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Holidays and observances in United States in 2020

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It's fairly safe to assume you want your products to actually work, right? Then you need to start the design process with - one of the most important elements in both design thinking and the wider area of human-centered design. But what is empathy exactly, and why is it so vital? Let's take a look at what empathy means and how it can help you, as a design thinker, create solutions that actually work for people. While we're at it, let's also explore how a lack of empathy can result in product failure - something we all want to avoid! By the end, you'll come to understand the empowering notion that everyone can increase their empathy and, by doing so, start to design solutions which are truly human-centric.
Empathy is our ability to see the world through other people's eyes - to see what they see, feel what they feel and experience things as they do. Of course, none of us can fully experience things the way someone else does, but we can attempt to get as close to this as possible. We achieve this empathic state as we put aside our own preconceived ideas about the world and choose to understand the ideas, thoughts and needs of others instead.

IDEO's Human-Centered Design Toolkit explains that, in the world of design thinking, empathy is a "deep understanding of the problems and realities of the people you are designing for." In other words, empathy requires you to learn about the difficulties people face and uncover their latent needs and desires to explain their behaviors. You need to gain an understanding of their environment, as well as their roles and interactions within it if you want to truly empathize with them.
When you empathize with people, you can transform even the most stressful situations into delightful ones for your end-users. In this video, you will see examples of well-designed and poorly-designed airports and the power of empathy in design.
Empathy helps you:

Appreciate people's emotional and physical needs.

Gain insight into the way people see, understand and interact with the world around them.

Realize how lives are impacted within the contexts being investigated.

Find out what people mean rather than just what they say - empathic research is inherently subjective and is concerned with motivations and thoughts, rather than facts.

Don't Confuse Empathy With Sympathy

Empathy is often confused with sympathy - a mistake you definitely don't want to make in the world of design thinking! Sympathy is about your ability to show concern for the well-being of another, but does not necessarily require you to experience what others do. Now you have begun to understand what empathy means, you can see there is a clear difference!

What's more, sympathy often involves a sense of detachment and superiority; when we sympathize, we tend to project feelings of pity and sorrow onto another person. These feelings do not only have the potential to rub people up the wrong way, but also prove useless in the design thinking process. In design thinking, your goal is to understand the people for whom you design, not react to their current predicament in an emotional way. The Empathize stage of design thinking requires you to visit your users in their natural environments, learn about how they behave and conduct interviews with them - all so you can create a solution which helps solve a problem they face. You need empathy to achieve that, not sympathy.
In this RSA Short, research professor and author Brené Brown highlights the difference between empathy and sympathy, and reminds us we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities.
Now you have a good understanding of what empathy is (and isn't), let's move on to why it's so important in the design thinking process.

Empathize is the first of five stages in the design thinking process. The other four are Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

"Empathize" is actually the first stage of the design thinking process - what could be more important than that?! It makes sense really when you think about it. Your goal, as a designer, is to gain an empathic understanding of the people you design for, after all! You should have a burning desire to observe, engage and empathize with the people you design for to understand their experiences and motivations. What's more, you'll need to immerse yourself in their physical environment if you want to have any chance at gaining a deeper personal understanding of the issues, needs and challenges involved in their day-to-day lives.

When you immerse yourself in the environment and in the context of the people you design for, you can often get a completely different perspective than what you might expect. What might seem like good weather for you (say, warm and sunny) may well be a not-so-nice day for someone else. We'll let HCI expert Alan Dix explain this.

Empathy is simply crucial to a human-centered design process such as design thinking as it helps you set aside your own assumptions about the world to gain insight into your users and their needs instead. The Empathize stage of the design thinking process is a time for you to collect as many experiences, insights and observations as possible, so you can build a solid foundation for the rest of your design project.

We cannot stress enough how important it is for you as a designer to develop the best possible understanding of your users, their needs and the problems that your product or service is trying to solve! You and your team can gain huge insight via the practical Empathize methods below, and, if time and money allows for it, it may also be worth getting some experts on board to help you fully understand the people you want to design for.

We favor eleven empathize methods at the Interaction Design Foundation - when you use a variety of methods to gain empathy with your users, you end up with deep and meaningful insights.

What's good to note is this empathic phase of design thinking is named differently depending on which version of the methodology you follow. Different schools and companies which use design thinking have called empathic research "the Empathize stage" (as we do), "the understand phase," "the hear phase," and simply "looking," as well as a number of other terms. Regardless of which phrase you're familiar with, the core is essentially the same - empathy is deeply human-centric and is essential at the start of any design process.

Empathy is Crucial to Business Success

Empathy can also be deemed an essential component of business solutions when you look at things from the perspective of profit. You may create solutions which completely miss the mark if you develop solutions in isolation - you need to gain essential insights about your users if you want to remain relevant in the market.

"People ignore design that ignores people."

- Frank Chimero, author of The Shape of Design

Many leaders within the fields of innovation, learning and entrepreneurship have pointed to three key parameters which define a successful product or service: desirability, feasibility and

It's not enough that the technology exists (i.e., feasibility is present) and that profits or business benefits may be derived (i.e., it is viable). Users need to feel a sense of desirability towards a solution. We can only design a desirable product or service when people's needs, experiences, wants and preferences are properly understood.

When you design products and services, you should aim for the sweet spot between feasibility, viability and desirability. This can only be achieved when you have built empathy for your users.

One clear example of this is the iPod. Many MP3 players came and went throughout the late 1990s, and didn't create much of an impact. Then, along came the iPod in 2001. It not only provided a technological solution, but also delivered a completely desirable and viable experience. This meant Apple took the lead in the market and continued to hold it for many years to come, generating huge profits along the way.

Empathy Helps You Read Between the Lines

Empathy is also the only way to thoroughly understand what people mean, rather than just absorb what they say. You'll have noticed by now people do not necessarily always cover the details when they share stories and other information. They may withhold information out of fear, distrust or another inhibiting factor - be it internal or based on those with whom they engage - and they may express themselves in a less than articulate way. As a designer, you therefore need to:

Make sense of what is not being said, or what is being hinted at beneath the external expressions and words.

Develop intuition, imagination, emotional sensitivity and creativity so you can dig deeper into people's experiences.

Extract the right kinds of insight to ensure you make a meaningful difference.

Empathy is the difference between what your users say at face value and what IDEO Executive Design Director Jane Fulton Suri describes as "thoughtless acts." Thoughtless acts are small, subtle acts people exhibit that reveal how their behaviors are shaped by their environment. For example, when people hang their sunglasses on their shirt or wrap colored stickers around their keys to differentiate them, it's a sign of how an imperfectly tailored environment forces us to make an almost unconscious reaction. Empathy can help us find opportunities for new insights and new solutions to help people with these suboptimal, unconscious acts.

Become Conscious of Your Empathy

If you're worried you're unable to master being fully empathic towards the people you design for, there's good news! Neuroscientists have recently discovered empathy is hard-wired into the way humans are made, and is therefore an integral part of our physiology. Humans who observe others, show brain activity which resembles someone actually engaged in the activity being observed. In other words, empathy is an innate quality we can all make use of to design for the people around us!

Think about it: Have you experienced a flurry of emotions or rush of adrenalin when you've observed someone else engaged in an activity? This is because we are empathic beings by our very nature. Our social contexts and methods of learning often work to remove this inbuilt empathy to a large extent or, at the very least, tame it. But when you engage with the people you design for, this wall starts to break down and you become more conscious about your levels of empathy, especially if you keep an open mind.

However, keep in mind that gaining empathy isn't something you get and then you have it forever. It is a skill that needs to be constantly practiced and honed.

Not everyone can grasp empathy easily. For some people, it is harder than it is for others. Neurodiversity, which is the range of differences in individual brain function and behavioral traits, can affect how readily empathy is learned and understood. This is regarded as part of normal variation in the human population.

So, no matter what, practice, practice, practice to up your empathy skills game. Empathy isn't just for users; it's also for stakeholders, and teammates.

Empathy requires you to pay attention to subtle cues in a person's behavior.

Designing Without Empathy: Augmented Reality Glasses

Why doesn't everyone wear augmented reality (AR) glasses as they go about their daily lives? Probably because we find it ever so slightly awkward to shout out commands in public! Did designers even empathize with their users when they designed this product? It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for these wearable computers.

