Empathy: The real power within

by Jerry Schuitema, Jimmy Furstenburg, Raymond Ackerman (Foreword)

“The way of the future; the whisper of tomorrow.”

 

This is how leading South African entrepreneur and internationally known retailer, Raymond Ackerman described the author’s previous work. Now Schuitema has condensed that book into two concise and updated works of which Empathy is one. 

It carries a simple yet profound message that rests on the axiom that our true value lies in our capacity to make a contribution to others.  Contribution, he argues, is the outcome of a behavioural state. And that state is empathy. 

The two basic instincts of survival and empathy ultimately account for all human behaviour. Emphasis on survival in most of our thinking has created a world of imbalances and disconnects and greater tolerance of social and business misbehaviour. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It is much more than compassion or sympathy, which are emotions normally restricted to another’s distress or pain. It is also more than charity which unencumbered by ulterior motives is an active expression of compassion or sympathy. 

Empathy has a broader connotation which speaks more to intent than action; more to judgment than attachment. Like a surgeon will approach a necessary amputation in a patient, so too may empathy require seemingly harsh action underpinned by sometimes uncomfortable universal human values of honesty, integrity and justice. 

Perhaps, over time and with a growing shift to self-gain and self-absorption, we have denigrated our understanding of empathy to its softer more emotional nature. In the process, we have become increasingly disdainful of the role empathy can play and has played in our survival as a species, our contentment as individuals, our prosperity as a nation and the success of companies. 

Schuitema skilfully crafts this thought as the golden thread that accounts for the success and wellbeing. Empathy accounts in a large measure for what is admirable, what makes us happy and what sustains prosperity. There is nothing new in this postulate and it has been taught over the ages. This work is a salute to those who understood this; who created value for themselves and many others by following higher values and being generous with what they had to offer. 

The author presents convincing evidence to support the argument and gives practical advice on how to think differently and adopt these principles at a personal, leadership and company level. 

 

Adopting empathy as our primary behavioural state could play a crucial role in human destiny. This book shows how.

 

 

 

 

167 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2014