This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

 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.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 67 Ratings

Perspective on Wired to Care - 2009-10-23
Reviewer Rating:
This book presents a design-inspired exploration of empathy as a driver of business growth, sustenance and ethical behavior. It provides a practical body of work on the importance of empathy as it relates to customer connections and market engagement.

While the author suggests that empathy has been detached from modern capitalism and the contemporary organization by default, one sees the presence of empathy in several exemplary, large companies. Further, Patnaik gives reference to the common religious, cultural and philosophical roots of empathy that are met in the forces of neurophysiology to suggest that empathy is part of our make-up, our meaning and our human purpose.

A couple of slot-references in Wired to Care are especially useful and valuable to those who lead and manage growth strategy:

1.Getting Beyond Original Visions... organizations are evolving entities that must transcend what energies and inventions may have given them their rise. What founders gave, others must advance.
2.Getting a Deeper Sense of Meaning... companies are culture-sensing entities, and as such, people who lead and manage must have their "meaning-making" gears engaged to sustain themselves.

This book is a nice complement to Prepared and Resolved in terms of both orientation and strategic approach. Patnaik references thought leadership that includes Dale Carnegie, Mintzberg, Gandhi and the world's faith traditions as guideposts for creating widespread empathy. As strategists and researchers have noted for a long time, getting close to customers is a powerful thing. Patnaik and his team at Jump take this to a higher level of engagement, which is a more powerful thing. Drucker and others would agree as part of what we see as the social ecology mindset of business.

Wired For Success - 2009-09-25
Reviewer Rating:
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.

Just makes sense - 2009-08-19
Reviewer Rating:
Patnaik does a great job of explaining why everyone in a company from the CEO on down through the ranks need to develop empathy as an essential foundation for the business to thrive. While Detroit or Jell-O may not be intuitively in need of empathy and Patnaik brings together cogent reasons why it is essential.



As I read his book I thought about my own role in a fairly small company. Where is my company, my department and my role succeeding and failing in having empathy with our customers. While cooperate business plans seem far distanced from psychologists and social workers much of what he is writing about is reminiscent of Carl Rodgers view on therapy and more currently the trends in motivational interviewing.



I wish this book would be read and applied by more CEOs however, I fear they are so far away from the actual work that they will miss where empathy is truly needed. Where this book will have it's greatest impact is with everyday front line workers. Workers who can resonate with the lives of the customers and translate that empathy across to customer and up the line of business as usual.

not really about empathy, its about listening - 2009-08-27
Reviewer Rating:
This book isn't really about empathy, which has connotations of caring. The book is more about listening to what people want. You can listen and respond, and that is great, but it isn't really empathy unless you care for non-selfish reasons. That said, the book does have some good info, though none of it is unique.

Some good points:
-- Decision makers need to spend time with customers, experiencing what the customer experiences. This lets them "feel" the data, rather than just read it.
-- Humans have mirror neurons, which light up not only when WE do something, but when we watch SOMEONE ELSE do it, too. This can promote true empathy.
--

One notable error, on page 113 the author describes how baby crocodiles have to run the minute they hatch to avoid being eaten by their mothers. This is supposed to demonstrate the lack of feelings in reptiles. But it's not true. The pictures you may have seen of a mother crocodile with a mouthful of newly hatched young is a picture of the mother carrying her babies to the water, for safety's sake. There, she will guard them for months, after having guarded the eggs as they incubated.

Not bad, but not really worth reading unless you've never read anything similar.

Interesting read for businesses - 2009-08-10
Reviewer Rating:
Patnaik's book is a long, thorough and detailed examination of a basic idea.

That is NOT to say that it is a waste of time. The exact opposite is true.
He notes that companies that understand their customers are better able to meet the needs of those customers and that they will outperform those companies that do not understand the needs of their customers.

This is basic common sense, yet it often seems to be lacking in the 'real world' of business. Patnaik examines how this gap between producer and consumer developed, and he examines many companies that bridge that gap, some intuitively, and some though conscious awareness and planned initiatives for solving that problem.

Often, someone makes a generic comment about businesses and business startegies. It sounds pithy and deep and wise, but there is no follow up. Someone says that a business needs to understand the consumer better. They don't say HOW. Focus groups and surveys are only a start. This author explains the applications of the idea.

Patanaik uses many examples from his business classes and from businesses (several of which were his clients as a business consultant). He uses these examples to highlight both general principles and specific points about both the theoretical nature of consumer empathy and its practical application.

Even if you are not in business, this is an interesting book. It provides the reader with a fascinating paradigm through which to view businesses and the various markets that they serve. For people in business, whether you produce a product or provide a service, this is an instructive read.

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