Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy |  | Author: Dev Patnaik
Publisher: FT Press
Category: Book
List Price: $26.99
Buy New: $15.00
as of 7/28/2010 20:08 CDT details
You Save: $11.99 (44%)
New (35) Used (15) from $13.00
Seller: selene_books
Rating:  69 reviews
Sales Rank: 191770
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 013714234X
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.8343
EAN: 9780137142347
ASIN: 013714234X
Publication Date: January 19, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780137142347 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Praise for Wired to Care “Wired to Care will convince you that businesses succeed with their hearts as much as their heads. Dev Patnaik has given us just what we need for the lean years ahead.” MALCOLM GLADWELL, author of Outliers, Blink, and The Tipping Point “Wired to Care describes how to recover the basic human abilities of empathy that may be buried by your day-to-day business routines. Dev Patnaik shows how you can create a more empathic--and much more successful--business.” CHIP HEATH, author of Made to Stick “Dev Patnaik’s Wired to Care maps a path to innovation fueled by ‘seeing the world with new eyes.’ On numerous occasions, Dev and his colleagues at Jump helped us break through to those most critical insights.” BETH COMSTOCK, Chief Marketing Officer, GE “Wired to Care offers a roadmap to success paved with empathy. The bottom line is better profits, better products, and happier employees. There is a better day for business (thankfully) when companies are wired to care.” ROBYN WATERS, former VP of Trend, Target Stores, and author of The Hummer and the Mini Blurring the Line Between Inside and Out What’s the critical difference between Nike and every other shoe company on the planet? Why do some airline executives continue to insist that air travel is great, when we all know better? What has enabled Zildjian, a family business founded outside Istanbul, to thrive for almost 400 years? In this essential and illuminating book, top business strategist Dev Patnaik tells the story of how organizations of all kinds prosper when they tap into a power each of us already has: empathy, the ability to reach outside of ourselves and connect with other people. When people inside a company develop a shared sense of what’s going on in the world, they see new opportunities faster than their competitors. They have the courage to take a risk on something new. And they have the gut-level certitude to stick with an idea that doesn’t take off right away. People are "Wired to Care," and many of the world’s best organizations are, too. In pursuit of this idea, Patnaik takes readers inside big companies like IBM, Target, and Intel to see widespread empathy in action. But he also goes to farmers' markets and a conference on world religions. He dives deep into the catacombs of the human brain to find the biological sources of empathy. And he spends time on both sides of the political aisle, with James Carville, the Ragin’ Cajun, and John McCain, a national hero, to show how empathy can give you the acuity to cut through a morass of contradictory information. Wired to Care is a compelling tale of the power that people have to see the world through each other’s eyes, told with passion for the possibilities that lie ahead if leaders learn to stop worrying about their own problems and start caring about the world around them. As Patnaik notes, in addition to its considerable economic benefits, increasing empathy for the people you serve can have a personal impact, as well: It just might help you to have a better day at work.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 69
 In Search of Empathy June 15, 2009
John W. Pearson (San Clemente, CA, USA)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book is a sleeper that, I predict, will become a classic. The author writes, "More than one business leader has complained to me that their company is attracting smart and ambitious young people who lack any sort of gut sense for the work they do."
I'm on the hunt for the 10 best books for each of the 20 buckets (critical competencies) that help all of us with leadership and management issues. Dev Patnaik's book is a gem and immediately landed a spot on my Top-10 books for the Customer Bucket. (See my book, Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit.) I'll tempt you with three stories on how "widespread empathy" (what's going on in other people's lives) will help you stay close to the customer.
STORY #1: Eisner's Tiger Encounter. When Joe Rohde, a Disney Imagineer, wanted to convince Michael Eisner to open a safari-like experience for guests, he needed a way to get past the mantra "Disney doesn't do zoos." After making the pitch to CEO Eisner (still unimpressed), Rohde opened the doors of the executive suite to let in a 400-pound Bengal tiger. After experiencing this immense beast (bigger than his desk) up close, Eisner responded simply, "I see your point." Disney's Animal Kingdom was born.
STORY #2: Eat More Jell-O. Author Dev Patnaik, founder and principal of Jump Associates, a growth strategy firm, was invited to meet with the senior leadership of Jell-O about their declining sales. "For several hours, we sat through presentation after presentation of depressing quantitative research that described the situation. At some point, I had to raise my hand. I looked around the room and asked if anyone there had eaten any Jell-O in the past six months. No one raised a hand. Interesting, I said. Maybe that was part of the problem."
STORY #3: Mercedes-Benz. Twenty senior executives from Mercedes-Benz flew from Germany to San Francisco to meet with Patnaik to learn how their cars could appeal to younger Americans. To help them develop empathy for this customer niche, Patnaik assigned each team of two executives to a 20-something person. After 30 minutes of interviews, each team of two was given $50 and a city map with an assignment: purchase a gift for the person they just met. Some teams blew it (San Francisco mementos for people who lived in San Francisco), but other teams were able to experience life in their customers' shoes and bought very meaningful gifts. Patnaik's point: "a great product has to function like a great gift."
THE BIG IDEA. "...as companies grow larger and more prosperous," says Patnaik, "they start to look less and less like their customers. Airline executives stop flying economy class. The little tomato sauce company starts to attract Harvard MBAs who eat out all the time and never cook their own spaghetti. The lives of the people that the company employs become less and less like the lives of ordinary folks. Continued for too long, this gap can grow into an overwhelming gulf between the people inside of a company and everyone else."
