Empathy in a Time of Crisis

Last autumn, the Cask team was invited to speak during a couple of Marketing and Branding seminars at Case Western Reserve University. The concept of Empathy in Branding came up and created much dialogue around its necessity as a branding tool and how it could impact any one organization’s ability to create a stronger message. As the world navigates an altered existence during the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more journalists and community leaders are sharing the importance of empathy as powerful tool in times of crisis. In a recent guest blog for The Beryl Institute, written by Dr. Riess, a psychiatrist and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, it was stated that many regard empathy as “merely a soft emotion of feeling for others. Our hard-wired capacity for empathy involves both cognitive and emotional centers of the brain, and when harnessed together can help leaders provide truthful, caring and helpful information while at the same time remaining calm, steady and decisive. Empathy is a crucial part of emotional intelligence the leaders need to employ in a time of crisis.”

Here’s a refresher on Emotional Intelligence: EI is the ability to practice self-awareness, other awareness, self-management and relationship management. Putting these practices into action through empathy can vastly impact overall health and well-being of ourselves and others!

Helping one another is part of our nature - it brings us together; it is needed now more than ever both locally and globally. If we empower ourselves and each other to put our best foot forward in this global health crisis, we can move away from the Darwinist “survival of the fittest”, where only the strongest individuals take care of themselves to a platform of real altruism (giving without expecting anything in return) and collaboration to save our society as a whole. 

The non-profits in our community have always served on the frontlines meeting the needs of those most vulnerable in society. Many of those organizations are themselves now in “emergency mode” as they too navigate the new ways of the world. Our new daily existence is impacting the health and well-being of the people they serve, their own health, the financial well-being of the organization as a whole and their ability to vision forward in uncertain times. We at Cask invite you to learn more about the non-profits we have partnered with, how you can volunteer your time, donate money and goods and ultimately practice your best empathic, altruistic muscles in this great opportunity for solidarity. 

Stay tuned for our upcoming social media campaign! In the meantime, you can reach out to us at consultcask2@gmail.com for more detailed information. We sign out with this inspiring quote:

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self-kind of understanding.” Bill Bullard