s at all levels, one thing, and this is just a theory that, you know, we’re going to be looking into this as I look at data into the future, and need to collect more on this and see this more longer term. But I mentioned earlier, we collect across also on site workers, hybrid workers and remote workers. And one thing we’ve seen in a number of categories over the past few years is that hybrid and remote gains from year to year, their percentage point gains in the, you know, percent favorable. You know, things are getting better for hybrid remote workers. They’ve been going up at a rate in many of the, you know, the workplace topics that exceed those on site. So you could look at that a few different ways, and I hope that makes sense is, you know, their gains. They’re seeing bigger gains than those that are working. You know
Maria Ross 32:43
Can youtalk, can you give us an example of what those gains are like? What areas are you talking about?
Dr. Robert Coleman 32:48
Yeah, let’s just say that communication effectiveness. They might have seen a three or four point gain from last year in a hybrid environment, where on site might have experienced a negative drop, and how they are view viewing, communication, effectiveness. Now I don’t know about those real numbers, but that’s
Maria Ross 33:03
right, right, right. Okay,
Dr. Robert Coleman 33:06
so I say that to say this, what’s interesting about that is you could look at that in a few different ways, and this is where I don’t know this is something I’m really we’re going to have to be looking at over the next few years. But are those who are now in hybrid or remote situations? Is it that that hybrid and remote situation is that much better for them, or is it that they are able to get away or disconnect from the things that work, that they don’t necessarily, you know, maybe the lack of empathy, right, right? They can get away from that. So are they’re happier now, and they’re they’re reporting more positive gains. That’s something I don’t, I can’t speak to right kind of that at the moment, but it’s something we’re looking at because, you know, if you can just get away from it, if it’s, you know, if we’re not gonna, if we’re not gonna make it part of our culture, let me just step away from a little bit, then you would see that bump. So,
Maria Ross 33:58
yeah,
Dr. Robert Coleman 33:59
it’s not just related to empathy, but, you know,
Maria Ross 34:01
lots of other things.
Dr. Robert Coleman 34:02
Yeah, anything,
Maria Ross 34:03
yeah. Well, I think the integration of work life in those environments for some people is such a huge gain for them that they’re like, Yeah, I can completely outperform when I’m working in a remote or hybrid environment. So, so interesting. We will look for more coming down the road. But the report is called the power of empathy, a key soft skill for the future of work from Dale Carnegie and Robert. Thank you so much for your time and your insights. Today, we will have all the links in the show notes, including the link to the report. But for anyone on the go, where’s the best place they can find out more about the work you’re doing at Dale Carnegie,
Dr. Robert Coleman 34:36
yeah, I think they can find that in many other, many other papers and resources at Dale carnegie.com
Maria Ross 34:42
Great.
Dr. Robert Coleman 34:43
Yeah.
Maria Ross 34:44
All right, perfect. Well, thanks for your time today.
Dr. Robert Coleman 34:47
Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Maria,
Maria Ross 34:49 and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge 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. 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 calm. 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.
