Empathy

An excellent article is posted in the FedEx Open Forum. As they quote Henry Ford:

“If there is any one secret of success,” said Henry Ford, “it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own.” This is empathy.

And how do you practice empathy--six tips are given in the article including my favorite for the business world:

Much has been written about what executive presence is but one thing is certain: those who possess it have “social generosity.” We invariably walk away from them feeling energized and better about ourselves. This is because they have empathy, the quality that makes them sense our need to feel important. They see us not as we are, but as who we could become. Simply put, they care about how we feel. What a wonderful gift it is, to be able to bestow this on those we encounter. One could argue that it is indeed impossible to have executive presence without empathy because a major requirement for executive presence is the ability to connect with others.

We pay people lots of money for identifying hidden assets and we talk of this as the means of achieving success in the financial world; and yet the far more "value add" talent is in the above--to see not as we are but as who we can be.