In this video, a product tester describes their experience using smart glasses with notifications and information intended for everyday use.
The Take Away

Empathy is important for us as designers, and particularly within the field of design thinking, because it allows us to truly uncover and understand the latent needs and emotions of the people we design for. The Empathize stage actually makes up the first stage of the design thinking process, and it allows us to design solutions that meet all three parameters of a successful product or service: desirability, feasibility and viability.

References and Where to Learn More

Sarah Gibbons, Nielsen Norman Group's Chief Designer describes the spectrum of empathy, ranging from pity to compassion, and offers advice on how to practice empathy in UX here.

The RSA short animation above is an excerpt from this TEDx Talk by Dr. Brené Brown on the power of vulnerability.

IDEO's details several design thinking methods and includes case studies to demonstrate their impact.

Jane Fulton Suri's book Thoughtless Acts? pulls the curtain back at how IDEO creates people-friendly products. See more here.

What happens when we ignore individuals and focus on data and averages? When it comes to pilot safety, the results can be fatal. Here is an excerpt from Todd Rose's book "The End of Average ".

Images

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

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What Is Empathy and Why Is It So Important in Design Thinking?

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One of the most important elements in design thinking and the wider area of human-centered design is empathy. Let's look at what empathy is, and why is it so vital for businesses and designers.

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A collection of TED Talks (and more) on the topic of Empathy.

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Some folks are able to watch the latest racist incident or school shooting unfold on the news late at night, roll over and go right to sleep. Yet, plenty of others can't watch the news past dinnertime, for the pain and agony they witness seeps too deeply into their skin and all hope for sleep is lost.

The cause for taking the suffering of others so personally? The blessing and curse of empathy.

According to Dictionary.com, "empathy" is described as "the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of another." Roman Krznaric, author of " Empathy: Why it Matters and How to Get It," describes the difference between empathy and sympathy: "Sympathy is feeling pity or sorry for someone, but without that extra step of grasping what that person is going through, or how they are experiencing the world," he says.

Being an 'empath' versus being empathetic

There's also a difference between feeling empathy for others and being an actual "empath." Judith Orloff, MD, author of " The Empath's Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People," identifies as an empath and describes them as "emotional sponges who are so sensitive, they tend to take on the stress of the world."

The gift of feeling empathy, or being an empath, is that you care deeply for others and want to help, says Orloff. However, the downside of empathy is it can be mighty exhausting. "Empaths have an extremely sensitive, hyperreactive neurological system," she explains. "We don't have the same filters that other people do to block out stimulation. As a consequence, we absorb into our own bodies both the positive and stressful energies around us."

Is empathy a skill or an ability you're born with?

Orloff says the ability to feel empathy is a little bit psychological tendency and a little bit neurological wiring. "It's hypothesized that empaths may have hyperactive mirror neuron systems (the compassion neurons in the brain) and they work on overdrive feeling compassion," she says.

According to Krznaric, your capacity for empathy is likely a question of nature and nurture. "Research suggests that about 50 percent of our empathic capacities are genetically inherited and the rest we can learn, because empathy is not simply a matter of wiring," he explains, adding that adversity can also lend itself to the development of an empathetic nature. "I recently met a stand-up comic who has lived with cerebral palsy all her life. She has an amazing empathy with people who not only have physical disabilities, but who get marginalized by society in other ways," he says.

Orloff also mentioned how adversity contributes to an empathetic nature: "A portion of empaths I've treated have experienced early trauma such as emotional or physical abuse, or they were raised by alcoholic, depressed or narcissistic parents, potentially wearing down the usual healthy defenses that a child with nurturing parents develops."

Empathy can be a struggle in this society

David Sauvage, an empath performance artist who consults with corporations and entrepreneurs on building more empathetic cultures, says the basis of empathy is emotional self-awareness - which isn't a skill fostered by today's achievement-driven culture.

"The average person in our culture doesn't have much empathy toward others because we prioritize everything other than emotional well-being," he explains. "How often are boys told to 'suck it up?' How often are girls told they're 'acting crazy?' How many times during the course of the day do we feel like we shouldn't feel a certain way, so we hide our sadness only to feel shame around that sadness? There's no healthy balance between the negation of people's feelings and the acceptance of people's feelings. The only way to cope is to disassociate," explains Sauvage.

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What is empathy and how do you cultivate it?

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Our brains may be wired to empathize more with people who look like us, but being more empathetic starts with just listening.

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A space-exploring robot crashes on a distant planet. In order to gather the pieces of its damaged spaceship, it needs to build emotional rapport with the local alien inhabitants. The aliens speak a different language but their facial expressions are remarkably humanlike.

This fantastical scenario is the premise of a video game developed for middle schoolers by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers to study whether video games can boost kids' empathy, and to understand how learning such skills can change neural connections in the brain.

Results published this week in npj Science of Learning (a Nature journal) reveal for the first time that, in as few as two weeks, kids who played a video game designed to train empathy showed greater connectivity in brain networks related to empathy and perspective taking. Some also showed altered neural networks commonly linked to emotion regulation, a crucial skill that this age group is beginning to develop, the study authors say.

"The realization that these skills are actually trainable with video games is important because they are predictors of emotional well-being and health throughout life, and can be practiced anytime - with or without video games," says Tammi Kral, a UW-Madison graduate student in psychology who led the research at the Center for Healthy Minds.

Richard Davidson, director of the center and a professor of psychology and psychiatry at UW-Madison, explains that empathy is the first step in a sequence that can lead to prosocial behavior, such as helping others in need.

"If we can't empathize with another's difficulty or problem, the motivation for helping will not arise," says Davidson, who headed the research team. "Our long-term aspiration for this work is that video games may be harnessed for good and if the gaming industry and consumers took this message to heart, they could potentially create video games that change the brain in ways that support virtuous qualities rather than destructive qualities."

On average, youth between the ages of 8 and 18 rack up more than 70 minutes of video gameplay daily, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. This spike in gameplay during adolescence coincides with an explosion in brain growth as well as a time when kids are susceptible to first encounters with depression, anxiety and bullying. The team wanted to learn whether there were ways to use video games as a vehicle for positive emotional development during this critical period.

Researchers randomly assigned 150 middle schoolers to two groups. One played the experimental game, called "Crystals of Kaydor," which was created for research purposes and intended to teach empathy. The second group played a commercially available and entertaining control game called "Bastion" that does not target empathy.

In Crystals of Kaydor, kids interacted with the aliens on the distant planet and learned to identify the intensity of emotions they witnessed on their humanlike faces, such as anger, fear, happiness, surprise, disgust and sadness. The researchers measured how accurate the players were in identifying the emotions of the characters in the game. The activity was also intended to help the kids practice and learn empathy.

Those who played Bastion partook in a storyline where they collected materials needed to build a machine to save their village, but tasks were not designed to teach or measure empathy. Researchers used the game because of its immersive graphics and third-person perspective.

The team obtained functional magnetic resonance imaging scans in the laboratory from both groups before and after two weeks of gameplay, looking at connections among areas of the brain, including those associated with empathy and emotion regulation. Participants in the study also completed tests during the brain scans that measured how accurately they empathized with others.

The researchers found stronger connectivity in empathy-related brain networks after the middle schoolers played Crystals of Kaydor compared to Bastion. Moreover, Crystals players who showed strengthened neural connectivity in key brain networks for emotion regulation also improved their score on the empathy test. Kids who did not show increased neural connectivity in the brain did not improve on the test of empathic accuracy.

"The fact that not all children showed changes in the brain and corresponding improvements in empathic accuracy underscores the well-known adage that one size does not fit all," says Davidson. "One of the key challenges for future research is to determine which children benefit most from this type of training and why."

Teaching empathy skills in such an accessible way may benefit populations who find these skills challenging, including individuals on the autism spectrum, Davidson adds.

The game - developed in partnership with Gear Learning at UW-Madison and researchers Constance Steinkuehler and Kurt Squire, who are now professors of informatics at the University of California, Irvine - is only being used for research purposes and is not available to the public but has helped inform other games being submitted to the FDA for clinical applications.
Learn more from the Center for Healthy Minds about simple and tech-free ways to teach empathy in youth.
This research was funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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A video game can change the brain, may improve empathy in middle schoolers

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In the experimental game, a robot crash lands on an alien planet. In order to rebuild the spaceship, players must, as the robot, build rapport with the aliens by deciphering their emotions.

