The Empathy Edge  By  cover art

The Empathy Edge

By: Maria Ross
  • Summary

  • Failed product launches. Furious customers. Dysfunctional teams. Many of the problems we face in the business world (and frankly, society) stem from the same root cause: Lack of empathy. Speaker, author, strategist, and empathy advocate Maria Ross shares keen insights and inspiring interviews that prove empathy and compassion are the new paths to market-winning performance. Leveraging both inspiring stories and hard data, Ross connects empathetic leadership, cultures and brands to innovation, engagement, and bottom-line results. You’ll walk away with actionable strategies to amplify your impact, and learn how compassionate business tactics can transform your organization from the inside out. The Empathy Edge podcast provides a quick dose of motivation, wisdom, and practical actions that executive leaders, entrepreneurs and changemakers can use right now. Ready to infuse YOUR organization with more empathy? Tune in to learn why cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

    2020-2022 Maria Ross
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Episodes
  • Aransas Savas: Forget Journey Mapping: Define a More Valuable Customer Experience
    Nov 28 2023
    Your customer is the lifeblood of your company. We hear this over and over again. Yet, companies don't do a great job of crafting a customer experience that actually meets our needs, values our time, and helps us achieve our goals. Customer experience is all the rage - why do so many companies get it wrong?Today, Aransas Savas and I discuss the myths of customer experience strategy: where companies go wrong in aligning the entire business around the customer's experience and why those end-of-call automated surveys just give you useless data. She shares her own experiences with brands on creating shifts in how the company views customer needs. Aransas shares the concept of "Jobs to Be Done" as a useful way to segment what customers need from you, why journey mapping and Net Promoter Scores don't give you a holistic picture of customer experience, and why it's far more useful to consider modes instead. We discuss how measuring Time Well Spent, Time Well Invested, and Time Well Saved helps both B2C and B2B brands more effectively understand what customers perceive as valuable. Finally, she shares the important highlights from Stone Mantel's recent 2023 Customer Experience Trends Report. To access the episode transcript, please click on the episode title at www.TheEmpathyEdge.com Key Takeaways:Customers are not robots - they will not likely follow the journeys you lay out in an idealized situation. You need to consider the customer every step of the way. The wrong questions are being asked during traditional data collection - as we change the questions and how they’re being asked, you will be able to gather more valuable data to move forward in understanding your customer’s experience. While AI can help to identify trends, it does still require a human touch to interpret the data for best use. Having a company purpose does not mean you understand your customer’s purpose.  "There’s a functional job to be done, and there's an emotional, social, and  aspirational job. If I can understand what all four of those are, I create a much more valuable product than if my product experience is strictly based on the functional job to be done." —  Aransas SavasAbout Aransas Savas, Coach & Experience DesignerAransas Savas is a coach, an experience designer at Stone Mantel, and the co-host of the Experience Strategy Podcast.  Drawing on over two decades of experience, Aransas combines behavioral science and coaching to partner with experience strategists at leading consumer brands, including Weight Watchers, Best Buy, Truist Bank, and Clayton Homes to create meaningful, and often, transformative, customer journeys.Based in Brooklyn, she is a 20-time marathoner, a wife to a newscaster, and a mother to a 200-year-old sourdough culture, a fluffy pup, and two spirited, creative girls.References: Stone Mantel's 2023 Experience Strategy Trends Report80-page report of the latest must-know Experience Strategy Trends for 2023, a deep analysis of cultural and customer trends based on insights collected from more than 3,200 customers and over 200 experience strategists over the course of 20 months.The Empathy Edge Podcast, Melina Palmer: Why Your Customers Can't Tell You What They WantConnect with Aransas SavasStone Mantel: https://www.stonemantel.co/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aransassavas/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aransasrose/Podcast: The Experience Strategy PodcastJoin the tribe, download your free guide! Discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy Connect with Maria:Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.comLearn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.comHire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-RossTake my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with EmpathyLinkedIn: Maria RossInstagram: @redslicemariaX: @redsliceFacebook: Red SliceThreads: @redslicemaria
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    49 mins
  • November Hot Take: How Gratitude Leads to Empathy
    Nov 21 2023

    The reports are in. Unless you've been living under a rock, you are hearing more and and more about how having an attitude of gratitude enhances our lives - and our performance. In this November Hot Take episode, Maria shares about how embracing gratitude will not only strengthen your empathy, but how it can help you to improve your life. 


