Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy

Front Cover
Pearson Education India, 2009 - 5 pages
Executives often know little about the people who buy their companies' products and services. This is not surprising. To study people, you must care about them. However, most companies eliminate empathy from their operations. In essence, they proceed as if they have calculating, survival-bent reptile brains. Profits drive everything. This is an odd disconnect because corporate livelihoods depend on people - not lizards - and people's brains are hardwired to be empathetic. Dev Patnaik (writing with Peter Mortensen) shows why firms that connect empathetically with their customers do better financially. He insists today's cold-hearted, bottom-line business world has room for caring companies, and he points to IBM, Nike and Harley-Davidson as examples. The fact that empathy is also a strong business strategy is icing on the cake. getAbstract suggests this fine book to CEOs, marketing officers and other executives who want to build their business by acting on their respect for their customers. As Patnaik explains on his blog, "Empathy isn't about having a visionary leader. It's about making customer information an easy, everyday and experiential part of working at your company."
 

Selected pages

Contents

Introduction
3
The Map Is Not the Territory
19
The Way Things Used to Be
42
The Power of Affinity
67
Walking in Someone Elses Shoes
85
Empathy That Lasts
105
Open All the Windows
124
Reframe How You See the World
143
We Are Them and They Are Us
165
The Golden Rule
180
The Hidden Payoff
200
Acknowledgments
217
Endnotes
223
Index
237
About the Authors
Copyright

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