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"Empathy begins with understanding life from another person's perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It's all through our own ind..." - Sterling K. Brown

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How Do We Empathize?

Experts in the field of social neuroscience have developed two theories in an attempt to gain a better understanding of empathy. The first, Simulation Theory, "proposes that empathy is possible because when we see another person experiencing an emotion, we 'simulate' or represent that same emotion in ourselves so we can know firsthand what it feels like," according to Psychology Today.

There is a biological component to this theory as well. Scientists have discovered preliminary evidence of "mirror neurons" that fire when humans observe and experience emotion. There are also "parts of the brain in the medial prefrontal cortex (responsible for higher-level kinds of thought) that show overlap of activation for both self-focused and other-focused thoughts and judgments," the same article explains.

Some experts believe the other scientific explanation of empathy is in complete opposition to Simulation Theory. It's Theory of Mind, the ability to "understand what another person is thinking and feeling based on rules for how one should think or feel," Psychology Today says. This theory suggests that humans can use cognitive thought processes to explain the mental state of others. By developing theories about human behavior, individuals can predict or explain others' actions, according to this theory.

While there is no clear consensus, it's likely that empathy involves multiple processes that incorporate both automatic, emotional responses and learned conceptual reasoning. Depending on context and situation, one or both empathetic responses may be triggered.

Cultivating Empathy

Empathy seems to arise over time as part of human development, and it also has roots in evolution. In fact, "Elementary forms of empathy have been observed in our primate relatives, in dogs, and even in rats," the Greater Good Science Center says. From a developmental perspective, humans begin exhibiting signs of empathy in social interactions during the second and third years of life. According to Jean Decety's article "The Neurodevelopment of Empathy in Humans," "There is compelling evidence that prosocial behaviors such as altruistic helping emerge early in childhood. Infants as young as 12 months of age begin to comfort victims of distress, and 14- to 18-month-old children display spontaneous, unrewarded helping behaviors."

While both environmental and genetic influences shape a person's ability to empathize, we tend to have the same level of empathy throughout our lives, with no age-related decline. According to "Empathy Across the Adult Lifespan: Longitudinal and Experience-Sampling Findings," "Independent of age, empathy was associated with a positive well-being and interaction profile."

And it's true that we likely feel empathy due to evolutionary advantage: "Empathy probably evolved in the context of the parental care that characterizes all mammals. Signaling their state through smiling and crying, human infants urge their caregiver to take action ... females who responded to their offspring's needs out-reproduced those who were cold and distant," according to the Greater Good Science Center. This may explain gender differences in human empathy.

This suggests we have a natural predisposition to developing empathy. However, social and cultural factors strongly influence where, how, and to whom it is expressed. Empathy is something we develop over time and in relationship to our social environment, finally becoming "such a complex response that it is hard to recognize its origin in simpler responses, such as body mimicry and emotional contagion," the same source says.

Psychology and Empathy

In the field of psychology, empathy is a central concept. From a mental health perspective, those who have high levels of empathy are more likely to function well in society, reporting "larger social circles and more satisfying relationships," according to Good Therapy, an online association of mental health professionals. Empathy is vital in building successful interpersonal relationships of all types, in the family unit, workplace, and beyond. Lack of empathy, therefore, is one indication of conditions like antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. In addition, for mental health professionals such as therapists, having empathy for clients is an important part of successful treatment. "Therapists who are highly empathetic can help people in treatment face past experiences and obtain a greater understanding of both the experience and feelings surrounding it," Good Therapy explains.

Exploring Empathy

Empathy plays a crucial role in human, social, and psychological interaction during all stages of life. Consequently, the study of empathy is an ongoing area of major interest for psychologists and neuroscientists in many fields, with new research appearing regularly. Lesley University's online bachelor's degree in Psychology gives students the opportunity to study the field of human interaction within the broader spectrum of psychology.

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The Psychology of Emotional and Cognitive Empathy

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The study of empathy is an ongoing area of major interest for psychologists and neuroscientists, with new research appearing regularly.

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Terry Heick

founder/director at teachthought. humanist. technologist. futurist. macro thinker extraordinaire.

Right near the core of education, just past tolerance and just short of affectionate connectivity, is the idea of empathy. University of California Berkley's Greater Good Science Center explains empathy:

The term "empathy" is used to describe a wide range of experiences. Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people's emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.

What Empathy Is and Is Not

Empathy is often confused with sympathy, which is a pretty extraordinary error depending on how tightly wound you are about these things (and whose definitions you stand behind). Dr. Brené Brown offers a divisive take on the difference: "Empathy fuels connections, sympathy drives disconnection."

This contrasts with Dictionary.com, which explains:

Both empathy and sympathy are feelings concerning other people. Sympathy is literally "feeling with" -- compassion for or commiseration with another person. Empathy, by contrast, is literally "feeling into" -- the ability to project one's personality into another person and more fully understand that person.

Dictionary.com marks just a slight discrepancy between the two -- sympathy requires less movement and merging of emotions, while empathy is entirely that.

The chemistry, subjectivity, and nuance of language aside, there is a clear handle for us as teachers. However large you see the distinction, they certainly have very different tones. Empathy is based in compassion, while sympathy is based in analysis.

Greater Good continues, clarifying:

Contemporary researchers often differentiate between two types of empathy: "Affective empathy" refers to the sensations and feelings we get in response to others' emotions; this can include mirroring what that person is feeling, or just feeling stressed when we detect another's fear or anxiety. "Cognitive empathy," sometimes called "perspective taking," refers to our ability to identify and understand other peoples' emotions. Studies suggest that people with autism spectrum disorders have a hard time empathizing.

Ideally, empathy would be the net effect of experience, which in classrooms is a matter of both process and knowledge. Students would learn to empathize rather than be taught to empathize, as a symptom of what they know. Why this is important is a matter of implication and language. Teaching someone to feel what others feel and sit with emotions that aren't their own couldn't be any further from the inherent pattern of academics, which is always decidedly other. Teaching always begins with detachment -- learn this skill or content strand that is now apart from you. Empathy is the opposite -- it starts in the other, and finishes there without leaving.

Formal Education vs. True Connection

In your classroom, there are dozens of natural sources of empathy. But what about authenticity? There's nothing worse than "schoolifying" something that a child actually needs to know. So much of great teaching is about packaging content so that students recognize it as something they need to know and can actually use, rather than something to do "because I said so, and you don't want a zero, do you?"

Here's one way to consider it. Without empathy, you're teaching content instead of students. The concept of teachers as primarily responsible for content distribution is a dated one, but even seeking to "engage" students misses the calling of teaching. To teach a child is to miss that child. You must understand them for who they are and where they are, not for what you hope to prepare them for. "Giving knowledge" and "engaging students" in pursuit of pre-selected knowledge are both natural processes of formal education -- and both make empathy hard to come by.

So where to start doing something different? How should you "teach it"? How will you know it when you see it? Is it different for different content areas, grade levels, genders, socioeconomic backgrounds, nationalities, or some other "thing"? Is this new-age mumbo jumbo, or a precise tool for a progressive teacher? How has the push of digital and social media into learning spaces emphasized the need for empathy -- or naturally reduced it?

Is empathy a skill that can even be taught, a "competency" that you should bullet-point in your lesson plan, something that requires pre-assessment? Or is it something fuller, something more persistent and whole? Scotty McLennan, the Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University, suggests:

Expressing care for another is not an innate ability present more naturally in some people than others, but rather a skill that can be taught and nurtured through a supportive educational environment.

The Human Face of Understanding

But pushed farther, it's not hard to see that empathy is both a cause and effect of understanding, a kind of cognitive and emotional double helix that can create a bridge between classroom learning and "real-life" application. Getting started with empathy in the classroom is a matter of first grasping it as a concept, strategy, and residual effect of knowledge and perspective. Heading over to Teaching Tolerance and ordering a bunch of posters and DVDs may be unnecessary -- at least at first. Internalizing how the idea of empathy can reframe everything that happens in your classroom -- your reason for teaching -- is a shift that will suggest a world of possibility for teaching lessons, activities, and strategies.

