Our collective capacity to empathize, understand others and care about them crashed by 40% a few years ago. This is fact, statistically reliable and valid – we simply no longer care for one another as we once did.
And, I wanted to find out why.
I wanted to find out how such a basic human connection could disintegrate over a relatively short period of time. The answer can be revealed at a few different levels.
At a family level, the most significant parallel changes are size and structure. Families are smaller, more complex in terms of second and third marriages, and with different norms in terms of who does what. Parenting styles have shifted a lot as well. Kids may simply not have the same opportunity to practice their interactions that they once did.
At a community level significant change is found first in the rise of the “self esteem” movement – where self esteem is valued over self-control. With parents “involved” more than ever, and a blanket approach of everyone getting an award and no one ever losing, it’s no wonder that young people are fixated on self. We can also take a lesson from Robert Putnam who has a great book out called “Bowling Alone”. His point is that we participate in bowling at higher levels than ever before in history. At the same time, membership in bowling leagues is lower than ever before; we’re bowling alone…we do everything alone.
Finally, at a societal level, my writings on media saturation and technological connectivity are solid; time is a finite resource. The more time we spend connected to media, the less time we spend connecting with others. No one knows what this change will bring, yet we know that empathy is, to some extent, changeable. It responds to situations; it’s teachable, and it’s connected to results. Empathy matters bottom line.
I learned a great deal of this by sitting down with Dr. Sara Konrath, who is with the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. It was her groundbreaking work on the decline in empathy that has been published in scholarly journals, magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, BusinessWeek, and USA Today. In closing our discussion, I asked Sara if she could tell a practicing manager just one thing about empathy, what would she say? Her response was to “be willing to consider the value of empathy in leadership”. I agree. It is deeply human and has to come from within, not just someone telling us to do it.
How about it then? Is there value to empathy in leadership? I believe there is…what about in your world? What could increased empathy do for you?
