| | I first encountered the Myers Briggs personality test as a college freshman. In the test's distinctive nomenclature, I'm an ISTJ—rule-following and conscientious, but sometimes judgy and insensitive. According to one analysis: "[ISTJs] may take emotions into consideration, but really only so far as to determine the most effective way to say what needs to be said." | | | | | | | | How to Develop This Workplace Superpower | | | From Daniel McGinn
Executive Editor, Harvard Business Review | | | I first encountered the Myers Briggs personality test as a college freshman. In the test's distinctive nomenclature, I'm an ISTJ—rule-following and conscientious, but sometimes judgy and insensitive. According to one analysis: "[ISTJs] may take emotions into consideration, but really only so far as to determine the most effective way to say what needs to be said."
In other words, empathy doesn't come naturally to me—and that's common in the workplace.
In How to Sustain Your Empathy in Difficult Times, Stanford professor Jamil Zaki explains how empathy is "something of a workplace superpower." When bosses and organizations are perceived as empathetic, employees are more satisfied in their jobs and take more creative risks. But particularly in an era of burnout and uncertainty, practicing empathy each day can be draining. Zaki offers a solution: instead of relying on emotional empathy (taking on someone's feelings), strive to show empathetic concern (helping to improve another's well-being). It's a technique doctors learn to use during long days with ill patients—and it's one managers (and I) can try to incorporate, too.
Speaking of long days and burnout, Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao, also Stanford professors, have spent eight years studying the organizational obstacles that waste people's time and sap their enthusiasm for work. In Rid Your Organization of Obstacles That Infuriate Everyone, they explore why companies have "addition sickness"—the tendency to add new rules, procedures, meetings, and tools, even at the cost of productivity. This article explains how to conduct "good riddance reviews" and use "subtraction tools" to counter that tendency. As we approach a New Year, it's the perfect time to ask: What pointless tasks can your organization mobilize to stop doing?
Finally, amid this season of holiday shopping, I'm paying more attention to advertisements. In The Right Way to Build Your Brand, Roger L. Martin and two colleagues analyze what distinguishes the most effective ads. "The key to successful brand building is a clear and specific promise to the customer that can be demonstrably fulfilled," they write. "Advertising that makes such a promise almost always results in better performance than advertising that does not." Since reading this piece, I've found myself scrutinizing promotions, looking for those clear and specific promises.
Thanks for reading—and best wishes for the holidays and New Year,
Daniel McGinn
Executive Editor | | | | | | | | | | | In the Issue: | | | | | | | | Some managers believe they must make a choice: be empathic and sacrifice their personal well-being for the good of others, or back away and preserve their own emotional health. Fortunately, according to the author, a Stanford psychologist and neuroscientist, this dilemma is more apparent than real. He writes that managers can employ three strategies to lead empathically while maintaining their equilibrium. In this article he describes the strategies and presents a blueprint for the practice of what he calls sustainable empathy. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The authors of this piece, both professors at Stanford University, devoted eight years to learning about how leaders serve as trustees of others' time—how they prevent and remove the organizational obstacles that undermine the zeal, damage the health, and throttle the creativity and productivity of good people. Along the way, they learned that there is both bad and good organizational "friction." In this article they focus on addition sickness: the unnecessary rules, procedures, communications, tools, and roles that seem to inexorably grow, stifling productivity and creativity. They show why companies are prone to this affliction and describe how leaders can treat it. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | More than a century ago the merchant John Wanamaker wryly complained, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half." In this article the authors present a solution to Wanamaker's famous quandary. Drawing on a large database supplied by the World Advertising Research Council to empirically identify what kinds of brand advertising are most effective—both for attracting new customers and for converting them into loyal repeaters—they show that the key to successful brand building is offering a memorable, valuable, and deliverable promise to the customer. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In The First Rule of Mastery, high-performance psychologist Michael Gervais presents a groundbreaking guide for overcoming what may be the single greatest constrictor of human potential: our fear of people's opinions (FOPO). He reveals the mental skills and practices we need to overcome FOPO—the same skills he's taught to the top performers in the world, including sports MVPs, world-renowned artists and musicians, and Fortune 100 leaders and teams. | | | Learn more  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | | | | To ensure email delivery, add noreply@a.email.hbr.org to your address book, contacts, or safe sender list. | | | Copyright © 2023 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved.
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