Empathy + Culture = Success (and it's a hell of a lot more fun)

Empathy. You might think it’s just a touchie-feelie hippie notion, but in today’s technology-driven, often impersonal world, it can be your competitive advantage. As GM of Desk.com and a mother of two boisterous boys, I think a lot about empathy in both my personal and professional lives. How do I make sure that caring for customers is part of our company DNA? How do I raise children that will stand up to bullies at school? When you have an empathetic culture, employees have a better understanding of market needs. They build tighter relationships with customers and create products they want. And they work together better as a team. For a small businesses, this can mean exponentially faster growth. Here’s how we make empathy part of our culture at Desk.com and some tips to help your own business leverage it for growth:

Celebrate everyone.

Your business depends on more than your management team and a few star performers. I make it a point to have a half hour meeting with every new employee, whether in marketing, sales, engineering, or our own customer service team. We’re growing like crazy so it's a big commitment, but not only do I get great ideas for optimizing every part of our operation but it also sets the tone with new employees that everyone is important. We also hold bi-monthly meetings when we bring our entire team together. At each meeting we ask 5 people — at random — to share a fun fact. We’ve learned that one of our employees used to run a Turkish hotel, one can do a Rubik’s cube in under a minute, and one used to model — shirtless — for Abercrombie and Fitch. Perhaps too much information sometimes but our employees see each other as unique people, not just cogs in the machine, and work more creatively and collaboratively together

Do something nice.

Child rearing experts say that if you want your children to grow up to be nice people, you need to make doing nice things a priority. Each night at dinner, you should have a discussion with your family about the nice things that other people have done for you that day and what you have done for others. You can also set the example at your company with acts of kindness. Throw a baby shower. Order cake for birthdays. Celebrate with champagne when a big deal is closed. Make volunteering a part of your culture. Last year at Desk we chose two main charities to support — the Children’s Discovery Museum and Stop Hunger Now — and employees were encouraged to help out either individually or as a team. The result? A more thoughtful, caring team.

Give lots of carrots.

When you’re moving fast, it’s easy to forget to say thanks so our management team makes it a point to say “awesome!” and appreciate everything our employees do. We have a lean team that needs to get a lot done in a small amount of time and we try to make sure they know that we are grateful for their hard work every step of the way. It’s not that we praise everything. Make no mistake, my employees are well aware when they fall short of expectations. But we always, always, always appreciate the effort they put into things. And trust me, they find it much more motivating than the stick.

Hire empathetic people.

To build an empathetic organization, you also need the right people. Some of the characteristics of empathetic people are that they are curious about strangers. They are good listeners. They often work for social change. I have a theory that they are also the people that keep their seats upright on the bus or airplane so that they don’t squish the people behind them — or that if they do recline they at least check for small children or fragile computers before leaning back. Hiring empathetic people is especially important when you are staffing your customer service team. It’s easier to hire empathetic people and teach your product than it is to hire product experts and teach empathy.

Companies like Apple and Unilever show that empathy can be a competitive advantage. Who wouldn’t want employees who work well together as a team, and build closer relationships with customers? Give it a try.