Resistance to Empathy and How to Overcome it (Part 1: Organizational Resistance to Empathy)

The qualities that make organizations successful are not always the qualities that enhance their empathy. Beating the competition in the market, overcoming technical and legal problems, and "getting your numbers," do not reliably expand your empathy. 

It often seems that compliance and rule-making, not empathy, are trending. The organization drives out empathy by enforcing conformity to an extensive and contradictory set of rules, whose complexity is such that at any give time, the individual is technically (though unwittingly) in violation of one of them. What to do about it?

Empathy has a key role to play in organizations in reducing conflict, overcoming “stuckness,” eliminating self-defeating behavior, building teams, fostering innovation, developing leadership, and enhancing productivity. The empathy lesson is to use humor (and empathy) to undercut resistance to empathy in the organization. In this dynamic and engaging podcast, expand your empathy and find out how empathy is a source of creating possibilities, overcoming conformity through innovation, and leading from a future of possibilities.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://louagosta.com/2021/06/14/resistance-to-empathy-and-how-to-overcome-it/