Empathy

I was reading an interesting blog today that mentioned the importance of empathy in the sales process.  This afternoon we watched a Pixar animation called Wall-E, and it was breathtakingly well done.  However, the really interesting element was how they got you to empathise with this little robot.  They plucked a every anthropomorphic string in your heart.  It was a truly masterful lesson in getting us to empathise with this little drawing.

Showing your humanity, letting people see how you feel, recognising their feelings and needs, looking for common ground, taking the first step to disclose are all ways to build a bridge of empathy.

Empathy paves the way to friendship, success in business and a happier life.

“Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and understanding”

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.”   Meryl Streep

Resources:

• Wiki definition

Tags: anthropomorphism, empathy

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 1st, 2009 at 19:19 and is filed under Business Change, Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.