Empathy is a conscious act. It’s a commitment you make to understand a person in the context of their own life and experiences and then to treat them accordingly. After an empathetic interaction, the recipient feels heard, understood, and respected. But it’s been missing in the business world.
Over the course of his career and life, author Tony Bates has been focused on the idea of technology as a tool for promoting empathy in our daily lives. After several decades of experience as a leader and entrepreneur, Bates arrived at a core question that inspired Empathy in Action: How to Deliver Great Customer Experiences at Scale. In it, he attempts to answer: What if empathy became as important a design factor in new products and services as functionality, efficiency, and profit? Bates believes empathy is the next frontier in technology and the aim of the book is to spark a broad, industry-spanning conversation about how technology can create and enable a more empathetic world.