Maria Ross: Author of The Empathy Dilemma

Episode 625

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, I’m joined by Maria Ross, brand strategist, speaker, and author on a mission to bring empathy into business. As the founder of Red Slice, Maria has helped countless companies connect with purpose and lead authentically. Her latest book, The Empathy Dilemma, reveals why empathy is a game-changer for business success, fueling innovation, strong cultures, and growth.
In our conversation, Maria explains the “ROI of empathy,” sharing why it’s vital for today’s leaders and how to integrate it into team dynamics, customer relationships, and daily operations. This episode is packed with insights on empathy’s role in creating positive change and driving purposeful success.
Don’t miss it! Tune in now on The Kara Goldin Show!

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. I’m super thrilled to introduce you to actually a returning guest, an inspiring guest, Maria Ross, who brings a totally fresh perspective on leadership and workplace culture, and she is not only a friend, but also a renowned author, speaker and brand strategist, known for super deep insights into the role of empathy in business. And she’s not only the founder of an incredible, incredible brand consultancy called Red Slice, but also is a serial author her book The Empathy Dilemma, which I have right here is a super powerful, brand new, super powerful guide for anyone wanting to understand how empathy can be a strategic advantage in business. And boy, do I believe this for sure. So I’m really excited to have Maria here to talk a lot more about the book. As I said, it’s it’s really great and incredible, and I think that it will not only inspire you, but you will learn a lot from it. So everybody needs to pick it up. Welcome Maria. How are you?

Maria Ross 2:01
I am good. Thank you so much for having me on the show. You are one of the examples I do always point to of an empathetic and successful leader. So this is perfect that I’m I’m on your show.

Kara Goldin 2:12
That’s so awesome. Well, okay, let’s start off first by what inspired you to write the Empathy Dilemma, and how is your own experiences influence this work?

Maria Ross 2:26
Yeah, so this is my second empathy book. As you know, in 2019 I had published a book called The Empathy edge, which was really about making the business case for empathy and helping people understand that it’s not just good for society. It’s actually great for business. And so if you can leverage genuine empathy, you can boost Innovation, performance, engagement, customer loyalty, customer revenue, all these vectors. And I was delighted to find so much data and research about this and and that came about kind of for two reasons. One, I was just around 2016 2017 when I started researching that book, I was feeling very disheartened by the models of leadership that we were seeing in the news and that my at the time, my two and a half year old was seeing. And I thought, there’s gotta be people out there that are winning with empathy, that brands, leaders, cultures. And again, to my delight, the research was out there, so I curated all that, and I that first book was really for the skeptics of like, what role does empathy play in business, and why should I care as an entrepreneur or a founder or a business leader, I just basically laid out the case for them and how they could leverage empathy to be a stronger leader, to Create a thriving culture and to build a winning brand. And then that was written pre pandemic 2019, it came out in the fall. So then this little thing called a pandemic came along, and then people started to really understand what I was trying to say. Because some people were like, is it a business book, or is it a self help book? And I’m like, No, it’s a business book. And then we started having conversations about empathy and leadership and empathy in the workplace, which were trends that were happening, as you know, but it it got accelerated because of the pandemic. So during that time, I started doing keynotes, I started doing leadership trainings, ERG talks, and I was talking to all these leaders, and over that five years, they were saying, we get it. We’re bought in. We want to be empathetic, people, centered leaders, but here’s where we’re struggling with it, here’s where it’s becoming a challenge. Here’s where it’s causing burnout or it’s impacting performance. And so I took all of that, I did further research. I’ve done hundreds of interviews on my podcast, the empathy edge, and I decided to deconstruct the recipe for how some leaders were able to be both empathetic and successful at the same time. And I uncovered five common threads, and I call those the five pillars of effective, empathetic leadership, and that’s what the new book lays out for people, including. On actionable strategies and tactics they can put into place to strengthen each of those pillars, depending on where they are.

