This one runs as an interactive workshop: the hour includes exercises your colleagues do themselves, not only a talk.
Anita is an empathy expert, author & speaker, award-winning educator, and social impact coach. A Montreal native, Anita holds a doctoral degree from McGill University where she was named Professor of the Year in 2014 and 2019. She has held a variety of leadership and advisory roles within the private and non-profit sectors and has served as a volunteer for many social purpose organisations over the past 20 years, both locally and internationally.
All sessions by Anita →Empathy has never been more important. New technologies like AI and VR are set to unleash astonishing opportunities and unbridled risks. They will also propel us to reconsider how society is organised and what it means to be human.
Join Anita in this thought-provoking and heartfelt session, where she explains how humanity’s survival depends on the transformational potential of empathy and global empathic consciousness.
During the expert session, Anita encourages audience engagement through asking participants to use the chat function for questions instead of microphones and sharing personal experiences. She emphasizes the significance of empathic leadership and workplaces, discussing concepts like affective and cognitive empathy with interactive exercises using puppy images and Mentimeter app activities.
Anita also shares practical tips on improving empathy skills, creating empathetic spaces, and addressing compassion fatigue.
Understanding the significance of empathy in communication, productivity, talent acquisition, retention, innovation, and profit is essential for both personal growth and organizational success.
Practicing empathy through active listening, deep understanding, and simple practices like gratitude, meditation, and eye gazing can help create more meaningful relationships and communities.
Implementing empathetic workplace practices, such as designing for emotional intelligence and creating opportunities for social connections outside work hours, can lead to improved trust, communication, loyalty, and innovation.
In this expert session, Anita Nowak, an esteemed empathy researcher and educator based in Montreal, shares her profound insights into the role of empathy in personal growth and organizational success. Anita introduces herself, sharing her background as a teacher and researcher dedicated to empathy for over a decade.
Her passion for empathy was ignited after attending a human rights conference where she heard a survivor's moving story from the Rwandan genocide.
The essence of Anita's presentation lies in the significance of empathic leadership and workplaces, emphasizing their impact on communication, productivity, talent acquisition, retention, innovation, and even profit. Studies indicate that employees are more inclined to work longer hours if they feel cared for by their employers, while empathetic leaders who hone listening and understanding skills excel.
Anita then delves into the definition of empathy as a feeling that connects us through our shared humanity, acknowledging the uniqueness of each individual's lived experiences. She explains that empathy encompasses two aspects: affective and cognitive.
Affective empathy is the emotional response where we feel what others feel, while cognitive empathy involves understanding another's perspective through our thoughts and imagination.
Through interactive audience activities, Anita demonstrates these concepts and encourages participants to reflect on their own experiences with empathy. Her engaging presentation leaves a lasting impact as she continues her expert session by discussing the capacity for cognitive empathy in humans and its importance in leadership today.
She shares practical exercises and stories of personal transformation, emphasizing the potential for growth and connection through empathic practice.
Anita also highlights the benefits of empathy on both personal and organizational levels and encourages purposeful empathy to improve society and enhance living conditions for more people. Throughout her presentation, she utilizes the Mentimeter app for audience engagement and participation.
As Anita concludes her session, she shares insights on empathy in various contexts, from personal relationships to business environments. She offers practical strategies for developing empathy skills and fostering a more empathetic workplace culture.
By promoting active listening, self-awareness, and compassionate communication, she aims to help individuals and organizations create stronger connections and build thriving communities.
From the survey every participant gets when the session ends, in their own words.
I now have more of an understanding of what empathy is, how to be more empathetic and its use in the workplace. Thank you, it was a really great presentation.
Nice session, probably the most powerful of the program. Thanks to Anita !
Very interesting topic, very well presented
Made more concious three quite practical ways how to focus on empathy whilst talking and connecting to a person. thank you.
Pay more attention to empathy because it's very easy to forget in our busy lives. Thank you for your presentation.
ABsolutely amazing insights which I did know from before, but there was one I wasn't aware of; that when you're under stress, you can't empathize as well as when you're calm. Very lovely lecture, and helpful.
I appreciate that you offer us resources to improve our skills in the work and personal spheres. Thanks!!
Loved it! Currently studying empathy in my design thinking class. All relevant for things going on.
No prior knowledge is assumed. It is built for a general working audience, and people who already know the subject get the research and the practical side rather than an introduction. What the hour itself covers: Empathy has never been more important. New technologies like AI and VR are set to unleash astonishing opportunities and unbridled risks.
A workshop. The description of this session says so itself: the hour includes exercises and activities that participants do, not only an expert speaking. It still runs live and online, for as many colleagues as you want to invite.
Anita Nowak is one of the experts we auditioned ourselves, and we produce every session so we see how each one lands. Participants rate this session 4.3 out of 5, across 239 responses, and rate Anita personally 4.6 out of 5.
It is interactive, and the block higher up on this page says exactly how for this session. Nobody has to speak up who does not want to: the chat and the polls carry most of it, and the questions can come in anonymously.
It runs 45 min / 15 min: the talk, then live questions. All you do is pick a date. We brief Anita, produce the session, host and moderate it, run the Q&A, and send you the report within an hour of the end.
A team, a department, an employee network or every single employee at once, with no cap and no per-seat price. It runs inside your own Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, or on a branded page we build. No integration, no login, no company device or e-mail.
The session is delivered in English. You can add high accuracy live subtitles in 8, 16 or 24 languages, so everyone follows in their own. That is a paid option, priced by the number of languages you need.
No, and that is by design. There is nothing to install, nothing to integrate and no connection to your systems, so there is nothing for IT to validate: we join your own Teams, Zoom or Meet as a guest speaker, or we host a page and your people open a link. No software, no accounts, and no data of yours that we can reach. It is why hundreds of companies, among them some of the largest technology and financial firms in the world, were able to start within a day.
We never receive or hold personal data about your employees. Because the session runs in your own environment, attendance and identity stay with you, and what we report back is aggregated: numbers, ratings and survey answers, not people. That is also why IT approval usually takes minutes rather than weeks.
You keep the recording and can share it internally. You also get attendance over time, participant ratings for the content and the speaker, the survey answers, and the topics your people asked for next.
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