Empathy Like Shakespeare Leads to Social Influence

I read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled How to Think Like Shakespeare that discuss how empathy and communication skills lead to greater social influence. His communication and empathy abilities allowed Shakespeare to become very successful in his life and achieved great wealth and fame. He was able to use his social networks to create opportunities.

The article discusses his great literary skills and how they impacted the way he thought. He had more ways of describing events and issues. This led to richness of depth and thought that many others do not share. He was a learned and sophisticated thinker that become more skilled at understanding.

The way we think and the words impact the way we think about issues. If our words are positive, beneficial, honest, etc...they will have a completely different result then if a person is negative, condescending, rude, and aggressive. Shakespeare was able to use his literary skills to describe his world in an accurate and intuitive way.

Those same skills allowed him to be empathetic and skilled at communication. The strength of his ability to understand the thoughts and gestures of others also helped him communicate in a way that encourage greater connection. He was able to create a large network of people, business associates and followers that fed his growing wealth.

When we consider that 75% of jobs are filled from the inside and that our social networks allow us to hear about and understand new opportunities we must consider the benefits being socially influential. Nearly all business has a social influence component that leads to greater connection to the world around us.