“同理心”（或曰“移情”）这个词在很多时候承载着某种负面涵义。它太多愁善感、婆婆妈妈了，不配与“激励”、“可行性”、“回报率”这种鸡血满满的词汇在商业词典中并排出现。不过研究表明，现在我们有必要重新思考同理心在企业扮演的重要角色。

《哈佛商业评论》最近发表的一篇研究评估了企业领导者的同理心与企业绩效之间的关系。研究人员采用“同情”和“原谅”作为主要指标，访问了84家美国公司的员工，旨在调查这些企业CEO的性格。研究人员将企业的财务绩效与员工对CEO性格的评价进行对比后发现，拥有较强同理心的CEO的绩效表现，超过得分较低的CEO五倍。进一步的研究还表明，企业领导者的同理心与产品开发、市场营销和管理绩效水平的提升都有一定联系。

顾名思义，“同理心”是指在人力所能及的范围内，尽量理解或分担另一个人的感觉和情绪的能力。像任何其它技能一样，同理心也是需要锻炼的。为了更好地理解如何培养同理心，我采访了麻省理工学院领导力中心的几位领导者，以期了解他们是怎样与各自的团队和客户建立联系的。在培养同理心文化的过程中，这些领导者也获得了很多高价值的回报。

为顾客腾出时间

你是否问过自己，你有多大比例的时间花在了公司一线上，也就是顾客直接体验你的产品和服务的地方？如果答案是少于25%，那么你就有可能被更关心顾客喜好的竞争对手打败——这是我在过去3年采访完200余名全球最佳商业领袖之后获取的心得。人际互动对于开发创新思路是非常重要的。不过奇怪的是，一个人在企业中的领导职位越高，他就越倾向于放弃与消费者交流——有的领导把这项任务委托给别人，有的甚至完全放弃了亲自与消费者交流的机会。而最有效的领导则会优先腾出与顾客进行私人交流的时间，因为这样做对于创新来说非常重要。

凯拉什·斯瓦尔纳曾任制药公司高管，现任麻省理工学院斯隆管理学院研究员。他回忆起一个前老板在职务升迁后，是怎样继续保持他跟患者的关系的。作为一名执业医师，这位前老板仍然会在每周五坐诊，然后在周一的会议上将他和患者交流的心得分享给斯瓦尔纳和其他团队成员。这种形式的个人交流不仅增加了团队研发救命新药的决心，也使他们更深入地了解到病人的感受。总之，不管你的公司是做医疗的，做贸易的，还是做零售的，领导者必须要腾出时间去了解自己的顾客。

主动提问

在过去30年研究领导力的过程中，我发现最高效和最有同理心的领导者，往往是最会提问的人。他们会问许多关于顾客、供应商、下级、竞争对手和同事的问题，而且这些问题往往具有催化剂作用。好的问题不仅能够催生创新的解决方案，同时也是让同理心在人群中传递的渠道。通过提问，领导可以深入了解究竟怎样能让团队正常运转，甚至能够克服他们个人在领导力方面的不足。比如前驻阿富汗美军司令斯坦利·麦克里斯特尔就曾对我表示，正是提问帮助他规避了性格内向的缺点，使他能够更好地与他的团队进行沟通。

对一名领导来说，要想打造同理心文化和问题型文化，最简单的方式就是率先垂范。比如你可以问你的团队，怎样做是有效的，怎样做是无效的，以及为什么。你可以问他们这一天过得怎么样，他们最喜欢什么样的任务，他们最大的挑战是什么。记得要在他们信任你、而不是害怕你的基础上问问题，尽量真诚地了解他们的世界，不要妄加批评，也不要指手划脚。尽量倾听他们在说什么，留心他们在做什么，你至少会从中得到一些令人惊讶或意外的见解。

鼓励提问

上面所说的提问并不是单向的（如果是的话，那最终将是一条死路）。领导者必须鼓励其他人也经常提问题。比如有一次，斯瓦尔纳领导的团队打算搬迁工作场所，在这个过程中，他打算暂时关掉公司的实验室，并暂停所有试验。为此，斯瓦尔纳充分听取了实验室研究人员的意见。一名公司新招聘进来的员工质疑了这个决定，问他知不知道暂停他的试验会导致什么后果。因此，斯瓦尔纳重新进行了安排，使试验可以不受打扰地进行。如果他事先没有鼓励团队成员踊跃发表意见，他可能就无法发现自己的错误，而这个错误可能导致企业损失大量资金，甚至可能会令他失去整个团队的信任。

高高在上的领导们很容易陷入一种虚假的安全感。如果企业不鼓励员工提尖锐的问题，那么他们就会习惯于报喜不报忧，使高层领导看不见基层真相。只有鼓励员工多提一些重要问题，像催化剂一样消弥那些不切实际的假设并促进变革，领导者才能更加情形地认识到企业面临的风险与机遇。因此，领导者需要营造一个安全的环境，让员工能够敢于大胆发问，不必担心被“穿小鞋”或“秋后算账”。另外，你自己也要积极去回答员工的问题。你既可以在上班时设置固定的答问时间，也可以组织非正式的聚会来回答员工的疑问。充分回答员工的问题也表明了你具有同理心，从而会使员工对你产生信任感，而这也是极为重要的。

美国作家、短篇小说家安德鲁·杜伯斯三世曾写过一句名言：“写作就是持续的移情行为。”相似的，我认为有效的领导也是持续的移情行为。企业只有通过精心培养重要的领导技能，才能建立更加创新、高产和敬业的文化。现在是我们把“同理心”带回企业，并让它发挥作用的时候了。（财富中文网）

