I have been known to say: "We don't need more data; we need expanded empathy!" But, in truth, we need both. The numbers support the conclusion that there is an empathy deficit in the corporate world; but there is also hope that the factors and forces are trending that make possible overcoming this deficit and expanding empathy. 

Business leaders lose contact with what clients and consumers are experiencing as the leaders get entangled in solving legal issues, reacting to the competition, or implementing the technologies required to sustain operations. Yet empathy is never needed more than when it seems there is no time or place for it. This is a challenge to be engaged and overcome.

What to do about it? Practice expanded empathy. Empathy is on the critical path to serving customers, segmenting markets, positioning products (and substitutes), psyching out the competition—not exactly empathy but close enough?—building teams and being a leader who actually has followers. Empathy makes the difference for contributors to the enterprise at all levels between banging on a rock with a hammer in the hot sun and building a cathedral. The motions are the same. tExactly the same. But the one person has hard labor and the other person is participating in greatness - building a cathedral. When the application of empathy exposes and strengthens the foundation of community, then expanding empathy becomes synonymous with expanding the business. Find out more in this engaging podcast about how empathy works - and sometimes doesn't - in the dynamic and challenging world of business relations.

(c) Lou Agosta, PhD and the Chicago Empathy Project