Michael Ventura, entrepreneur and CEO of award-winning strategy and design firm Sub Rosa, shares how empathy - the ability to see the world through someone else's eyes - could be what your business needs to innovate, connect, and grow.

Empathy is not just about being nice. It's not about pity or sympathy either. It's about understanding - your consumers, your colleagues, and yourself - and it's a direct path to powerful leadership.

In Applied Empathy, Michael Ventura, CEO and founder of Sub Rosa, a design firm that finds creative solutions for iconic brands and institutions such as GE, Nike, Citibank, Nikon, and Warby Parker and also West Point and the White House, offers entrepreneurs and executives a radical new business book and way forward. Applied Empathy presents real strategies, based on Sub Rosa's design work as well as the popular class Ventura and his team have taught at Princeton University, on how to make lasting connections and evolve your business internally (your employees, culture, and product/services) as well as externally (your brand, consumers, and value).

Employing empathy in your business decisions can also help you avoid potentially devastating pitfalls in full view of the whole world. With the prevalence of social media, we have to be more conscious and careful than ever to dodge a misstep that will land you as a defendant in the court of public opinion. For leaders of all levels, this groundbreaking guide lays the foundation to establish a diverse, inventive, and driven team that can meet the challenges of today's ever-evolving marketplace. If you want your customer to connect with what you are selling, you first have to understand them.