本文作者Hal Gregersen是麻省理工学院领导力中心的常务理事，也是麻省理工学院斯隆管理学院领导力与创新学的讲师，曾登上全球首个管理学思想家排行榜Thinkers50。他是《创新DNA：掌握颠覆性创新的五大技能》一书的作者，也是“4－24项目”的发起人。为了制作麻省理工学院领导力中心的系列节目，他采访了许多创新型商业领袖，探索他们是如何解决全球最具挑战性的问题的。

译者：朴成奎

审校：任文科

Empathy. To many, the word carries a negative connotation. It is too emotional and “touchy-feely” to take a rightful place in business vernacular alongside strong testosterone-laden words like incentivize, actionable, and ROI. But research suggests it’s time to rethink empathy’s critical role in business.

A recent study published in Harvard Business Review assessed the link between empathic leaders and performance. Researchers surveyed employees from 84 U.S. companies about the character of their CEOs, using compassion and forgiveness as key indicators. Comparing the company’s financial performance against the employee’s judgment of the CEOs character, the researchers found that CEOs with a strong character outperformed their poorly-ranked peers by nearly 500%. Further researchconnects empathy with improved product development, marketing, and manager performance.

By definition, empathy is the ability to understand or share another person’s experiences and emotions – as much as humanly possible. Like any skill, it requires practice. To better understand how to develop and cultivate empathy, I interviewed several leaders at the MIT Leadership Center about how they build connections with their teams and customers. Not surprisingly, what these leaders do to maintain an empathetic culture yields many high-value benefits.

Make time for your customers

Have you ever asked yourself how much of your time is spent on the edge of your organization where customers directly experience your products and services? If the answer is less than 25%, you are at risk to be blindsided by competitors who pay better attention to what customers really care about – at least that’s what I’ve learned interviewing 200 of the world’s best leaders during the past three years. Personal interaction is crucial to developing innovative ideas. Oddly though, the higher leaders rise in an organization, the easier it becomes to lose this critical consumer connection – either by delegating the task or just simply abandoning it. The most effective leaders prioritize personal customer connection time because it’s crucial to the innovation process.

Kailash Swarna, a former pharmaceutical executive and now an MIT Sloan fellow, recently reflected on how one of his bosses maintained his connection to patients as his job responsibilities pulled him further away from the frontlines. A practicing physician, he would see patients in the clinic every Friday and then share the experiences with Swarna and his team in their Monday meetings. This type of personal connection not only strengthened the team’s resolve to create lifesaving medicines, but made them part of the patient experience. Whether in a doctor’s room, a tradeshow, a retail location, or other settings, leaders must carve out the time to get to know their customers.

Ask questions

During the past three decades of studying leadership, I’ve found that the most effective – and empathetic – leaders are the best questioners. They ask many catalytic questions of their customers, suppliers, direct reports, peers, and colleagues. Questions not only yield innovative solutions, but they are also the conduit through which empathy flows. Through questions, leaders can build a strong understanding of what makes their teams tick and even overcome their own personal leadership challenges. For instance, General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, told me questions are what help him cope with his introversion and connect with his team.

The simplest way for a leader to build an empathetic and question-centric culture is to lead by example; ask your teams about what’s working, what’s not, and why. Ask about their day, their favorite tasks, their biggest challenges. Probe from a foundation of trust, not fear, seeking to honestly understand their world, not to blame or criticize. Work hard to pay attention to what they say and do so you can surface at least one surprising or unexpected insight from the encounter.

Encourage questions

Inquiry is not a one way street (and if it is, it’s ultimately a dead end). Leaders must encourage others to do the same. In one of his first leadership positions, Swarna led a team through a facility move expected to temporarily shut down the company’s labs and all ongoing experiments. During this time of change, Swarna made himself available to the researchers in the lab. One of the newest hires in the company challenged him about the consequences of shutting down his experiment. As a result, Swarna rearranged the move so the experiment could continue without interruption. If he hadn’t encouraged his team members to come forward, he may not have discovered the error until it cost the business money and maybe even the entire team’s trust.

At the top of an organization, it’s easy for leaders to get lulled into a false sense of security. Employees who are discouraged from asking tough questionswill only report what is comfortable and positive, effectively blinding senior leaders to the unvarnished truth. Only by being open to catalytic questions (ones that dissolve false assumptions and accelerate change) can leaders gain an accurate perspective of the risks and opportunities lying ahead. Encourage employees to ask questions in a safe environment without fear of judgment or consequence. Make yourself available for questions. Maybe it’s by holding set office hours or hosting informal gatherings. Simply being fully present signals empathy and, in the end, builds mission critical trust.

Andre Dubus III, an American author and short story writer, famously penned, “Writing is a sustained act of empathy.” Similarly, I believe that effective leadership is a sustained act of empathy. It is only through the close cultivation of this critical leadership skill that organizations can create a more innovative, more productive, and more engaged culture. It’s about time we bring “empathy” back into business and keep it there.

Hal Gregersen is executive director of the MIT Leadership Center, a senior lecturer in leadership and innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a Thinkers50 globally ranked management thinker. He is the author of The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators and founder of The 4-24 Project. As part of the MIT Leadership Center Video Series, he sits down with innovative leaders to explore how they are solving the world’s most challenging problems.