Kara Goldin 5:07
So for those who didn’t read your first book, you mentioned, you know the difference between the first book and the Empathy Dilemma, but can you catch everyone up on what you know, what is, how would you answer to leaders who maybe see empathy as a weakness or think that it just doesn’t belong in the workplace?

Maria Ross 5:31
Yeah, I do a lot of education on what we mean by empathy and and also the myths that are holding people back, weakness being one of them. But when we’re talking about empathy at work, we’re talking about the ability to see, understand and where appropriate, feel someone else’s perspective and then use that information. Kind of think of it as information gathering about someone’s context or where they’re coming from, and then use that information to act with compassion. So let’s take a next right step together now that I understand where you’re coming from. But what it doesn’t mean is, it doesn’t mean that you’re nice. Niceness is different from empathy. Empathy is about actively and curiously trying to understand someone’s point of view in order to take an action. Niceness is just sort of like I’m just trying to do something that makes someone feel good, right, or make myself feel good. It’s not about caving into unreasonable demands, which is the biggest thing I think I get from leaders of like, I can’t be empathetic because it will make me seem weak, or people will roll all over me. That is submission, that is acquiescence, that’s not empathy. And that’s, you know, I’ve interviewed a lot of leaders in this new book, and in the first book, where it was like they were able to balance empathy confidently. They were able to be to make hard business decisions, but bring people along with them as they made those decisions. And then empathy is also not agreeing with someone. You can have an empathetic conversation with someone, and not necessarily agree with their point of view, but you can listen. You can make space to understand. You can say, Okay, I still don’t agree with you, but now I understand where you’re coming from, so therefore we can at least acknowledge something or some common ground and move forward together. So in the work context, that kind of looks like you’re if you’re having a budget debate or you’re having a difficult performance review. It’s about remembering that goal and remembering that common ground, and then seeing things from the other person’s perspective, so that now you can have an informed conversation, rather than guessing their assumptions, their intent, what they might be thinking and feeling, you’re actually having an interaction where you’re both laying it out on the table and saying, Okay, now that we’ve got everything out on the table, we can assemble this into a solution that works for both of us, or it could be an action just as simple. You probably did this very often in your career, where you’re making a difficult decision as a leader, and maybe you just need to listen to your employee. Maybe you just need to give them space to process. Maybe you need to figure out, do they need to be up skilled in a certain area? Do they need to be moved to a different role? Do they need to, you know, for their alignment, for their values in their life? Do they need to go to a different company like you can have those conversations with empathy, but still ultimately get to the goal you have as a leader.

Kara Goldin 8:20
So I loved the section in the book where in the Empathy Dilemma, where you talk about how leaders can cultivate the Skill versus expecting that it’s an innate quality. Can you talk a little bit about this

Maria Ross 8:36
for sure? So you know, empathy is innate to us as human beings as a species, it’s how we’ve survived, barring some outlying psychopathies where empathy is tough for people to access, we are all born with it. So it’s a muscle we all have. It’s just for some of us, it atrophies based on upbringing, based on surroundings, based on workplace, because it’s not being celebrated, it’s not being modeled, it’s not being rewarded. So we the muscle atrophy is just like not going to the gym for a while. The good news is, as adults, as leaders, as as professionals, we can make an intentional decision to strengthen our empathy so that we achieve all the benefits I talked about earlier. And so that’s about just getting really clear on what habits and traits you can practice to build that empathy in yourself, so that it starts to become muscle memory for you. So it might feel awkward at first, if you’re not used to, you know, asking someone a lot of questions, or if you’re not used to withholding your judgment when you’re listening to someone, or if you’re not used to, you know, not always going into solving mode like one of the empathetic things I talk about in the Empathy Dilemma is as a leader. When someone comes to you with an interpersonal issue or they have something going on at home, or they’re angry or they’re frustrated or they’re sad, us as leaders, our first instinct is. To solve it, right? We want to solve it. We want to make the problem go away. But what we need to do is we can take a step back as a leader and say, I can tell this is really important to you, and I want to be able to give you the best possible advice, the best possible environment for talking about this. So are you bringing this to me because you want me to see it. Do you want me to solve it? Or you do you just want me to support you? And so get ourselves out of automatic. And this is something I struggle with all the time, especially with my husband. I go into automatic solving mode. This is what you should do. This is what you should say. This is the conversation you should have. Should, should, should. When he’s like, Babe, I’m just telling you about something frustrating that happened at work. That’s all I need. I just need a sounding board. And our employees are the same way.

