Empathy is Not a Soft Skill

Art of Supply

“The first casualty of war is truth—the second is empathy. Empathy has to call for backup. The backup is in the form of radical empathy.”

-Lou Agosta, Assistant Professor of Medical Education at Ross Medical University at Saint Anthony Hospital

We have a difficult six months ahead of us. A contentious presidential election looms in the U.S., the world continues to be war-torn, and companies find themselves mired in social topics that threaten to win over one half of consumers or stakeholders while alienating the other half.

Could consciously practiced empathy make the difference between community success and fragmented failure? Perhaps.

Dr. Helen Riess is the Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Empathy Research and Training in Psychotherapy Research group in the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital. She is also the author of a book called The Empathy Effect.

She has studied not just the power of empathy, but also the ability to monitor it neuroscientifically. Dr Riess may have found proof of something that many leaders believe… empathy is not a soft skill after all.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner focuses on empathy as a business strategy:

• A review of Dr. Riess’ findings and what they teach us about the physical experience of empathy
• How empathy can not only be learned and improved over time, it can also be lost or diminished
• How an expanded understanding of empathy can affect our performance at work - and in life, too

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