Empathy

Entrepreneurs are helped if they exhibit empathy. From Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia, we learn that

Empathy is the capacity to recognize or understand an other's state of mind or emotion. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into an other's shoes", or in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself. Empathy does not necessarily imply compassion, or empathic concern because this capacity can be present in context of compassionate or cruel behavior.

People are generally born with empathy, however, it is a skill that can be developed, as the Wikipedia article goes on to say.

For an entrepreneur to have a successful business it's important that they be able to see their enterprise and themselves from the perspective of another. If the entrepreneur is to understand what their product means to people, how they use it, and what role it does and could play in their lives, it's important but not mandatory that the entrepreneur empathize with their customers. There's an old Joe South song, "Walk a Mile in My Shoes", from the 60s in which the singer encourages listeners to walk in their shoes so they can understand the feelings of another.

Star Trek fans remember that Spock actually melded his mind with Bones, his rival, to save his mind because he knew he was going to die in the radiation chamber. The good of the many supersedes the good of the one, he always said. That practice had some pretty nasty and unpredictable consequences. It's an extreme form of empathy. But it's metaphorically correct. And Deanna Troia, from Next Generation had a strong sense of empathy and was called an "empath."

What do you think about this? Do you have empathy? I'd like to know. Read the Wikipedia article and the references cited there. Also Google it. And post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.