More than anything else though, empathy is a tone. Broken into parts, it is about self, audience, and purpose. It helps students consider:

Who am I?

Who is "other"? And how? In what functions and degrees?

How do we relate? What do we share?

What do they need from me, and I from them?

This leads to a staggering and often troubling question for all of us: "What should I do with what I know?"

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Teaching Empathy: Are We Teaching Content or Students?

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Terry Heick founder/director at teachthought. humanist. technologist. futurist. macro thinker extraordinaire. Right near the core of education, just past tolerance and just short of affectionate connectivity, is the idea of empathy. University of California Berkley's Greater Good Science Center explains empathy: The term "empathy" is used to describe a wide range of experiences.

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In 2008, Karina Encarnacion, an eight year-old girl from Missouri, wrote to President-elect Barack Obama with some advice about what kind of dog he should get for his daughters. She also suggested that he enforce recycling and ban unnecessary wars. Obama wrote to thank her, and offered some advice of his own: "If you don't already know what it means, I want you to look up the word 'empathy' in the dictionary. I believe we don't have enough empathy in our world today, and it is up to your generation to change that."

This wasn't the first time Obama had spoken up for empathy. Two years earlier, in a commencement address at Xavier University, he discussed the importance of being able "to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us-the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been laid off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town." He went on, "When you think like this-when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers-it becomes harder not to act, harder not to help."

The word "empathy"-a rendering of the German Einfühlung, "feeling into"-is only a century old, but people have been interested for a long time in the moral implications of feeling our way into the lives of others. In "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759), Adam Smith observed that sensory experience alone could not spur us toward sympathetic engagement with others: "Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers." For Smith, what made us moral beings was the imaginative capacity to "place ourselves in his situation . . . and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them."

In this sense, empathy is an instinctive mirroring of others' experience-James Bond gets his testicles mashed in "Casino Royale," and male moviegoers grimace and cross their legs. Smith talks of how "persons of delicate fibres" who notice a beggar's sores and ulcers "are apt to feel an itching or uneasy sensation in the correspondent part of their own bodies." There is now widespread support, in the social sciences, for what the psychologist C. Daniel Batson calls "the empathy-altruism hypothesis." Batson has found that simply instructing his subjects to take another's perspective made them more caring and more likely to help.

Empathy research is thriving these days, as cognitive neuroscience undergoes what some call an "affective revolution." There is increasing focus on the emotions, especially those involved in moral thought and action. We've learned, for instance, that some of the same neural systems that are active when we are in pain become engaged when we observe the suffering of others. Other researchers are exploring how empathy emerges in chimpanzee and other primates, how it flowers in young children, and the sort of circumstances that trigger it.

This interest isn't just theoretical. If we can figure out how empathy works, we might be able to produce more of it. Some individuals staunch their empathy through the deliberate endorsement of political or religious ideologies that promote cruelty toward their adversaries, while others are deficient because of bad genes, abusive parenting, brutal experience, or the usual unhappy goulash of all of the above. At an extreme lie the one per cent or so of people who are clinically described as psychopaths. A standard checklist for the condition includes "callousness; lack of empathy"; many other distinguishing psychopathic traits, like lack of guilt and pathological lying, surely stem from this fundamental deficit. Some blame the empathy-deficient for much of the suffering in the world. In "The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty" (Basic), Simon Baron-Cohen goes so far as to equate evil with "empathy erosion."

In a thoughtful new book on bullying, "Sticks and Stones" (Random House), Emily Bazelon writes, "The scariest aspect of bullying is the utter lack of empathy"-a diagnosis that she applies not only to the bullies but also to those who do nothing to help the victims. Few of those involved in bullying, she cautions, will turn into full-blown psychopaths. Rather, the empathy gap is situational: bullies have come to see their victims as worthless; they have chosen to shut down their empathetic responses. But most will outgrow-and perhaps regret-their terrible behavior. "The key is to remember that almost everyone has the capacity for empathy and decency-and to tend that seed as best as we possibly can," she maintains.

Two other recent books, "The Empathic Civilization" (Penguin), by Jeremy Rifkin, and "Humanity on a Tightrope" (Rowman & Littlefield), by Paul R. Ehrlich and Robert E. Ornstein, make the powerful argument that empathy has been the main driver of human progress, and that we need more of it if our species is to survive. Ehrlich and Ornstein want us "to emotionally join a global family." Rifkin calls for us to make the leap to "global empathic consciousness." He sees this as the last best hope for saving the world from environmental destruction, and concludes with the plaintive question "Can we reach biosphere consciousness and global empathy in time to avoid planetary collapse?" These are sophisticated books, which provide extensive and accessible reviews of the scholarly literature on empathy. And, as befits the spirit of the times, they enthusiastically champion an increase in empathy as a cure for humanity's ills.

This enthusiasm may be misplaced, however. Empathy has some unfortunate features-it is parochial, narrow-minded, and innumerate. We're often at our best when we're smart enough not to rely on it.

In 1949, Kathy Fiscus, a three-year-old girl, fell into a well in San Marino, California, and the entire nation was captivated by concern. Four decades later, America was transfixed by the plight of Jessica McClure-Baby Jessica-the eighteen-month-old who fell into a narrow well in Texas, in October, 1987, triggering a fifty-eight-hour rescue operation. "Everybody in America became godmothers and godfathers of Jessica while this was going on," President Reagan remarked.

The immense power of empathy has been demonstrated again and again. It is why Americans were rivetted by the fate of Natalee Holloway, the teen-ager who went missing in Aruba, in 2005. It's why, in the wake of widely reported tragedies and disasters-the tsunami of 2004, Hurricane Katrina the year after, or Sandy last year-people gave time, money, and even blood. It's why, last December, when twenty children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, there was a widespread sense of grief, and an intense desire to help. Last month, of course, saw a similar outpouring of support for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Why do people respond to these misfortunes and not to others? The psychologist Paul Slovic points out that, when Holloway disappeared, the story of her plight took up far more television time than the concurrent genocide in Darfur. Each day, more than ten times the number of people who died in Hurricane Katrina die because of preventable diseases, and more than thirteen times as many perish from malnutrition.

There is, of course, the attention-getting power of new events. Just as we can come to ignore the hum of traffic, we become oblivious of problems that seem unrelenting, like the starvation of children in Africa-or homicide in the United States. In the past three decades, there were some sixty mass shootings, causing about five hundred deaths; that is, about one-tenth of one per cent of the homicides in America. But mass murders get splashed onto television screens, newspaper headlines, and the Web; the biggest ones settle into our collective memory-Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook. The 99.9 per cent of other homicides are, unless the victim is someone you've heard of, mere background noise.

The key to engaging empathy is what has been called "the identifiable victim effect." As the economist Thomas Schelling, writing forty-five years ago, mordantly observed, "Let a six-year-old girl with brown hair need thousands of dollars for an operation that will prolong her life until Christmas, and the post office will be swamped with nickels and dimes to save her. But let it be reported that without a sales tax the hospital facilities of Massachusetts will deteriorate and cause a barely perceptible increase in preventable deaths-not many will drop a tear or reach for their checkbooks."

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In 2008, Karina Encarnacion, an eight year-old girl from Missouri, wrote to President-elect Barack Obama with some advice about what kind of dog he should get for his daughters. She also suggested that he enforce recycling and ban unnecessary wars.

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Empathy is the ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of another person, animal, or fictional character. Developing empathy is crucial for establishing relationships and behaving compassionately. It involves experiencing another person's point of view, rather than just one's own, and enables prosocial or helping behaviors that come from within, rather than being forced.

Some surveys indicate that empathy is on the decline in the United States and elsewhere, findings that motivate parents, schools, and communities to support programs that help people of all ages enhance and maintain their ability to walk in each other's shoes.

Empathy helps us cooperate with others, build friendships, make moral decisions, and intervene when we see others being bullied. Humans begin to show signs of empathy in infancy and the trait develops steadily through childhood and adolescence. Still, most people are likely to feel greater empathy for people like themselves and may feel less empathy for those outside their family, community, ethnicity, or race.

