Empathy: Friend or Foe?

Could empathy be the key for the business to unlock competitive advantage or does it compromise efficiency and performance?

Empathy is a hot topic in business. Just google it and you will find many articles highlighting the benefits for innovation, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, organisational learning and financial performance. However, apply with care. Empathy may also have opposite effects if it comes at the cost of tackling sensitive issues that are critical to delivering results.

Empathy can only be effective if leaders enact it authentically. And irrespective of its potential benefits, for some people empathy is too touchy-feely. Often the perspective prevails that emotions should stay out of business.

What is empathy? How is it different from sympathy, compassion and kindness? What are the potential benefits and pitfalls? How can you apply it effectively? And (how) can you learn or develop it?

In this Breakfast Booster workshop, Lukas Figge will explore these questions in an interactive and experiential way. You will learn about the relevance of empathy to (your) business challenges and go home (or back to work) with concrete tools that you can use in your day-to-day activities.

Lukas Figge is lecturer in Strategy & Entrepreneurship at the department of Organisation & Strategy at Maastricht University School of Business and Economics. In addition to teaching, he supervises theses on corporate sustainability, intrapreneurship and innovation. At UMIO, he works as an (internal) innovator and trainer to further improve the ‘human side of business’ and in particular the Leadership Development trajectory.

In addition to academic degrees in Economics (BSc), Public Policy (MSc) and Sustainability Science & Policy (PhD) – all from Maastricht University – Lukas holds a qualification as Consciousness Coach and is a passionate mindfulness practitioner. Furthermore, he is a passionate pilgrim who has walked the Camino de Santiago every year since 2013.