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Culture of Empathy Builder:  Maria Ross

Building Cultures of Empathy at Work and Beyond
Maria Ross

Maria Ross is the founder of Red Slice, a consultancy that advises entrepreneurs, startups, and fast-growth businesses on how to build an irresistible brand story and authentically connect with customers. She is a keynote speaker who regularly speaks to audiences on marketing and building an engaging brand story that drives growth and impact. Maria understands the power of empathy at both a brand and personal level. She is author of The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success.

 

Ford Madox Brown, Work, Wikipedia

"When you encourage empathy among your workforce and parlay that mindset outward to customers, your company will thrive. Why? Because empathetic businesses better understand their customers and can anticipate their wants and needs - delivering solutions to the market that customers crave."

 

 

The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success
Being empathetic at work means seeing the situation from another's perspective, and using that vantage point to shape your leadership style, workplace culture, and branding strategy. Pairing her knowledge as a branding expert with proven research and fascinating stories from executives, change-makers and community leaders, Maria Ross reveals exactly how empathy makes brands and organizations stronger and more successful.

 

Ross shows why your business needs to cultivate more empathy now, and shares the habits and traits of empathetic leaders who foster more productivity and loyalty.

 

 

Contents

 

Introduction: Empathy at Work

 

PART I:  Why More Businesses Need To Cultivate Empathy

1.  Empathy Explored

"Empathy isn't dictated to us by focus groups or a statistical analysis. Empathy is the powerful (and rare) ability to imagine what motivates someone else to act." - Seth Godin

  • What is Empathy?

  • Better than Gold: The Platinum Rule

  • Empathy Overwhelm

2.  The Business Advantage of Empathy

"Empathy as a way of understanding the world is understood. - Jane Fulton Suri

  • Empathy Spurs Innovation

  • Empathy Aligns You with you Customers Wants and Needs

  • Empathy Improves Employee Performance

  • Empathic Brands - and Workplaces - Appeal to Millennials and Gen Z

  • Empathy Drives Sales, Growth, and Market Performance

3.  The Empathy Veneer

"Authentic brands don't emerge from marketing cubicles or advertising agencies. They emanate from everything the company does. - Howard Schultz

 

 

PART  II:  The Empathetic Leader

4.  Benefits of Empathetic Leaders

"Measure your impact in humanity not the likes but lives you touch: not in popularity but in the people you serve...  There will be times when your resolve to serve humanity will be tested. Be prepared. People will try to convince you that you should keep your empathy out of your career. Don't accept this false premise. - Tim Cook

  • A Catalyst for Entrepreneurship

  • More Loyalty

  • Decisiveness

  • Agility and Connection

  • Adaptability


5. Habits and Traits of Empathetic Leaders

"Leadership is about empathy. It is having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives." - Oprah Winfrey

  1. Practice Presence

  2. Listen More, Stay Humble

  3. Be Curious

  4. Explore with Your Imagination

  5. Cultivate Confidence

  6. Get in the Trenches

  7.  Find Common Ground

  8. Empathic Leaders Build Empathic Cultures

 

PART III:  The Empathetic Culture

6.   Benefits of Empathetic Cultures
"Empathy takes time, and efficiency is for things, not people." -Stephen Covey

  • Higher Retention, Less Turnover

  • More Productivity and financial Gain

  • Better Customer Service



7.   Habits and Traits of Empathetic Culture
s

  1. Start Small

  2. Create an Environment of Trust

  3. Enable Open Communication

  4. Facilitate Intergenerational Understanding

  5. Leverage Accountability and Rewards

  6. Hire for the Culture You Want to Create


 

PART IV:  The Empathetic Brand

8.  Benefits of Empathetic Brands
"I believe it's more than just doing right things for a customer. It is doing the right thing with empathy, sympathy, concern, and care." - Shep Hyken

  • What Makes Brands Empathetic?

  • Healthy Market Performance and Longevity

  • Increased Customer Retention and Loyalty

  • Forgiveness When You Fail (and You Will)

  • Good Press and Word-of-Mouth Referrals


9. Habits and Traits of Empathic Brands
"Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you can ell them what they need well before they realize it themselves." - Steve Jobs

  1. Align on Mission

  2. Speak Your Customer's Language

  3. Hire People Who Are Passionate about Customers

  4. Implement the Right Customer Service Policies

  5. Accept Feedback as a Gift

  6. Offer a Personal Touch

  7. Do Good

  8. Ask...and Echo Back

 

Conclusion: More Empathy, More Success

Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It's simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of "You're not alone".  Brene Brown

  • Fostering the Next Generation of Empathetic Leaders

  • It Starts with You

  • Empathy is Everything

 

 

 

 

Articles and Videos

 

How to Make Empathy Your Competitive Advantage with Maria Ross

Maria Ross, author of The Empathy Edge, joins the podcast to explain why more businesses need to harness make empathy their competitive advantage.

 

 

Frejz Books - Maria Ross Discussion
The problems your business faces may stem from a single issue: lack of empathy. Maria Ross reveals exactly how empathy makes brands and organizations stronger and more successful. We had a great discussion with Maria about her book Empathy Edge, where she gives practical tips, big and small, for how to align your mission and values and hire the right people, cultivating a more empathetic - and innovative - workplace culture.

 


 

How to Make Empathy Your Competitive Advantage

Maria Ross, the author of The Empathy Edge, joins the podcast to explain why more businesses need to harness make empathy their competitive advantage.
 

 



Why we need more empathy at work

 

 


Why Empathy Makes Your Customers Love You More

Maria Ross19 Nov 2019

When you encourage empathy among your workforce and parlay that mindset outward to customers, your company will thrive. Why? Because empathetic businesses better understand their customers and can anticipate their wants and needs - delivering solutions to the market that customers crave. The more in tune with your customers you can be, the faster you can deliver such products or services to them before your competitors catch on.

In my work helping businesses craft strong, successful brands, the most powerful exercise is creating ideal customer profiles. Not generic proclamations such as, "We serve women between the ages of 25 and 60." but an actual, detailed sketch of a person. Someone with a name, age, family life, interests and more. I instruct them to make this person as real as possible, based on research, past customers and their own common sense. What makes this person tick? What is their life like? What do they fear, value, crave or worry about? It is only through completing this type of exercise that a company can see the world through its customer's eyes and understand what drives buying behaviors. The more empathy one can muster when crafting this profile, the more useful it can be to the business.