After 50 pages of non-stop defining business stories, I knew this book was a keeper. After 100 pages, I couldn't stop reading the stories to my wife--a sign of a great book. It reminded me of the Tom Peters and Robert Waterman 1982 classic, "In Search of Excellence." You could call this one, "In Search of Empathy."
Helpful for Companies of All Sizes March 19, 2010
Lisa Shea
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Wired to Care combines real life stories about many companies we know and understand along with business background information to help us apply the lessons to the places we work.
The core message here is that caring for your customers isn't just new-agey PR material. It provides tangible benefits for your company and helps you succeed.
The examples demonstrate this lesson. Many motorcycle companies were failing - but Harley Davidson put its efforts into building up its connections with its loyal fans. It was those fans who helped Harley thrive in a down economy.
You need to really know where your customers are coming from. Many if not most Harley employees own and ride Harleys. A schoolteacher doesn't need to BE eight years old, but she needs to understand what eight year olds worry about and how they learn best. An Indian doctor is not African-American, but she can still work to understand her patient's concerns.
Microsoft is a juggernaut - but they have had successes and failures. When they wanted to make a game system, they took a bunch of gamers, had them develop a system THEY would love, and they were able to take on the powerhouses of Sony and Nintendo. However, turning their attention on Apple's iPod, they didn't build the same quality team of "music lovers". The result was a MP3 player which failed miserably.
I loved the story about coffee. Several decades ago Arabica (tasty coffee) was expensive, while Robusta (bitter) was cheap. Coffee manufacturers slowly added more and more robusta into their blend over the years. Existing coffee drinkers got used to the new flavor and coffee makers thought they were all set. However, they weren't bringing in new drinkers! Young people who tried coffee thought that older people were insane to drink this bitter brew. It wasn't until coffeehouses started coming out with all Arabica coffee again that younger people saw just how tasty a good coffee could be.
Zildjian took the cymbal, which was an orchestra-only instrument, and by talking with musicians in small bars, created an entire new market for their crashes and rides. They were hugely successful even in the middle of the great depression.
Numerous studies show that our brains light up when we relate to someone. If we see them pick up a book, to our brain it's almost as if WE picked up a book. So by having customers who relate to your company on a personal level, you have already made those connections that will keep them supporting you and buying your products.
There was just one minor complaint with the book. At one point they are talking about how a book was written with suggestions to save money. The money-saving book talked about looking at what other people had put out for trash / recycling and if something seemed interesting. Wired to Care felt this was "inhuman" advice. Inhuman? I know many people who swap things with their neighbors and they all feel it's a quite fun way to keep items out of the trash stream. I would hardly feel this is inhuman. If anything, we should all be swapping used goods more often, and recycling more, rather than throwing away so much stuff.
Still, a small issue in a great book.
A great book on reaching your audience and building requirements June 18, 2009
T. Leary (Ashburn, VA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I work as a Web developer and application designer, focused on how to make applications that people can quickly use, and find useful. While Wired to Care focuses on marketing answering the question of how to connect with people outside our market, it really shines in getting across the point that we quickly become insulated in our work environment and not fully understand what is usable to others. I'm finding myself using it often when building requirements for a new project, and validating designs.
Dev Patnaik uses lots of examples to discuss how we can connect with both our current clients, and those outside our current sphere of influence. There are many, many examples taken from different areas, both with sports, consumer products and discussions on how our brains are wired. One example discusses how American car manufacturers living in an area where everyone around them drives American cars, thus blinding them to why the foreign markets are succeeding, and how they can innovate. I find myself thinking about this often as I walk around the office, and even in the world, and how my middle-class community and lifestyle have jaded me in recognizing how other people use our products.
This is a must read, and I expect to begin getting copies to hand out to co-workers that are involved in application design and development.
Informative report on why empathetic companies do well August 3, 2009
Rolf Dobelli (Switzerland)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Executives often know little about the people who buy their companies' products and services. This is not surprising. To study people, you must care about them. However, most companies eliminate empathy from their operations. In essence, they proceed as if they have calculating, survival-bent reptile brains. Profits drive everything. This is an odd disconnect because corporate livelihoods depend on people - not lizards - and people's brains are hardwired to be empathetic. Dev Patnaik (writing with Peter Mortensen) shows why firms that connect empathetically with their customers do better financially. He insists today's cold-hearted, bottom-line business world has room for caring companies, and he points to IBM, Nike and Harley-Davidson as examples. The fact that empathy is also a strong business strategy is icing on the cake. getAbstract suggests this fine book to CEOs, marketing officers and other executives who want to build their business by acting on their respect for their customers. As Patnaik explains on his blog, "Empathy isn't about having a visionary leader. It's about making customer information an easy, everyday and experiential part of working at your company."
Wired For Success September 25, 2009
Ouija (Las Vegas, NV USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This should be required reading for CEOs and business leaders. The author does a fine job of exploring a smart concept that one would think should be easy to implement, yet some CEOs just won't "get it," even though it is a common sense business strategy. The book is nicely organized and I especially enjoyed reading anecdotes and examples, which put it all into perspective. Wired isn't just for any single industry, but rather it is for every industry. Every business is engaged in customer service. If leaders would embrace it, they would surely see results.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 69
|
|
|
