The Participation Blog

Empathy and the Myopia of Big Institutions

Having actively worked for and now consulting for both corporate and public service organizations, I’ve watched how big institutions can soon start to think in an insular way, which tends to be fatal to their mission and success. Once big government agencies start focusing solely on their own culture and mission, they tend to lose the ability to truly understand and relate to the people that they ultimate serve. This piece from the Wharton school explains it nicely.

And while we’re on this subject, when professionals go out of their way to show how confident and professional they are, they often jump the shark into coming off as arrogant. That’s not gonna work when you’re trying to build trust and engage your stakeholders.