The Female Systems Thinker Secret: Empathy
What’s the key to sustainability? Systems thinking. What’s the sustainability systems thinker’s secret? Empathy. Who might be particularly good at contributing, and teaching, that way of thinking? Women.
My latest HuffingtonPost piece reflects the coalescing of my consulting and master’s program work toward a new research focus. How can we take what we know about how women think to both develop better sustainable organizations and to better serve consumers supporting those organizations? As always, my intention is not to say that women are the greatest and the only gender to combine systems thinking with empathy. Rather, the fact that women are good at a kind of thinking so important in sustainable business is a clue to the bigger picture. If your organization is reviewing and developing its sustainability efforts, this clue should help you source those best suited for your team: systems thinkers that embrace and reflect an empathic perspective on life.
An excerpt from my piece:
Women have generations of practice using and developing their empathic skills. When you combine that with solid business smarts, you get a sustainability powerhouse. It’s probably safe to say that without empathy, no business leader — male or female — would come to believe in the “triple bottom line” or the “people, planet and profit” mission. It’s the empathy extra that brings people and planet anywhere near the profit.
For those of you working in or with already well-functioning sustainability efforts, let me know if the empathic systems thinker is well represented, and how/where you’ve put that sort of mind to work.
