Jamil Zaki
About Jamil Zaki
Speech topics
Empathy: A Key to Thriving Workplaces
Empathy is often stereotyped as a squishy “soft” skill—either irrelevant to, or problematic for, the bottom line. In fact, the opposite is true: empathy is an organizational superpower that makes collaboration more efficient, employees happier, and leadership more effective. Empathy tracks bottom line success and people have caught on. A whopping 85% of CEOs in a recent survey said empathy was important for their bottom line, and over 90% of employees said they’d be more loyal to an empathic company. In the hunt to recruit and keep top talent, making team members feel seen and heard is a key competitive advantage. It also helps orgs cultivate more inclusive and open communities.
So, now that companies are picking up on the value of empathy—what happens next? An increasing number of organizations have started trying to roll out empathy as a corporate value, but the results are often mixed, with many failing in tragic or comic fashions. In the same survey where CEOs sung empathy’s praises, over 90% of their employees said their company wasn’t empathic enough. In other words, there’s a gap between the values leaders are putting on their walls and the reality their teams are experiencing on the ground.
In this talk, Stanford’s Jamil Zaki will share key insights from the science of empathy—showing corporate leaders that 1) empathy is more than one thing, 2) it’s a learnable skill, and 3) it resides not only in people, but in cultures. Whether you’re the head of HR at a global organization, or the founder of a 4-person start-up, Zaki’s talk is required listening for anyone who wants concrete strategies for bringing empathy in the workplace.
Speaking videos
Books by Jamil Zaki
“The War for Kindness” (2019)
“In this masterpiece, Jamil Zaki weaves together the very latest science with stories that will stay in your heart forever.”—Angela Duckworth, author of Grit Empathy is in short supply. We struggle to understand people who aren’t like us, but find it easy to hate them. Studies show that we are less caring than we were even thirty years ago. In 2006, Barack Obama said that the United States was suffering from an “empathy deficit.” Since then, things seem to have only gotten worse. It doesn’t have to be this way. In this groundbreaking book, Jamil Zaki shares cutting-edge research, including experiments from his own lab, showing that empathy is not a fixed trait—something we’re born with or not—but rather a skill that can be strengthened through effort. He also tells the stories of people who embody this new perspective, fighting for kindness in the most difficult of circumstances. We meet a former neo-Nazi who is now helping to extract people from hate groups, ex-prisoners discussing novels with the judge who sentenced them, Washington police officers changing their culture to decrease violence among their ranks, and NICU nurses fine-tuning their empathy so that they don’t succumb to burnout. Written with clarity and passion, The War for Kindness is an inspiring call to action. The future may depend on whether we accept the challenge. Praise for The War for Kindness “A wide-ranging practical guide to making the world better.”—NPR “Relating anecdotes and test cases from his fellow researchers, news events and the imaginary world of literature and entertainment, Zaki makes a vital case for ‘fighting for kindness.’ . . . If he’s right—and after reading The War for Kindness, you’ll probably think so—Zaki’s work is right on time.” —San Francisco Chronicle “In this landmark book, Jamil Zaki gives us a revolutionary perspective on empathy: Empathy can be developed, and, when it is, people, relationships, organizations, and cultures are changed.”—Carol Dweck, author of Mindset
At a glanceJamil Zaki
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