Empathy helps us connect and help others, but like other traits, it may have evolved with a selfish motive: using others as a "social antenna" to help detect danger. From an evolutionary perspective, creating a mental model of another person's intent is critical: the arrival of an interloper, for example, could be deadly, so developing sensitivity to the signals of others could be life-saving.

Babies display an understanding that people's actions are guided by intentions and are able to act on that understanding before they are 18 months old, including trying to comfort a parent. More advanced reasoning about other people's thoughts develops by around age 5 or 6, and research shows that parents who promote and model empathy raise more empathetic children.

Empathy, sympathy, and compassion are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. Sympathy is feeling of concernfor someone else, and a desire that they become happier or better off, while empathy involves sharing the other person's emotions. Compassion is an empathic understanding of a person's feelings accompanied by altruism, or a desire to act on that person's behalf.

Researchers believe people can choose to cultivate and prioritize empathy. People who spend more time with individuals different from themselves tend to adopt a more empathic outlook toward others. Other research finds that reading novels can help foster the ability to put ourselves in the minds of others. Meditation has also been shown to help cultivate brain states that increase empathy.

Some neuroscientists have advanced the concept of "mirror neurons" as a possible source of empathy. These neurons, it is theorized, enhance the capacity to display, read, and mimic emotional signals through facial expressions and other forms of body language, enhancing empathy. But whether mirror neurons actually operate this way in humans is a subject of longstanding scientific debate, and some scientists question their very existence.

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The ability to convey support for a partner, relative, or friend is crucial to establishing positive relationships. Empathy enables us to establish rapport with another person, make them feel that they are being heard, and, through words and body language, mimic their emotions. Perspective-taking, or the empathic ability to assume the cognitive state of another person and see a problem through their eyes, can further cement a connection.

In healthy relationships, people expect their partners to empathize with them when they face hardship or personal struggles, but the ability to empathize with a partner in good times may be at least as important. In one study, displaying empathy for a partner's positive emotions was five times more beneficial for relationship satisfaction than only empathizing with his or her negative emotions.

People high in narcissism, or who have narcissistic personality disorder, can exhibit empathy and even compassion. However, that ability only goes so far, as ultimately their own needs come first. Some researchers believe narcissists can develop greater empathy by developing greater self-compassion, which can increase their own feelings of security and self-worth and enable them to open up to hearing others.

Putting yourself in someone else's shoes can be beneficial, but when it becomes one's default mode of relating to others, it can blind an individual to their own needs and even make them vulnerable to those who would take advantage of them.

First responders, humanitarian aid workers, doctors, therapists, journalists, and others whose work involves opening themselves up to others' pain tend to be highly empathic. However, they may come to share the heartbreak of those they help or whose stories they record. As such "emotional residue" accumulates, they may shut down, burn out, and become less willing or able to give of themselves.

Empaths are often characterized as being highly sensitive and overly focused on the needs of others. They may benefit from time alone, as they find it draining to be in the presence of other people. People who are very empathic are more likely to be targeted by manipulative individuals. For this reason, it is important to create healthy boundaries in all relationships, and to be cognizant of relationships with "energy vampires," who are draining to empaths and non-empaths alike.

Intuition, aided by neuroception, can shape decision-making. Understanding this can boost leadership, teamwork, growth, trust, self-discovery, and creativity.

Intuition, aided by neuroception, can shape decision-making. Understanding this can boost leadership, teamwork, growth, trust, self-discovery, and creativity.

The powerful roles of empathy, compassion, and conflict resolution techniques from a psychological perspective in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The powerful roles of empathy, compassion, and conflict resolution techniques from a psychological perspective in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Intuition, aided by neuroception, can shape decision-making. Understanding this can boost leadership, teamwork, growth, trust, self-discovery, and creativity.

Intuition, aided by neuroception, can shape decision-making. Understanding this can boost leadership, teamwork, growth, trust, self-discovery, and creativity.

The powerful roles of empathy, compassion, and conflict resolution techniques from a psychological perspective in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The powerful roles of empathy, compassion, and conflict resolution techniques from a psychological perspective in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Empathy is the ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of another person, animal, or fictional character. Developing empathy is crucial for establishing relationships and behaving compassionately. It involves experiencing another person's point of view, rather than just one's own, and enables prosocial or helping behaviors that come from within, rather than being forced.

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What stories can people make

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I'm the Queen in This Life

The Etruscan Kingdom is stained with blood when the king's illegitimate son Cesare conspires with his fiancée Ariadne to usurp the throne from his half-brother Alfonso. Despite Ariadne's devotion to the new king, her faith is shattered when she is betrayed by him and eventually murdered by her own sister, who wishes to be queen. To her surprise, Ariadne finds herself sent back in time to her 17-year-old self. As she navigates the perils and opportunities of palace intrigue, Ariadne must make the most of her guile and grit to ensure that her tragic future does not repeat itself.

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WEBTOON is home to thousands of stories across 23 genres including romance, comedy, action, fantasy, and horror. Read comics, webcomics, manga, and manhwa online or download the WEBTOON app.

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What stories can people make?

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Wattpad connects a global community of millions of readers and writers through the power of story

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How has storytelling changed?

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The Storytelling Resource Centre THE ONE-STOP- SITE for ALL Storytellers

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The Storytelling resource centre, Information, News and contacts to the Storytelling Community

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How Storytelling makes us who we are?

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Storytelling is important to society and benefits the storytellers, a new study found. Here's why it's so significant

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Why do we tell stories?

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The Importance of Storytelling | Emmanuel Dzotsi | TEDxOhioStateUniversity

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What makes you a storyteller?

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I'm in the business of creating compelling stories. As a filmmaker, I need to understand how stories touch audiences-why one story is an instantly appealing box office success while another fails miserably to connect. I've been fortunate enough to work with some of the world's most talented storytellers-gifted directors, novelists, screenwriters, actors, and other producers-and from them I've gleaned insights into the alchemy of great stories. Make no mistake, a hit movie is still an elusive target, and I've had my share of flops. But experience has at least provided me with a clear sense of the essential elements of a story and how to tap into its power.

The power of storytelling is also central to my work as a business executive and entrepreneur. Over the years, I've learned that the ability to articulate your story or that of your company is crucial in almost every phase of enterprise management. It works all along the business food chain: A great salesperson knows how to tell a story in which the product is the hero. A successful line manager can rally the team to extraordinary efforts through a story that shows how short-term sacrifice leads to long-term success. An effective CEO uses an emotional narrative about the company's mission to attract investors and partners, to set lofty goals, and to inspire employees.

Sometimes, a well-crafted story can even transform a seemingly hopeless situation into an unexpected triumph.

In the mid-1980s at PolyGram, I produced a television series called Oceanquest, which took a team of expert divers and scientists around the world-from Antarctica to Baja California to Micronesia-to film their aquatic adventures. The cast included former Miss Universe Shawn Weatherly, a novice who served as a stand-in for the viewers at home.

One of the planned segments critical to the success of the series was to explore the forbidden waters of Havana harbor, where galleons and pirate ships had carried treasure since the sixteenth century. There was only one problem: Neither the U.S. government nor the Communist regime of Fidel Castro wanted a team of Americans filming there.

Pleading that our mission was purely scientific and peaceful, we managed, with support from former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig, to get permission from the U.S. State Department. But the go-ahead from the Cuban government for underwater filming proved more elusive. Gambling that we could win approval, we sailed to Cuba, set up our equipment in Marina Hemingway, and filmed a few surface shots in various locations as we waited for word from the regime. Millions of dollars in sunk costs hung in the balance.

A local official finally turned up with a surprise announcement: Fidel Castro had taken a personal interest in our project and would be visiting the harbor. (Castro, we learned, was an environmental advocate and scuba enthusiast.)

"May we use this visit to ask for permission to film in the harbor?" we asked.

The official shrugged. "El Presidente will be here for ten minutes only," he replied. "But you are certainly free to tell your story. Just remember, no autographs and no gifts."

Of course, we'd already provided all sorts of information about our project to the Cuban government's Washington office. But it was soulless data with no emotion, life, or drama. No wonder our request had elicited a perfunctory "no." I was determined not to make the same mistake again.

