The Empathy Advantage
Leading the Empowered Workforce
1. Edition March 2023
240 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Further versions
Empower and Inspire Human Potential
In the decade before the Covid-19 pandemic, change was coming so quickly and across so many vectors that most business leaders - so busy tackling one new challenge after another - missed the trendlines that would collide in the early months of 2020 and forever change their workforce and how they lead it for generations to come.
In The Empathy Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce, Heather E. McGowan and Chris Shipley team up again to deliver a guidebook for leaders navigating the uncertainty of a post pandemic world in a sequel to their successful book The Adaptation Advantage. Leaders today must acknowledge and respond to the fundamental shifts that lay the foundation for effective leadership: From managing people to enabling success, from viewing peers as competitors to seeing them as collaborators, from applying extrinsic pressure on workers to unlocking intrinsic motivation, and from driving productivity with unquestioned authority to inspiring value creation by leading with empathy.
In this book, you will learn about the five interlocking trends that brought us the empowered workforce: The Great Resignation, the Great Refusal, the Great Reshuffle, the Great Retirement, and the Great Relocation collectively delivered the Great Reset. These trends, building for a decade prior to the pandemic, saw employees leading jobs; restructuring where and how they work, accelerating retirement, and reordering the role of work in their lives.
The Empathy Advantage offers advice on how to lead a complex, diverse, and multi-generational workforce to out-perform your competition. This book will inspire you to:
* Rethink Your Workforce: You'll gain new insights into today's empowered workforce and how best to tap their intrinsic motivations.
* Rethink Your Organization: You'll learn how to reorganize work to become resilient in continuous change.
* Rethink Your Leadership: You'll discover superpowers and unleash your Empath Advantage.
Whether you are a seasoned executive or an emerging leader, The Empathy Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce speaks to those who are ready to embrace a more influential and engaging form of leadership, and will earn a place in the libraries of anyone with responsibility for recruiting, engaging, leading and retaining the next generation of workers.
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction: Discover The New Normal of Work 1
Everything Is Different Now 2
Covid as Change Agent 3
A New Bargain 4
Sidebar: The Great Resignation: A Long Time Coming 6
Not Your Grandparents' Workforce 7
What's a Leader to Do? 9
Notes 10
Part I: Rethink Your Workforce 13
Notes 15
1 Meet Your New Workforce 17
A Workforce Without a Majority 18
Meet the Pan- Generational Workforce 19
Sidebar: Managing the Multigenerational Workforce 20
Women Hold Up Half the Workforce 21
The LGBTQ+ Workforce 24
Sidebar: Navigating Gender: From Fixed to Fluid 25
The Case for a Multidimensional and Diverse Workforce 27
Generational Empathy 28
Sidebar: Meet Generation Z 29
Notes 30
2 Understand Your Workers' New Habits 35
We Are No Longer Who We Were 36
Sidebar: The Pandemic Compressed Time 37
The Empowered Worker: Your Most Valuable New Asset 40
Sidebar: Where Work Takes Place Today 41
Sidebar: The Center Shifts 45
Sidebar: The Great Relocation 46
The Through Line: Creating Life/Work Integration 50
Sidebar: The Rise of Bleisure 51
Notes 53
3 Grok the Empowered Mindset 57
Rebalancing Work and Life 59
A New Approach to Work 60
Sidebar: The Hierarchy of Work Engagement 62
Work That Is Worth It 63
Sidebar: Origins of the Great Resentment 64
Healing Our Whole Selves: Mental Health and Burnout Are Real 66
Sidebar: How to Spot Burnout 67
Relationships Matter 68
Humans Are Your Greatest Source of Value 69
Sidebar: History Rhymes: Our Opportunity Is Now 70
Changing the Goal 71
The Empathy Advantage 72
Notes 72
Profile: Aqueduct Technologies: Really Great Ideas, Really Happy Employees 75
Part II: Rethink Your Organization 77
4 Upgrade Your Operating Models 81
What Are We Leaving Behind? 82
Sidebar: The Rise of the Human Value Era 83
What Are We Moving Toward? 85
Sidebar: Lead Differently in Complexity 86
More Frequent Disruptions 87
Listen Carefully: Change Is the Norm 89
Forging a New Path to the Future of Work 89
Understand the Relationship Between the Individual and Organization 90
Rethink Work and Learning 91
Sidebar: The Skills Gap May Never Close 92
Recalibrate Your Metrics: Be Like Bhutan 93
It's Time to Finally Address Burnout 95
Benefits for Whose Benefit? 96
Flexibility Is Key to Empathetic Leadership 98
How We Lead Without Maps: Focus on Your People 98
Notes 99
Profile: Mercy: Leadership Through Community 101
5 Create the Conditions to Thrive 103
Rethinking Jobs 104
Hire for Culture, Train for Specific Skills 106
Sidebar: Rethinking Work and Jobs 107
Reporting for (Tour of) Duty 108
Where Work Gets Done 109
Curating the Return to Office 111
Creating the Conditions to Thrive 113
Sidebar: Understanding DEI and B 116
Unleash the Power of Belonging 117
Sidebar: The Importance of Belonging 118
Knitting a Psychological Safety Net 119
Creating the Conditions to Learn at Scale 120
Social Capital Creates Collective Intelligence 121
Organizing to Collaborate 122
Sidebar: Peers as Collaborators 123
Finding Joy in Work 124
Notes 125
6 Enable Your Empowered Workforce 129
Culture: The Operating Instructions for Your Organization 130
Recognizing Toxic Culture 131
Building Mindful Culture 131
Sidebar: Nurturing Culture Through Dialogue 132
Living Your Values 133
Sidebar: Beliefs + Behaviors + Benefits = Culture 135
Trust: The Cornerstone of Healthy Culture 136
Finding Purpose at Work 137
Sidebar: The Three Faces of Purpose 138
Purpose: Your Most Enduring Competitive Advantage 140
Sidebar: The Great Reset Opportunity: Why We Work 142
The Trouble with Purpose 144
Notes 145
Profile: The Canteen: Becoming a Place of Purpose and Belonging 147
Part III: Rethinking Your Leadership 149
Notes 151
7 Pilot Your Expedition Team 153
What Is an Expedition? 154
What to Leave at Base Camp 154
Sidebar: Understand Your Expedition Team 155
Continued Uncertainty Means Continual Expeditions 157
Sidebar: Navigating Rising Global Uncertainty 158
Prepare to Cut a Different Path 159
Care for Your Expedition Team 162
Sidebar: Focus on the Fundamentals 164
Create Enthusiasm Around the Expedition 165
Yes, You Are a Career Coach Now 166
Take That First Step 167
Notes 168
8 Embrace Your Superpowers 171
The Power of Vulnerability and Not Knowing 172
The Power of Awareness 173
The Power of Candor 174
Sidebar: The Four Leadership Shifts 176
The Power of Listening 177
Sidebar: Mindset Shift: You Work for Talent 180
The Power of Being Human 181
Sidebar: Behavioral Shift: Change in Leadership Profile 182
Become the Resilient Leader 183
Notes 184
Profile: sparks & honey: Building a Practice of Gratitude 185
9 Emerge the Empathic Leader 187
The Pandemic Was a Quiet Teacher 189
Sidebar: The Cumulative Shifts Between Individuals and Organizations 190
Understanding Empathy 192
Empathy Is Good Business 194
Empathy, Trust, and Compassion: The Trifecta of Superior Leadership 195
The Power of Listening 197
Welcome to Tomorrow: Leading in Uncertainty 198
Notes 198
About the Authors 201
Praise for The Adaptation Advantage 203
Index 205
