Customer Reviews

Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy

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This book is a sleeper that, I predict, will become a classic. The author writes, "More than one business leader has complained to me that their company is attracting smart and ambitious young people who lack any sort of gut sense for the work they do."

I'm on the hunt for the 10 best books for each of the 20 buckets (critical competencies) that help all of us with leadership and management issues. Dev Patnaik's book is a gem and immediately landed a spot on my Top-10 books for the Customer Bucket. (See my book, Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit.) I'll tempt you with three stories on how "widespread empathy" (what's going on in other people's lives) will help you stay close to the customer.

STORY #1: Eisner's Tiger Encounter. When Joe Rohde, a Disney Imagineer, wanted to convince Michael Eisner to open a safari-like experience for guests, he needed a way to get past the mantra "Disney doesn't do zoos." After making the pitch to CEO Eisner (still unimpressed), Rohde opened the doors of the executive suite to let in a 400-pound Bengal tiger. After experiencing this immense beast (bigger than his desk) up close, Eisner responded simply, "I see your point." Disney's Animal Kingdom was born.

STORY #2: Eat More Jell-O. Author Dev Patnaik, founder and principal of Jump Associates, a growth strategy firm, was invited to meet with the senior leadership of Jell-O about their declining sales. "For several hours, we sat through presentation after presentation of depressing quantitative research that described the situation. At some point, I had to raise my hand. I looked around the room and asked if anyone there had eaten any Jell-O in the past six months. No one raised a hand. Interesting, I said. Maybe that was part of the problem."

STORY #3: Mercedes-Benz. Twenty senior executives from Mercedes-Benz flew from Germany to San Francisco to meet with Patnaik to learn how their cars could appeal to younger Americans. To help them develop empathy for this customer niche, Patnaik assigned each team of two executives to a 20-something person. After 30 minutes of interviews, each team of two was given $50 and a city map with an assignment: purchase a gift for the person they just met. Some teams blew it (San Francisco mementos for people who lived in San Francisco), but other teams were able to experience life in their customers' shoes and bought very meaningful gifts. Patnaik's point: "a great product has to function like a great gift."

THE BIG IDEA. "...as companies grow larger and more prosperous," says Patnaik, "they start to look less and less like their customers. Airline executives stop flying economy class. The little tomato sauce company starts to attract Harvard MBAs who eat out all the time and never cook their own spaghetti. The lives of the people that the company employs become less and less like the lives of ordinary folks. Continued for too long, this gap can grow into an overwhelming gulf between the people inside of a company and everyone else."

After 50 pages of non-stop defining business stories, I knew this book was a keeper. After 100 pages, I couldn't stop reading the stories to my wife--a sign of a great book. It reminded me of the Tom Peters and Robert Waterman 1982 classic, "In Search of Excellence." You could call this one, "In Search of Empathy."

Wired to Care combines real life stories about many companies we know and understand along with business background information to help us apply the lessons to the places we work.

The core message here is that caring for your customers isn't just new-agey PR material. It provides tangible benefits for your company and helps you succeed.

The examples demonstrate this lesson. Many motorcycle companies were failing - but Harley Davidson put its efforts into building up its connections with its loyal fans. It was those fans who helped Harley thrive in a down economy.

You need to really know where your customers are coming from. Many if not most Harley employees own and ride Harleys. A schoolteacher doesn't need to BE eight years old, but she needs to understand what eight year olds worry about and how they learn best. An Indian doctor is not African-American, but she can still work to understand her patient's concerns.

Microsoft is a juggernaut - but they have had successes and failures. When they wanted to make a game system, they took a bunch of gamers, had them develop a system THEY would love, and they were able to take on the powerhouses of Sony and Nintendo. However, turning their attention on Apple's iPod, they didn't build the same quality team of "music lovers". The result was a MP3 player which failed miserably.