Castro (or Cool Breeze, as we'd privately code-named him) arrived, his entourage in tow. To make his experience interactive, we'd arranged a display of our most elaborate equipment on the deck of our main ship-underwater vehicles, diving suits, high-tech cameras. Cool Breeze was suitably impressed by it all-though he seemed most taken by the friendly welcome from Ms. Weatherly, still wearing her bathing suit from that day's filming.

The ice broken, I began telling the story of Havana harbor and its centuries at the heart of world commerce, diplomacy, intrigue, and war. The central motivation for early explorers of the New World had been the quest for treasure. As the focal point of Spain's trading empire and the strategic "key to the Gulf of Mexico," Havana had been integral to this quest, its port the shipping center through which the gold of the Americas flowed on its way to the Spanish royal court. Pirates, privateers, spies, and rival imperial forces-including Britain's Royal Navy-had plied its waters, seeking booty, probing for military and economic secrets, and vying for influence. I explained how we would use the latest technology to bring Cuba's history to television viewers worldwide.

As I spoke, I watched Castro toy with the equipment and listen with growing interest to the story of Havana harbor's past. Finally, breaking the bureaucrat's rule, I presented the Cuban leader with a giant tooth (seven inches long, five inches wide) from a megalodon, a prehistoric shark that had once prowled Havana's waters.

The upshot? Castro spent four hours visiting with our film crew, and he gave us permission to film anywhere in the harbor we wanted. We captured hours of compelling television footage. My impromptu story-and Havana's story-won the day. "The seas belong to all humankind," I reminded Castro, "and so does history. You are the steward of Havana's history, and it is up to you to share it with the world."

This experience led me-not for the first time and certainly not for the last-to try to gather some basic truths about how storytelling can be used to get people's help carrying out your goals and ultimately to inspire business success. Stories can, of course, take many forms, from old-fashioned words on a page to movies laden with digital special effects. In this article I'll restrict myself primarily to stories like the one I used with Castro: oral narratives in which a single teller addresses one or more listeners. Whether the audience is a handful of colleagues or clients at lunch or 10,000 convention-goers listening to a formal address, the secrets of a great story are largely the same.

The Leader as Storyteller

As part of my continuing effort to unlock these secrets, I recently persuaded a diverse group of leaders and storytelling experts from the worlds of business, education, and entertainment to come together over a meal and exchange their insights about storytelling. One beautiful spring evening, we gathered at my home in Los Angeles. With a feast laid out on a great low table and the city lights twinkling in the hills below us, we luxuriated in a cascade of ideas. As the wine flowed, so did the jokes, stories, and observations drawn from the centuries' worth of life experience in that room. And as varied as our backgrounds were, I found that we kept returning to one theme: the crucial importance of truth as an attribute of both the powerful story and the effective storyteller.

Before I go further, let me clear up two misconceptions about storytelling that many businesspeople have.

First, many think it is purely about entertainment. But the use of the story not only to delight but to instruct and lead has long been a part of human culture. We can trace it back thousands of years to the days of the shaman around the tribal fire. It was he who recorded the oral history of the tribe, encoding its beliefs, values, and rules in the tales of its great heroes, of its triumphs and tragedies. The life-or-death lessons necessary to perpetuate the community's survival were woven into these stories: "We don't go hunting in the Great Wood-not since that terrible day when three of our bravest were killed there by unknown beasts. Here's how it happened..."

Storytelling plays a similar role today. It is one of the world's most powerful tools for achieving astonishing results. For the leader, storytelling is action oriented-a force for turning dreams into goals and then into results.

Second, many people assume that storytelling is somehow in conflict with authenticity. The great storyteller, in this view, is a spinner of yarns that amuse without being rooted in truth. The image of Hollywood as "Tinseltown"-a land of make-believe and suspended disbelief that allows us to escape reality, even manipulates us into doing so-reinforces this notion. But great storytelling does not conflict with truth. In the business world and elsewhere, it is always built on the integrity of the story and its teller. Hence the emphasis on truth as its touchstone in our dinner symposium.

Reflecting on the lessons and ideas from our conclave, I've distilled four kinds of truth found in an effective story.

Truth to the Teller

Authenticity, as noted above, is a crucial quality of the storyteller. He must be congruent with his story-his tongue, feet, and wallet must move in the same direction. The consummate modern shaman knows his own deepest values and reveals them in his story with honesty and candor.

Jim Sinegal, cofounder and CEO of Costco, tells a business story that embodies the values he's helped build into his company. Back in 1996, he often recounts, Costco was doing a brisk business in Calvin Klein jeans priced at $29.99. When a smart buyer got a better deal on a new batch of the jeans, company guidelines calling for a strict limit on price markups dictated a lower price of $22.99. Costco could have stuck to the original price and dropped seven extra dollars a pair straight into its own pocket. But Sinegal insisted on passing the savings on to customers, because he saw the company's focus on customer value as the key to its success. The story continues to be told in Costco's hallways today. It vividly conveys a message about the company's values-one that resonates, in part, because it's aligned with the personality of its author. Sinegal answers his own phone, draws an annual salary of just $350,000 (a fraction of what most big-company CEOs earn), and has signed an employment contract that's only one page long-all of which means less cost for customers to absorb.

At the storytelling dinner I held, Oscar-winning screenwriter Ron Bass put it this way, drawing a parallel to the world of politics: "When I pitch a story, I have to sell myself-who I am. The same is true of every leader, in business or any other field. Take Barack Obama. His story is all about who he is. And everything about him is part of it, down to his physical presence: the eye contact, the hand on the shoulder, the sound of his voice."

Being true to yourself also involves showing and sharing emotion. The spirit that motivates most great storytellers is "I want you to feel what I feel," and the effective narrative is designed to make this happen. That's how the information is bound to the experience and rendered unforgettable.

But sharing emotion isn't easy. As Teri Schwartz, the dean of Loyola Marymount University's film and television school, pointed out, "It demands generosity on the part of the storyteller." Why? Because it often requires being vulnerable-a challenge for many leaders, managers, salespeople, and entrepreneurs. By willingly exposing anxieties, fears, and shortcomings, the storyteller allows the audience to identify with her and therefore brings listeners to a place of understanding and catharsis, and ultimately spurs action. When I told the story of Havana harbor to Castro-standing on the deck of a ship strewn with expensive equipment that we'd essentially brought there on spec, trusting in my ability to win the confidence of Cuba's all-powerful ruler-both my vulnerability and my enthusiastic commitment to the risky project were on full display.

Here is the challenge for the business storyteller: He must enter the hearts of his listeners, where their emotions live, even as the information he seeks to convey rents space in their brains. Our minds are relatively open, but we guard our hearts with zeal, knowing their power to move us. So although the mind may be part of your target, the heart is the bull's-eye. To reach it, the visionary manager crafting his story must first display his own open heart.

Truth to the Audience

There's always an implicit contract between the storyteller and his audience. It includes a promise that the listeners' expectations, once aroused, will be fulfilled. Listeners give the storyteller their time, with the understanding that he will spend it wisely for them. For most businesspeople, time is the scarcest resource; the storyteller who doesn't respect that will pay dearly. Fulfilling this promise is what I mean by "truth to the audience."

To meet the terms of this contract-and ideally even over deliver on it-the great storyteller takes time to understand what his listeners know about, care about, and want to hear. Then he crafts the essential elements of the story so that they elegantly resonate with those needs, starting where the listeners are and bringing them along on a satisfying emotional journey.

This journey, resulting in an altered psychological state on the part of the listener, is the essence of storytelling. Listeners must remain curious and in suspense-wondering what's going to happen to them next-while trusting that it is safe to give themselves over to the journey and that the destination will be worthwhile.

Truth to the audience has a number of practical implications for the craft of storytelling.

First, you'll want to try your story out on people who aren't already converts, to get a realistic sense of how your real audience might respond. Ron Bass finds this strategy useful: "In effect," he says, "I have my own story development company. It consists of three or four young women who represent my 'marketing department.' I bounce everything off them-every new idea, scene, plot twist, character development, big speech. I study their reactions and then, even more important, study my reaction to them. I don't necessarily follow their advice. What I must follow is my own deepest instinct, and this is best revealed to me as I see how I respond to the feelings and thoughts of other people."