Kara Goldin 10:47
Yeah, it’s so it’s so true. What’s, what’s the saying? Like, do you need me to listen? Or do you need a hug? Different, but it’s but very, very

Maria Ross 10:59
or do you actually need advice. Like, are you actually coming to me because you want me to offer some advice, but I need to ask for consent on that before I assume that that’s why you’re coming to me. And then if someone says, Yes, I really would like your point of view. I really would like some ideas. That’s That’s what I mean by being empathetic. It’s about actually, like, making sure it’s okay for the other person and that it’s what they need at that moment in time.

Kara Goldin 11:23
So true. So I’d love for you to talk about the ROI of empathy and share how it impacts these results, maybe with an example or two, because I clearly think that you know, you’re basically empowering employees and humans overall, but empowering them to do more and be more excited to do more. But I’d love to kind of hear some examples of the ROI that you’ve seen around that.

Maria Ross 11:55
Yeah, I love this for the skeptics, because it’s I’m also like, I come from a marketing and branding background, but I’m also very practical about like, how does it about like, how does it impact the bottom line? And so there’s numerous studies and a lot of research out there that shows that empathy in leadership and in the culture has a positive effect on innovation, on engagement, on retention, on reducing churn, but also from an external point of view when you create an empathetic customer experience, one study from catalyst showed that 97% of customers say that empathy is the most important aspect of the customer experience, even in some cases where their actual problem or issue is not solved. So think about that in terms of churn, in terms of turnover, in terms of customer retention, that’s huge. And eight out of 10 customers say they want a company to show empathy, a brand to show empathy through its behaviors. So not just talk about it, but what are they doing? And more than just, you know, we give to the food bank once a year at the holidays, like, what are you doing for your employees, for your community, for your customers, doing sort of an audit of your of your processes and your policies, and make sure that the other the impacted parties, point of view, is represented in that and so there’s another study that I love talking about, which is one that was done by catalyst, just like two years ago, I think maybe 2023 and they interviewed 1000s of employees, and some stated that they worked in an empathetic culture, or had an empathetic leader. Another group said they did not have an empathetic culture, an empathetic leader. And then they asked both of these groups the same questions. The Delta is startling between the two. So as an example, and I might not cite these numbers exactly, but I know I have them in one of my books, the group that said they had an empathetic culture and leadership when they were asked, I am able to be more innovative at work, it was like 68% the group that didn’t have the empathetic culture or leadership, 13% only 13% were able to be innovative of at work. And if innovation drives our ability to have sustainable market leadership, you know, we need to be paying attention to that. Because when you’re in an environment that’s empathetic, when you have a leader that’s empathetic, you know someone has your back, you’re seen, you’re heard, you’re valued, and you’re not constantly in self preservation mode. I mean, we can all think of like workplaces where there was so much drama and so much fear and so much anxiety, our our executives, executive functions shut down, and we were just like doing whatever we needed to do, but when you’re able to relax and you’re able to be creative, you’re able to make mistakes. You know, you’re in an environment where people care about you. They care about what happens to you personally and professionally. They’re investing in you professionally, with professional development. They’re offering what’s deemed as. Empathetic benefits or perks like paid time off or access to mental health resources, those are all considered empathetic benefits. When you create that environment, you increase innovation, you increase retention, you increase talent attraction, and then you’re able to lead your market. And so it’s not necessarily a like, you know, I often get asked, How do you measure empathy? Empathy is not the thing you should measure. You should be measuring your KPIs. You should be measuring the things that drive growth, and then, sort of like, watering flowers, if you add empathy to that, does that improve? Does that go up? So you don’t need to measure empathy for empathy sake, because you could, maybe you could be a really empathetic organization and not make your numbers right. So you want to be tying it to the things that that will drive the business forward.

