The above quote is from a Stanford neuroscientist’s talk on “escaping cynicism,” and it lines up pretty well with a lot of evidence and ideas from the past 3–5 years at both the corporate and societal levels. Basically, we mention the word “empathy” at all-hands meetings or periodically in reports we have to write, but we don’t actually believe in the term “empathy,” and corporations don’t seemingly ever use the word correctly. Why would they, though? “Empathy” isn’t seen as a truly valuable skill — nor is vulnerability — because there’s an idea that you’ll let your opponent up off the mat, and he’ll subsequently kill you, like life and business are a match with The Undertaker or something.
Most managers actually operate according to “punished empathy,” whereby doing things that are essentially human get you slapped on the wrist. It’s the same with societal political discussions, honestly. A lot of people have convinced themselves that politics is a giant war whereby the other side is “coming for their way of life,” which is largely not true. Politicians are usually semi-attractive morons who are…