Business leaders too need to be in touch with their listeners-not slavish or patronizing, but receptive-in order to know how to lead them. Getting your story right for your listeners means working past a series of culs-de-sac and speed bumps to find the best path.

Second, you'll need to identify your audience's emotional needs and meet them with integrity. It's not enough to get the facts right-you've got to get the emotional arc right as well. Every storyteller is in the expectations-management business and must take responsibility for leading listeners effectively through the story experience, incorporating both surprise and fulfillment. At the end of the story, listeners should think, "We never expected that -but somehow, it makes perfect sense." Thus, a great story is never fully predictable through foresight-but it's projectable through hindsight.

Third, you'll want to tell your story in an interactive fashion, so people will feel they've participated in shaping the story experience. This requires a willingness to surrender ownership of the story. The storyteller must recognize that the story is bigger than she is and must enlist her audience's help.

This can mean, as screenwriter Chad Hodge pointed out during our dinner, "helping people to see themselves as the hero of the story," whether the plot involves beating the bad guys or achieving some great business objective. "Everyone wants to be a star, or at least to feel that the story is talking to or about him personally," Hodge said. Business leaders need to tap into this drive by using storytelling to place their listeners at the center of the action. As Hodge advised: "Encourage your people to join your journey, your quest, and reach the goal that lies at its end." Recall, for example, how I shone a spotlight on the chain of history of Havana's great harbor and placed Castro at the center of the story, as the harbor's current steward.

LMU's Teri Schwartz picked up on Hodge's idea: "Make the 'I' in your story become 'we,' so the whole tribe or community can come together and unite behind your experience and the idea it embodies."

Consider how Sallie Krawcheck-formerly the CEO of Smith Barney and now, in her early forties, the youthful chair and CEO of Citigroup's Global Wealth Management division-connects with people who might be intimidated by her reputation for brilliance and her rapid rise to the top of the financial services industry. She often tells her life story in a way that anyone can identify with, recalling how she felt like an outcast at her all-girls school as a teenager-with glasses, braces, and corrective shoes-and how that prepared her for the rigors of her professional life. She has said in the business press that "there was nothing they could do to me at Salomon Brothers in the '80s that was worse than the seventh grade."

When you hear Krawcheck describe her journey in these terms, you know exactly how she feels. You can't help rooting for her-and if you're a member of her team at Citigroup, you're ready to follow her wherever she leads.

Perhaps of equal import, business leaders must recognize that how the audience physically responds to the storyteller is an integral part of the story and its telling. Communal emotional response-hoots of laughter, shrieks of fear, gasps of dismay, cries of anger-is a binding force that the storyteller must learn how to orchestrate through appeals to the senses and the emotions.

Nowhere is this more apparent than at the story's ending. Getting the audience to cheer, rise, and vocalize in response to a dramatic, rousing conclusion creates positive emotional contagion, produces a strong emotional takeaway, and fuels the call to action by the business leader. The ending of a great narrative is the first thing the audience remembers. The litmus test for a good story is not whether listeners walk away happy or sad. Rather, it's whether the ending is emotionally fulfilling, an experience worth owning, a great "aha!"-not just sticky fingers and a few uneaten kernels of popcorn.

Orchestrate emotional responses effectively, and you actually transfer proprietorship of the story to the listener, making him an advocate who will power the viral marketing of your message.

Truth to the Moment

A great storyteller never tells a story the same way twice. Instead, she sees what is unique in each storytelling experience and responds fully to what is demanded. A story involving your company should sound different each time. Whether you tell it to 2,000 customers at a convention, 500 salespeople at a marketing meeting, ten stock analysts in a conference call, or three CEOs over drinks, you should tailor it to the situation. The context of the telling is always a part of the story. In the case of my pitch to Castro, the story had to seem spontaneous, a natural response to the inspiring historic setting of Marina Hemingway (itself named after one of the twentieth century's great storytellers). And it did, though the information had been gathered in advance. Its organization and delivery were in essence the "premiere" of this particular story.

There is a paradox here. Great storytellers prepare obsessively. They think about, rethink, work, and rework their stories. As Scott Adelson, an investment banker who uses storytelling to help clients raise capital in public markets, said at our dinner: "Sheer repetition and the practice it brings is one key to great storytelling. When we help companies sell themselves to Wall Street, we often see the CEO and his team present their story 10, 20, 30 times. And usually each telling is better and more compelling than the one before."

At the same time, the great storyteller is flexible enough to drop the script and improvise when the situation calls for it. Actually, intensive preparation and improvising are two sides of the same coin. If you know your story well, you can riff on it without losing the thread or the focus.

At the storytelling dinner, scientist and science fiction writer Gentry Lee told us about appearing on a public panel about alien abductions. The other three members of the panel were two people who claimed they'd been taken by aliens, and John Mack, the late Harvard psychiatrist who believed in and researched such stories. As you might expect, the two abductees had colorful, vivid, fascinating stories to tell. The listeners were literally standing on their feet, clapping and cheering. Mack poured fuel on the fire by testifying that these stories could be confirmed by many others he'd studied.

Lee had prepared, from a scientist's perspective, a detailed response to the abduction stories, showing how the power of the imagination can conjure up fantasies that look, feel, and appear compellingly real. But he could see that the frenzied audience was in no mood to absorb his lengthy presentation. Instead, he decided to avoid a war of dueling stories by simply using a single startling observation to deflate the abductees' tales. All he said was this:

"My friend Carl Sagan used to say, 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.' Well, we've heard some wonderful stories today, and they make extraordinary claims. I would just point out the following: Hundreds of people who believe they've been abducted by aliens have told stories like the ones we've just heard. And yet, despite all these hundreds of supposed abductions, not a single souvenir has ever been brought back-not a single tool or document or drinking glass or so much as a thimble! Given the total absence of any physical evidence, can we really believe these extraordinary claims?"

This simple, unadorned statement-improvised on the spot to startle the audience into a fresh way of thinking-completely transformed the situation. Most of the throng changed from true believers to thoughtful skeptics in just a few moments.

For the well-trained storyteller, spontaneity and economy can be elegant and powerful.

Truth to the Mission

A great storyteller is devoted to a cause beyond self. That mission is embodied in his stories, which capture and express values that he believes in and wants others to adopt as their own. Thus, the story itself must offer a value proposition that is worthy of its audience.

The mission may be on a national or even global scale: To land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. To win the Cold War and bring freedom to millions of people around the world. To reverse global warming and save the planet.

Or the cause may be more modest but still important, at least to the storyteller and his audience: To turn around a company that is floundering and save hundreds of jobs. To bring a great new service to market and improve the lives of customers.

In any case, the job of the teller is to capture his mission in a story that evokes powerful emotions and thereby wins the assent and support of his listeners. Everything he does must serve that mission.

This explains the passion that great storytellers exude. They infuse their stories with meaning because they really believe in the mission. I truly believed that our program on the history of Havana harbor was important: We had shown up to do something that was bigger than the swirl of temporary political bargaining between our countries, and we had bet the farm on the journey.

When truth to the mission conflicts with truth to the audience, truth to the mission should win out. The leader who knows his listeners is able to gain their trust and spend that currency wisely in pursuit of the mission. But this doesn't mean telling people exactly what they want to hear. That's pandering and, as Hollywood has learned, a formula for a mediocre story. Indeed, sometimes you need to do just the opposite. At our dinner party, Colin Callender, president of HBO Films, noted that several of HBO's most acclaimed productions are ones that audience pretesting marked as losers.

Even in today's cynical, self-centered age, people are desperate to believe in something bigger than themselves. The storyteller plays a vital role by providing them with a mission they can believe in and devote themselves to. As a modern shaman, the visionary business leader taps into the human yearning to be part of a worthy cause. A leader who wants to use the power of storytelling must remember this and begin with a cause that deserves devotion.

One of today's most creative business leaders is Muhammad Yunus, founder of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank and pioneer of the microcredit movement, which advocates providing small loans to the poor. When he addresses would-be partners to solicit support for microcredit, he tells some version of this story:

"It was a village woman named Sufiya Begum who taught me the true nature of poverty in Bangladesh. Like many village women, Sufiya lived with her husband and small children in a crumbling mud hut with a leaky thatched roof. To provide food for her family, Sufiya worked all day in her muddy yard making bamboo stools. Yet somehow her hard work was unable to lift her family out of poverty. Why?"

