Master of None
I’m 36 Years Old, a Father of Two, and Unemployed
Four months ago, I quit my job of five years with no offer in hand and a second child on the way.
I have no plan “B”.
It was a good paying job, with good colleagues and challenging work.
And I left it behind.
I may be out of my mind, but, somehow, I felt I had no other way.
I had to leave my company because, while its area of expertise was cutting edge, its mode of operation was decidedly outdated.
What my prior company had in heritage, technology and profits, it sorely lacked in one absolutely critical measure.
Empathy.
Whilst some may believe empathy is the domain of the soft-hearted and thus has no place in our cut-throat corporate world, I believe they are wrong and they will be left behind in the coming economy.
Whereas the mantra of our prior generation was famously coined by Andy Grove as “only the paranoid will survive,” I believe the need for a new mantra is self-evident.
This mantra is “only the empathetic will excel.”
When I speak of empathy, please don’t confuse it with sympathy. There is no commiseration involved, no pity. It is simply the act of standing in another person’s or organization’s shoes. The explicit and practiced ability to expand one’s worldview beyond a first-person perspective.
Why is this so crucial? Because when empathy is truly embraced, not just as a “nice-to-have” but as a central philosophy of how a company is run, then it necessarily leads to other positive outcomes.
It is empathy that best puts a company in the shoes of its customers. This leads to vision.
It is empathy that compels leaders to clear impediments for colleagues. This leads to trust.
It is empathy along with analyses that best reveals the long-term intent behind a competitor’s actions. This leads to insight.
When this crucial ingredient is lacking, then failure is almost guaranteed over the long-term.
Without empathy, vision turns to value extraction. Trust turns to chains of command. Insight turns to assertions.
Unfortunately, what I observed to be more and more prevalent at my past firm is not unique. It is endemic to the way the vast majority of companies are run today.
As author Steve Denning pointed out in his highly thought-provoking piece in Forbes, the laser focus on shareholder value, i.e. profits, rather than customer and employee value is killing our economy.
The mindset that a dollar is a dollar is a dollar is atrophying the most critical portion of our collective energies. We are literally churning our lives away to feed an increasingly top-heavy food chain.
And I refuse to do that anymore.
No, a dollar is not a dollar is not a dollar. It matters how you earn it. There are, in fact, good profits and bad profits.
Generate a dollar while screwing over a customer or a patron? Bad profit. See Martin Shkreli. See Enron. See even Flint, Michigan.
Over and over and over, we see proof that a focus on generating profits without regard to how they were generated ultimately leads to poor outcomes for both the company and ironically its shareholders as well.
On the other hand, we may need to look harder to find them, but there are examples on the other side of the spectrum.
Can it be possible to be both excellent and empathetic? Can you generate good profits and still keep a good conscience? See In-N-Out. See Zappos. See even the Golden State Warriors. See Medium!
I am not sure where this next path will take me. Honestly, I am just beginning my journey.
But I know one thing, I will not be satisfied committing my energies to an organization that lacks empathy. Not just because it’s the right thing for me, but because, in an economy where the rate of change is increasingly turbulent, only the companies that can truly stand in the shoes of those they serve will understand how to react.