Kara Goldin 15:51
One of the things that you talk about this concept of empathy killers, and I always think that that empathy killers, you know, people might think that they’re individuals, and that definitely can, can be the case, but you could have empathy killers that are putting pressure on an individual, and then they end up putting pressure, you know, it sort of goes down the line. It could go across the line to a customer, yeah, right. Or it could go down the line to a team, yeah, right. And I think that, you know what, what’s your suggestion? I have a suggestion about it, but, but I think it’s, it’s very clear in workplaces, yeah. Oh, and, and even frankly, it’s, it’s like, sadly, contagious. You know, when you have so if you don’t disconnect from that situation, that it just seems to, you know, viral out of control. It does, it does viral out of control. It gets viral, and

Maria Ross 16:57
it goes viral. I think it’s about understanding the effect that certain personalities or certain people that operate in a certain way, what impact they can have on your overall culture. So I talk about this a lot, and I am not the person that coined this term, but this idea of toxic rock stars, right? So you have a sales rep, let’s say, who is just crushing their numbers every quarter, and they’re bringing in the revenue. But at what cost, if this person is difficult to work with, not collaborative, not respectful, not kind, not not being empathetic of their colleagues, of their partners, at what cost if you are, if you are, if you are ruining the culture and ruining the workplace and chasing out other good performers, and, you know, leaving a reputation in its wake. Yes, you might hit this quarter’s numbers, but what are you doing to the organization sustainably over the long term? So I think we really need to make sure that we are we are speaking with our actions. So if we say that empathy is a core value, what does that actually mean? It’s not just a pretty poster on the wall, but what is it? Give us examples and be this is why clarity is one of my pillars in the book. Be really clear. If empathy is going to be a value, or integrity, or whatever the value is that the expectation that you have, what does it look like in practice? Give people examples. Airbnb does a really great job of this, because they have core values. They kind of call empathy service within their organization, at least they did a few years ago when I wrote the empathy edge, and they didn’t just talk about it, they actually had it as an element of your performance review. And rather than make it subjective, of like, well, I like Kara, and she seems to be service oriented. I don’t know what that means, but yeah, I’ll mark her high on that. They actually gave people examples of what those behaviors in action, what they expected from people, what it looked like, and they were able to get everyone to contribute to what those examples could be so that when you are a manager giving someone a performance evaluation, you’re able to be really objective about it and say, Are you living this value, or do you need to do some work here, but not letting people off the hook just and that was a big part of their performance evaluation. It wasn’t just them meeting their KPIs. Is were they upholding the values of the organization? Was just as important, and quite frankly, if they weren’t, could hold them back from promotion, from advancement, from raises, from staying at the company. So I love that idea of walking the talk. And if you’re if you’re going to deem this value important enough for your culture that it’s going to drive performance and it’s going to drive growth, you have to have a way to hold people accountable to that. I

Kara Goldin 19:44
couldn’t agree more. So so for those leading remote or hybrid teams, what unique challenges do you see out there? Definitely, it’s, you know, it’s trying to stay connected and motivated. COVID. And yes, you know, is is really tough, but also hard to read empathy at times, it is right. And so what would you say about that?