I loved the story about coffee. Several decades ago Arabica (tasty coffee) was expensive, while Robusta (bitter) was cheap. Coffee manufacturers slowly added more and more robusta into their blend over the years. Existing coffee drinkers got used to the new flavor and coffee makers thought they were all set. However, they weren't bringing in new drinkers! Young people who tried coffee thought that older people were insane to drink this bitter brew. It wasn't until coffeehouses started coming out with all Arabica coffee again that younger people saw just how tasty a good coffee could be.

Zildjian took the cymbal, which was an orchestra-only instrument, and by talking with musicians in small bars, created an entire new market for their crashes and rides. They were hugely successful even in the middle of the great depression.

Numerous studies show that our brains light up when we relate to someone. If we see them pick up a book, to our brain it's almost as if WE picked up a book. So by having customers who relate to your company on a personal level, you have already made those connections that will keep them supporting you and buying your products.

There was just one minor complaint with the book. At one point they are talking about how a book was written with suggestions to save money. The money-saving book talked about looking at what other people had put out for trash / recycling and if something seemed interesting. Wired to Care felt this was "inhuman" advice. Inhuman? I know many people who swap things with their neighbors and they all feel it's a quite fun way to keep items out of the trash stream. I would hardly feel this is inhuman. If anything, we should all be swapping used goods more often, and recycling more, rather than throwing away so much stuff.

Still, a small issue in a great book.

This book presents a design-inspired exploration of empathy as a driver of business growth, sustenance and ethical behavior. It provides a practical body of work on the importance of empathy as it relates to customer connections and market engagement.

While the author suggests that empathy has been detached from modern capitalism and the contemporary organization by default, one sees the presence of empathy in several exemplary, large companies. Further, Patnaik gives reference to the common religious, cultural and philosophical roots of empathy that are met in the forces of neurophysiology to suggest that empathy is part of our make-up, our meaning and our human purpose.

A couple of slot-references in Wired to Care are especially useful and valuable to those who lead and manage growth strategy:

1.Getting Beyond Original Visions... organizations are evolving entities that must transcend what energies and inventions may have given them their rise. What founders gave, others must advance.
2.Getting a Deeper Sense of Meaning... companies are culture-sensing entities, and as such, people who lead and manage must have their "meaning-making" gears engaged to sustain themselves.

This book is a nice complement to Prepared and Resolved in terms of both orientation and strategic approach. Patnaik references thought leadership that includes Dale Carnegie, Mintzberg, Gandhi and the world's faith traditions as guideposts for creating widespread empathy. As strategists and researchers have noted for a long time, getting close to customers is a powerful thing. Patnaik and his team at Jump take this to a higher level of engagement, which is a more powerful thing. Drucker and others would agree as part of what we see as the social ecology mindset of business.

This should be required reading for CEOs and business leaders. The author does a fine job of exploring a smart concept that one would think should be easy to implement, yet some CEOs just won't "get it," even though it is a common sense business strategy. The book is nicely organized and I especially enjoyed reading anecdotes and examples, which put it all into perspective. Wired isn't just for any single industry, but rather it is for every industry. Every business is engaged in customer service. If leaders would embrace it, they would surely see results.

Patnaik's book is a long, thorough and detailed examination of a basic idea.

That is NOT to say that it is a waste of time. The exact opposite is true.
He notes that companies that understand their customers are better able to meet the needs of those customers and that they will outperform those companies that do not understand the needs of their customers.

This is basic common sense, yet it often seems to be lacking in the 'real world' of business. Patnaik examines how this gap between producer and consumer developed, and he examines many companies that bridge that gap, some intuitively, and some though conscious awareness and planned initiatives for solving that problem.

Often, someone makes a generic comment about businesses and business startegies. It sounds pithy and deep and wise, but there is no follow up. Someone says that a business needs to understand the consumer better. They don't say HOW. Focus groups and surveys are only a start. This author explains the applications of the idea.

