Empathy’s New Address? When the World Feels a Little Upside Down

Good morning! Pour yourself another cup of coffee, maybe find a comfy chair. Let’s mull something over together, something that feels a bit… well, strange these days. For those of us of a certain age, maybe you remember a time when we had a clearer map of where to find certain things in the world. Community support, moral guidance, a sense of shared compassion – often, we looked towards churches, synagogues, mosques, or other faith-based groups as the natural centers for that kind of human connection and empathy. It felt like part of their core mission.

But doesn’t it sometimes feel like that map is getting harder to read? In the noise of today’s often fractured public square, it can seem like some of those traditional wellsprings of empathy are focused elsewhere, perhaps caught up in political battles or internal divisions. The feeling, for many, is one of something lost, or at least, something less reliably present than we once assumed. And maybe that leaves us wondering where that fundamental human need for understanding and compassion is being met.

Which brings us to the truly unexpected twist, the part that can make the world feel momentarily upside down. Where is empathy apparently being discussed, measured, and even trained with serious intent? Not necessarily in seminaries or community centers, but in the gleaming towers of high finance – specifically, within the notoriously tough world of private equity. Yes, you read that right. KKR, the firm immortalized as the epitome of corporate raiding in “Barbarians at the Gate,” is now actively exploring the business case for kindness.

It started, as these things sometimes do, almost by accident. Pete Stavros, a top executive at KKR, noticed something interesting within the companies where they’d implemented employee ownership programs. Giving workers a stake was meant to boost loyalty and cut down on high turnover rates (which can exceed a staggering 40% annually in manufacturing). It worked, but Stavros saw it worked better under certain leaders – often leaders whose backgrounds (women, immigrants, those from poor upbringings, the deeply religious) might have naturally fostered a stronger connection with their workforce. He began to wonder: Was empathy the secret sauce? And could it even be measured?

This wasn’t standard Wall Street thinking. Stavros admits he never heard about a “business case for empathy” at Harvard Business School or during his decades at KKR. But his curiosity led him to collaborate with Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki, an expert in the field. They surveyed dozens of CEOs at KKR-owned companies using standard psychological tools. The results were striking. CEOs who scored higher on empathy measures had significantly lower employee quit rates and higher engagement scores. The data suggested a real, measurable link between a leader’s empathy and tangible business outcomes.

Perhaps even more importantly, the science suggested empathy isn’t just some fixed personality trait you’re born with. Zaki breaks it down into components – feeling with someone (emotional empathy), understanding their perspective (cognitive empathy), and wanting to help (empathic concern or compassion). And crucially, these can often be viewed as skills that can be practiced and improved. Suddenly, empathy wasn’t just a vague virtue; it was potentially a trainable leadership competency. KKR is now actually piloting programs to teach these skills – things like active listening, understanding different life circumstances through community visits, and collaborative problem-solving meetings.

So why would KKR, a firm built on financial leverage and maximizing returns, suddenly care about “soft skills”? The driving force appears largely pragmatic. As Stavros puts it, “How could we say we’re optimizing a business if 40% of the workers are quitting every year?” High turnover is expensive. Disengaged employees are less productive. Creating a workplace where people feel heard and valued, where leaders practice cognitive empathy (trying to truly understand another’s viewpoint), might simply be a smarter way to run a complex business in today’s world. CEO Massimo Bizzi, involved in the training, confirms this: leading with a positive culture, he argues, doesn’t require a trade-off in results; it drives them. Kathy Bolhous, another CEO whose company value soared, recalled being told early in her career she was “too empathetic” – KKR was the first owner to even ask about her people metrics.

Of course, we should maintain healthy skepticism. Critics rightly point out that empathy training doesn’t replace fair wages or strong worker protections, and KKR still engages in deals that involve tough financial decisions, including layoffs (though Stavros argues empathy changes how those tough calls are handled). This initiative might be strategic, limited, and driven purely by ROI.

But still… isn’t it fascinating? Doesn’t it feel a little bit like finding out your toughest, most intimidating math teacher secretly writes beautiful poetry? Finding KKR, the quintessential “Barbarian,” meticulously studying empathy because the data suggests it works, while perhaps feeling that genuine, uncalculated compassion seems harder to find in some of the places we traditionally expected it, it does create that sense of an upside-down world.

Maybe this strange juxtaposition tells us something important. Perhaps empathy isn’t disappearing, but its justifications and expressions are shifting. Maybe in an increasingly complex, sometimes fragmented secular world, the practical necessity of understanding and connecting with others is forcing its value to be recognized in unexpected arenas, driven by data and results rather than purely moral imperatives. It doesn’t necessarily make KKR virtuous, but it makes empathy look… useful. Strategic, even.

It leaves one wondering. If the hard-nosed world of private equity is finding measurable value in listening and perspective-taking, maybe the rest of us should pause and reconsider where we look for empathy, why we value it, and how we practice it ourselves. Perhaps the map isn’t wrong, just more complicated, with landmarks of compassion showing up in the most surprising locations