Maria Ross 20:11
Well, you know, what’s really funny about this is, when I wrote the empathy edge, you know, people, some people were working remotely, especially in tech, but it wasn’t as common. And I actually had a section on this of like, how you can deal remotely if you have a remote team. And one of the one of the pieces of advice that I gave at that time was from someone that I interviewed, who said, in their company to give everyone equity. They didn’t want people to feel like they had more face time than others, even though some of them did when they had a meeting, and there were members of the meeting that were on Zoom, which, again, wasn’t as prevalent at the time, they had everyone go on Zoom for the meeting, so that there was parity, so that there was like, no one felt left out, no one felt like they were missing something in the room. And I just thought that that was like, one really great example of being creative in that environment of thinking about the needs of other people. So when we talk about hybrid and remote environments, I’m lucky enough that I’ve had a few guests on my podcast the empathy edge that have been more of an expert in this, but I think it’s about creating those moments, because they’re not going to happen serendipitously like they do if you’re in the same space. And I am actually a huge proponent of helping people work however they work best. I don’t believe that innovation just happens within four walls, and I say this as an extrovert, but I also know that there’s magic that happens when we all come together. So when you’re in a hybrid or a remote environment, where are the opportunities that you can create a personal touch when you’re doing, you know, one to ones. Does everyone have their camera on? Can different people lead a meeting depending on where they are? You know, can they share a little bit about where they’re, where they’re located? You know, have someone I know, one company that did this where it was like someone would always talk about their hometown or where they lived, and they would present for like, five or 10 minutes some interesting facts about where they live, just to kind of get people to get to know each other, because that serendipity wasn’t happening. So it’s not I guess my net here is it’s not impossible, but you have to be intentional about it. And the best thing I can say is also that a leader doesn’t have to come up with all the solutions on their own, they should leverage the team to get those ideas. What would make our remote or hybrid environment more effective for you? How can we follow the five pillars in the new book and ensure that we have clarity, ensure we have decisiveness, ensure we have moments of levity and joy in our environment. And then also, are we going to invest in understanding the key moments we do need to be together? When do we actually need to be in the same room for a weekly status meeting, not for an annual planning meeting? Yes, right. So be one guest. I spoke to Neil Miller, who deals with hybrid environments, really opened my eyes to the fact that if you can just be intentional about when you need to be together and when work can get done when you’re not together, that goes a long way to helping people feel heard and feel included,

Kara Goldin 23:15
definitely. So one of the things you talk about in the book is the empathy spectrum. Can you explain a little bit more about that and just talk about how that can help leaders better understand and connect with their teams?

Maria Ross 23:33
Well, if you’re talking about the spectrum, are you talking about the two different kinds of empathy? Yeah, exactly. Okay, great, yeah. So this is really great for people that say, like, I’m not naturally empathetic, right? And that’s okay people. We have neurodiversity, and people think differently. They access feelings differently, and but it’s again, we’re all born with it, so it’s kind of not an excuse to build the muscle. So what really helps people to understand is that there’s two different kinds of empathy. There’s cognitive empathy, which is where we use our head to imagine what someone experience might be like. Situation might be life. I you know sales people use this all the time. What objections might they have, what questions might they have? Right? You’re using cognitive empathy when you do that. Then there’s emotional empathy, or affective empathy, and that’s really the emotional part. That’s the like you’re anxious and upset and you’re telling me something, and I start my heartbeat starts to get faster. My pulse starts rising. I start to get red in my face, because I’m starting to feel your anxiety. I’m starting to feel your your stress. And so what most people think of as empathy is the emotional part, right? And I always say it’s empathy is not crying on the floor with your employees. You can access your empathy cognitively and just try to take a moment to intentionally think about what things might be like. But this is where the trait of curiosity is so important, you want to get good at asking questions, because when you ask someone what their perspective is, they will tell you, right? Yeah, so we need to get good about, you know, especially when we’re going into contentious situations like a like a difficult performance review, for example. One approach is, you bring the employee in the room and you talk about all the things they did wrong, and you should be doing this, and why did this happen, and you missed this deadline. Another approach, again, to get to the same goal, which is to up level this employee’s performance for the good of the team, right? Another approach could be an empathetic approach, of like, tell me what’s going on for you. How do you think things are going like, we both know this deadline slipped. Can you tell me about why that happened and what’s going on for you, and be more of an investigator versus a blamer at first, so that, again, you’re getting to the same goal, but you’re probably getting to the goal more effectively with the latter rather than the former. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 25:49
totally. So it’s, it’s so interesting to think back on. I mean, you and I have both had, you know, incredible and diverse careers and, and sort of grown up the ladder, and, and, you know, dealt with all different kinds of of situations and industries, but looking back on your own career, what’s the most surprising lesson that you’ve learned? Obviously, empathy is something that is very close to your heart, right? And, you are an empathetic leader, you teach it, you speak it, you live it. But what’s been kind of the most surprising power in this topic of empathy that you’ve seen in business? That’s such a good

