Tom Bernthal Presenting "Inspiring Empathy" at the 2015 MRA Insights and Strategies Conference
June 3, 2015
Katherine SalisburyTo be truly empathetic, one has to understand another at three levels – rational, emotional and from a deep, intuitive place somewhere in your gut. For empathy to be effective in business, it also has to work at all three levels so that, ultimately, decision-makers instinctively understand how a customer would think, feel or react. In our work with Kelton clients, we’ve learned that to cultivate empathy in business, researchers need to be as good at uncovering empathetic insights as they are at conveying empathy to stakeholders.

“You see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel. You sense, you intuit, you feel.” – Franklin Covey on Empathy
To be truly empathetic, one has to understand another at three levels – rational, emotional and from a deep, intuitive place somewhere in your gut. For empathy to be effective in business, it also has to work at all three levels so that, ultimately, decision-makers instinctively understand how a customer would think, feel or react. In our work with Kelton clients, we’ve learned that to cultivate empathy in business, researchers need to be as good at uncovering empathetic insights as they are at conveying empathy to stakeholders.
Tomorrow, Kelton Co-Founder and CEO Tom Bernthal will be presenting, “Inspiring Empathy,” at the MRA Insights and Strategies Conference in San Diego, California. In this presentation, we pass along six of the lessons we, at Kelton, have learned along the way. Most importantly, we’ve learned that when you challenge yourself to find innovative approaches, you not only discovery empathy, but you also cultivate it as a strategic tool throughout your entire organization.