    To access the episode transcript, please click on the episode title at www.TheEmpathyEdge.com 


    Key Takeaways:

    • Despite the misinformation surrounding the Thanksgiving season, it is so valuable to step back and be thankful for what we do have. 
    • Pausing is essential to building empathy - it allows us to see, hear, and notice them in a way we can’t when we are always rushing about. 
    • Going fast makes us less productive and less effective  - by slowing down we are able to have more of an impact than we realize. 


    "Steadying yourself to think about what you can be grateful for enables you to slow down enough to notice who and what is around you." —  Maria Ross


     References Mentioned: 


    Studies on gratitude: 

    • Emotional Intelligence and Gratitude, Wharton Healthcare
    • Mindful: How to Practice Gratitude

    The Empathy Edge interviews:

    • Paul Marobella: Leading Through Crisis
    • Chris L. Johnson: When Leaders Pause, They Win


    Brand Story Breakthrough course to help you craft a clear, compelling brand story  - includes weekly office hours with Maria!


    Join the tribe, download your free guide! Discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy

     

    Connect with Maria: 

    Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

    Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

    Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

    Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

    LinkedIn: Maria Ross

    Instagram: @redslicemaria

    X: @redslice

    Facebook: Red Slice

    Threads: @redslicemaria

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    6 mins
  • Dia Bondi: How to Ask Like An Auctioneer
    Nov 14 2023
    When we think of making big asks that will catalyze us into a new role, more funding, or higher pay, we tend to ask small for fear of hearing a dreaded NO. But today's guest, Dia Bondi, explains the role empathy plays in making big asks - and why you actually want to reframe the value of getting a YES by actively seeking out the NO so you can achieve your goals.Today, Dia shares her incredible journey of working with high-profile leaders and then making the decision to go to auctioneering school. She talks about the mental models of auctioneering and how they can help us reframe our asks in a way that gets us closer to our goals. We talk about her 6-step framework for building your ask, how to step into your zone of freaking out and see it as your zone of potential, why we need to "order off the menu" more, and how we make the mistake of conflating worth and worthiness.  Her work has personally benefited my life and business and I know it will do the same for you. To access the episode transcript, please click on the episode title at www.TheEmpathyEdge.com Key Takeaways:The ask isn’t about one person - it is something that should be mutually beneficial to both parties. The zone between the “yes” and the guaranteed “no” is a world of possibilities. If you ask for the “no” and then work down, you might get more than you ever thought possible. Find out if the person you’re speaking with is the decision maker - if they are not, offer support and tools that might help them advocate more easily on your behalf.  "We can ask for the thing we think will get us a ‘no’, and then negotiate down. Then you'll know you've not left any money or opportunity on the table. —  Dia Bondi Episode References: Elisa Camahort Page's substack This Week-ish: 2% of venture capital goes to solely women-founded start-ups. Same as in 2007About Dia Bondi, Communications Catalyst & Author, Ask Like An AuctioneerDia Bondi is a Communications Catalyst for high-impact people. In her private coaching and programs, she works with professional C-level leaders, VC-backed founders and ambitious professionals guiding, helping them find their voice and lead with it. Her workshops and talks are hosted by corporations including Quartz, Salesforce, Google’s X.team, and Dropbox. In global sport, she helped Rio de Janeiro secure the 2016 Summer Olympics. After attending auctioneering school for fun, she translated the techniques she learned into a program that prepares ambitious professionals and especially women, to ask for more and leave nothing on the table called Ask Like an Auctioneer. She’s been featured on CNBC Make It, Forbes and Fast Company. Her book, Ask Like an Auctioneer, will be published in 2023. Listen to her podcast Lead With Who You Are.Connect with Dia Bondi Dia Bondi Communications LLC: https://www.diabondi.com X: https://twitter.com/diabondia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dia-bondi/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diabondia Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diabondia/ Ask Like An Auctioneer: https://www.asklikeanauctioneer.com Purchase the book:  https://www.amazon.com/Ask-Like-Auctioneer-How-More/dp/1637744129/ref=sr_1_1 Lead with Who You Are podcast: https://www.diabondi.com/podcastDia's TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFtHKTgyjyUJoin the tribe, download your free guide! Discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy Connect with Maria: Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.comLearn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.comHire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-RossTake my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with EmpathyLinkedIn: Maria RossInstagram: @redslicemariaX: @redsliceFacebook: Red SliceThreads: @redslicemaria
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    41 mins

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