Maria Ross 26:36
question. And I just want to take a side note and point out that I learned a lot about you over the years of the importance of empathy with your customers and listening and asking questions of your customers in order to innovate your business, in order to innovate your product. And so, you know, I didn’t want to let that slide of the external empathy, and you know how you have done that so well in your career? You You’re welcome. But yeah, I think for me it wasn’t. It took me until it was, like, right around the time I started writing the empathy edge I was I was working with a Strengths coach, and I took the Clifton Strengths Finder, and empathy was in my top five strengths, and I wouldn’t have guessed that. And actually, if you ask my husband, there are times when he’s like, really, you’re an empathy expert. I’m like, I’m an empathy expert, but I’m not always an expert at empathy, believe me, like it’s always, I’m always working on it. But I think the surprising thing for me was when I discovered that was looking back at my career and the successes that I had and my ability to build bridges as a marketer and as a management consultant with people who were not like me. I just had natural curiosity. I was like, as a tech marketer, for example, I don’t I can’t market this effectively if I don’t understand how it works. So I’m gonna go sit down with engineering. I’m gonna go sit down with the developers and figure out how it works. And they were always like, why is someone in marketing in our cubicle like you know, but it was that reaching out of like, you have this perspective I don’t have, and I want to understand it so that I can do my job better. And I did it when I worked at an ad agency. I was on the account management side, and I spent more time on the creative floor to try to understand the creative process, even though I’m creative, but like, really understand how things get made, how things get done. And that always, I guess, endeared me to the people that I needed to have on side. And I would often get asked, like, Well, how do you have such a good relationship with so and so and so? So they’re so cranky, they’re, like, really hard to talk to. And I’m like, Well, yeah, they’re a little awkward. But, you know, I just sat down with them, and I asked them a lot of questions, and they kind of like opened up to me, and I never thought of it as anything different, until I started researching empathy, until I took that Strengths Finder test and and realized that, oh, not everyone does that. And so even though I am hard on myself, especially empathy in my family, empathy for my 10 year old. Like, it’s really hard to do this positive parenting thing a lot of I mean, you know, just like, I just want compliance, but I have to turn to empathy again in order to get to the goal. What is the goal? And keeping that goal in mind, I think, is, is something that can keep us all on track, but, but just realizing that that that skill is not something that comes naturally to people, and then getting excited about like, instead of feeling like I’m better than them, because I did that during my career, it’s like, Hey, let me tell you about this powerful superpower that you have that can actually make your life better and your work better. I get really excited by that. I get really excited by, like, the the light going on for people of like, Oh, it doesn’t have to be me just having personal angst filled conversations with people empathy at work could be just, hey, I feel better delivering my presentation as a PowerPoint versus a versus a spreadsheet. Can I do that? And I. The boss let you do that because that’s how you do your best work. That’s empathy. It’s not, it’s not crying, it’s not therapy, it’s not, you know, so giving, giving leaders, those little examples of all the hundreds of ways they can be empathetic without feeling, you know, uncomfortable. Yeah, that really excites me. Yeah, yeah.

Kara Goldin 30:18
It’s so, so true. So Well, Maria, thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of your ideas and more about I think it’s it’s not just ideas, but it just gives us tools to kind of enable this right and be more. Because I think everybody should want to do this, and especially if they think that it’s actually gonna help the bottom line and to motivate people. I mean, the Empathy Dilemma really just does all of that, and it’s far from being, you know, a soft skill, but how, yes, can transform the way that we lead and for sure, all of that. So, so, so great, and we’ll have all the info in the show notes, but thank you again, and have a great afternoon.

Maria Ross 31:09
Thank you for having me.

Kara Goldin 31:11
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now. You.

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