Dear Leader:
What keeps you up at night? You steward a lot of people, money, and power. In the best case, you accomplish all that you hope and dream with those resources. If you struggle, you are in good company. One of the biggest levers of your performance is innovation, but it is very hard and rare. Only 1% of companies drive 40% of new jobs, and only 1 in 10 sustains growth. Similarly every leader wants engaged, productive employees, but 70% of people now say they are “not engaged at work.” They show up physically, but their heart and soul are someplace else. Finally, diverse leadership may be a longstanding yet elusive goal for you, despite years of focus on this issue. Again, the data suggest this is a general failure, more than a personal one.
So, what can you do? The answer is change the system, and you are in the position to do it. The missing link is empathy. We have all of the tools necessary to steward empathy today, but we are out of the habit. Empathy is not a matter of being nice, but rather being able to see the world from someone else’s perspective. Empathy helps people know they are not alone, so they can move through the fear of change. It is only human to fear change, but there is no innovation without change…as you well know! We all learned empathy when we were children, but our educational and business systems have worked against it for decades. Our empathy muscles have atrophied. It is nobody’s fault, but our empathy deficit disorder is hampering performance. We can do better.
The good news is that the most innovative, engaging organizations today are already showing us a better way. In essence, they fulfill basic human needs by getting 3 things right:
- Valuing whole people – not just units of production
- Providing shared meaning – beyond shareholder value
- Helping people grow – personally and professionally
It is simple, but it is not easy because the underlying solutions fly in the face of decades of advice and research about what leaders should be and how organizations should work.
You can measure and systematically increase your organizational Currency of Empathy® to accomplish your goals of innovation, employee engagement, and leadership diversity. Learn more about what CofE® can do for your organization here.
We would love to help you and your organization flourish.
Sincerely,
The Currency of Empathy® team