(Of course, "Why?" is a rhetorical question. But posing it to the listeners engages their curiosity and makes them eager to hear the answer, which they trust Yunus to supply.)

"Like many others in the village, Sufiya relied on the local moneylender to provide the cash she needed to buy the bamboo for her stools. But the moneylender would give her this money only on the condition that he would have the exclusive right to buy all she produced at a price he would decide. What's more, the interest rate he charged was incredibly high, ranging from 10% per week to as much as 10% per day.

"Sufiya was not alone. I made a list of the victims of this moneylending business in the village of Jobra. When I was done, I had the names of 42 victims who had borrowed a total of 856 taka-the equivalent of less than $27 at the time. What a lesson this was for me, an economics professor!

"I offered $27 from my own pocket to get these victims out of the moneylenders' clutches. The excitement that was created among the people by this small action got me further involved. If I could make so many people so happy with such a tiny amount of money, why not do more?

"That has been my mission ever since."

When Yunus tells this story of the origins of microcredit, his listeners-including bankers, CEOs, and high government officials-are moved. They are riding the emotional arc of Yunus's tale, which culminated in 2006 with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Yunus and Grameen Bank. When he concludes his story by asking his listeners to help bring affordable credit to every poor person in the world, he almost always receives a standing ovation-along with a flood of pledges.

The Unchanging Heart of Storytelling

Story forms have evolved continually since the days of the shaman. Literary genres from epic poetry to drama to the novel use stories as political or social calls to action. Technological breakthroughs-movable type, movies, radio, television, the internet-have provided new ways of recording, presenting, and disseminating stories. But it isn't special effects or the 0's and 1's of the digital revolution that matter most-it's the oohs and aahs that the storyteller evokes from an audience. State-of-the-art technology is a great tool for capturing and transmitting words, images, and ideas, but the power of storytelling resides most fundamentally in "state-of-the-heart" technology.

At the end of the day, words and ideas presented in a way that engages listeners' emotions are what carry stories. It is this oral tradition that lies at the center of our ability to motivate, sell, inspire, engage, and lead.

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I'm in the business of creating compelling stories. As a filmmaker, I need to understand how stories touch audiences-why one story is an instantly appealing box office success while another fails miserably to connect. I've been fortunate enough to work with some of the world's most talented storytellers-gifted directors, novelists, screenwriters, actors, and other producers-and from them I've gleaned insights into the alchemy of great stories.

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Why do we love telling our stories

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It is quiet and dark. The theater is hushed. James Bond skirts along the edge of a building as his enemy takes aim. Here in the audience, heart rates increase and palms sweat. I know this to be true because instead of enjoying the movie myself, I am measuring the brain activity of a dozen viewers. For me, excitement has a different source: I am watching an amazing neural ballet in which a story line changes the activity of people's brains.

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Studying the neuroscience of compelling communication.

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Definition of a great story

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Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story

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Filmmaker Andrew Stanton ("Toy Story," "WALL-E") shares what he knows about storytelling -- starting at the end and working back to the beginning. Contains graphic language ... (Note: this talk is not available for download.)

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What defines a story?

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Pixar is arguably one of the greatest storytellers of our generation.

Over the years, they've won 13 Academy Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 11 Grammys.

Effective storytelling involves a deep understanding of human emotions, motivations, and psychology in order to truly move an audience.

Luckily, storytelling is something we all do naturally, starting at a very young age. But there's a difference between good storytelling and great storytelling.

I recently stumbled across Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling - here are the top six we can all learn from.

"Storytelling is the greatest technology that humans have ever created." - Jon Westenberg

1. Great stories are universal

Great storytelling is about taking a piece of the human condition (so things like birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict) and conveying it in a unique situation.

Acclaimed Pixar director Pete Docter puts it perfectly:

"What you're trying to do, when you tell a story, is to write about an event in your life that made you feel some particular way. And what you're trying to do, when you tell a story, is to get the audience to have that same feeling."

One way you can do this is to pull apart the stories you like.

Break down every little element about what you love about them. Those are real feelings you're having and you have to recognize them in detail in order to tell a great story yourself.
In other words, self knowledge and awareness are at the the root of all great storytelling.
You are part of the human condition and people will relate to that.

2. Great stories have a clear structure and purpose
Part A (Structure)
One of my favorite ways to develop a compelling story is to use " The Story Spine " formula created by professional playwright and improvisor Kenn Adams.

Pixar has used this story structure to create so many films we know and love today.

It goes:
Once upon a time there was [blank]. Every day, [blank]. One day [blank]. Because of that, [blank]. Until finally [bank].
The Story Spine - Emma Coats

Give the Story Spine a shot to help develop a truly unique story to tell.
Part B (Purpose)
As Pixar writes:

Why must you tell THIS story?

What's the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of?

What greater purpose does this serve? What does it teach?

That's the heart of really great storytelling.
By crafting a story that you are passionate to tell because it serves a real purpose, your stories will have bigger impact on the world.
I think that gets lost a lot of the time.

3. Great stories have a character to root for (an underdog)

Believe it or not, people want to root for you (the main character).

AND they love a good underdog.

This might seem straightforward but it's worth keeping in mind anytime you're creating a story.

Pixar explains that we as the audience admire a character for trying more than for their success. In other words, it's more about the character's journey than it is their actual destination.

When your character is battling against all odds, facing adversity, or their back is against the wall, well then, you have yourself the makings of great story.
In our modern society, for example, everyone loves a good "rags to riches" story. How many times has Forbes published an article about the fearless entreprenuer that dropped everything, almost failed dozens of times along the way, yet still managed to create a multi-million dollar business?

Give the people an unexpected hero to root for.

4. Great stories appeal to our deepest emotions

Psychologists generally agree that there are six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

If you ever watched the Pixar movie Inside Out, you'll recognize these emotions as characters in the movie.

The more you understand how/when your own emotional levers are pulled, the more you'll appreciate how that works in other people (and the more you'll be able to hone those emotions in your stories).

Consciously being to recognize these various emotions in yourself -and think about the "why".
Why are you feeling a certain way? How might you be able to take the "why" behind your emotions and tell a story?
Continuously question yourself in order to understand your own emotional reactions to stories so that you can learn to tell more authentic stories that reach and move people where it counts.

5. Great stories are surprising and unexpected

We've all seen the classic "fairytale" storyline: a helpless princess in need and a charming prince swooping in to save the day.
Boring (and totally outdated). What makes modern stories compelling are when our perceptions of reality are challenged or changed in some way.
Creators like Pixar and Walt Disney use animated movies as vehicles to address real-life phenomenons, issues, stereotypes, and norms.

Movies such as Brave, Coco, Tangled, and Moana help us to understand and reflect on big, human-centered topics that we might not otherwise take time out of our day to think about.

Many times those topics or themes are surprising and unexpected, leaving the audience thinking about the story well after it is over.

If you're stuck on coming up with something truly unique, Pixar recommends to get rid of the 1st thing that comes to mind - and then the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th.

Challenge yourself to dig deep.

6. Great stories are simple and focused

We as audiences know a good story when we see or hear one.

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book where you had to keep asking yourself (or someone else) what was happening in the plot?

Not a great experience.
As creators, we naturally want to include as much information as possible in our stories. We want to pack the story full of characters and plot twists and dialogue.
And often times we might not even realize that we're adding layers that don't need to be there.

Pixar's advice here is to "combine characters and hop over detours."

While you as the creator may feel like you're losing lots of valuable stuff, it'll set you free in the end and will allow your audience to get lost in the narrative.

One way to find out if your story is easy to follow is to tell it to a friend or family member who has never heard it before. Watch their face as you read it and try to see where they pause and what questions they might have.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

22 Rules for Storytelling by Pixar
6 Rules for Great Storytelling originally appeared on the Buffer Podcast:

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6 Rules of Great Storytelling (As Told by Pixar)

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Effective storytelling involves a deep understanding of human emotions, motivations, and psychology in order to truly move an audience. Luckily, storytelling is something we all do naturally...