Patanaik uses many examples from his business classes and from businesses (several of which were his clients as a business consultant). He uses these examples to highlight both general principles and specific points about both the theoretical nature of consumer empathy and its practical application.

Even if you are not in business, this is an interesting book. It provides the reader with a fascinating paradigm through which to view businesses and the various markets that they serve. For people in business, whether you produce a product or provide a service, this is an instructive read.

Executives often know little about the people who buy their companies' products and services. This is not surprising. To study people, you must care about them. However, most companies eliminate empathy from their operations. In essence, they proceed as if they have calculating, survival-bent reptile brains. Profits drive everything. This is an odd disconnect because corporate livelihoods depend on people - not lizards - and people's brains are hardwired to be empathetic. Dev Patnaik (writing with Peter Mortensen) shows why firms that connect empathetically with their customers do better financially. He insists today's cold-hearted, bottom-line business world has room for caring companies, and he points to IBM, Nike and Harley-Davidson as examples. The fact that empathy is also a strong business strategy is icing on the cake. getAbstract suggests this fine book to CEOs, marketing officers and other executives who want to build their business by acting on their respect for their customers. As Patnaik explains on his blog, "Empathy isn't about having a visionary leader. It's about making customer information an easy, everyday and experiential part of working at your company."

I work as a Web developer and application designer, focused on how to make applications that people can quickly use, and find useful. While Wired to Care focuses on marketing answering the question of how to connect with people outside our market, it really shines in getting across the point that we quickly become insulated in our work environment and not fully understand what is usable to others. I'm finding myself using it often when building requirements for a new project, and validating designs.

Dev Patnaik uses lots of examples to discuss how we can connect with both our current clients, and those outside our current sphere of influence. There are many, many examples taken from different areas, both with sports, consumer products and discussions on how our brains are wired. One example discusses how American car manufacturers living in an area where everyone around them drives American cars, thus blinding them to why the foreign markets are succeeding, and how they can innovate. I find myself thinking about this often as I walk around the office, and even in the world, and how my middle-class community and lifestyle have jaded me in recognizing how other people use our products.

This is a must read, and I expect to begin getting copies to hand out to co-workers that are involved in application design and development.

Patnaik does a great job of explaining why everyone in a company from the CEO on down through the ranks need to develop empathy as an essential foundation for the business to thrive. While Detroit or Jell-O may not be intuitively in need of empathy and Patnaik brings together cogent reasons why it is essential.



As I read his book I thought about my own role in a fairly small company. Where is my company, my department and my role succeeding and failing in having empathy with our customers. While cooperate business plans seem far distanced from psychologists and social workers much of what he is writing about is reminiscent of Carl Rodgers view on therapy and more currently the trends in motivational interviewing.



I wish this book would be read and applied by more CEOs however, I fear they are so far away from the actual work that they will miss where empathy is truly needed. Where this book will have it's greatest impact is with everyday front line workers. Workers who can resonate with the lives of the customers and translate that empathy across to customer and up the line of business as usual.

Companies fail when they stop wearing their customers' shoes. To succeed, you must give a damn. You must be able to relate to your customers and potential customers. Full of examples from Xbox to Nike, Wired to Care was surprisingly inspirational and would make good required reading for the U.S. Congress.

Don't try and design systems you don't use. Don't try and market products you don't love. Forget the polls and follow your heart. Focus not on yourself but on others. I didn't find any particularly bad advice contained within the book and found lots of very thought provoking and sage examples of how the world changes when you can make yourself see it through the eyes of others.

Wired to Care is almost a speed-read. Dev Patnaik's style and organization (not to mention his enthusiasm) make this an understandable (dare I say empathetic) treasure trove of business improvement concepts. His examples are enjoyable, his enthusiasm is kinetic and his points are persuasive. What's more, the concepts are not HARD TO IMPLEMENT. No excuses; if you've heard good things about this book, you need to acquire a copy and hit the pages running.