[FloorEgg]

I think the problem is that it's rare for people to be capable of empathizing at that level and be capable of doing all the types of things that the leader of a large company needs to be able to do. It's also like a game of telephone. It's not enough to just empathize with the customer, it actually has to be turned into a product or experience. In big companies this means it gets communicated through multiple layers and each of those layers will warp and shift the actual empathy for the customer.

But honestly, I think the biggest issue is that leaders don't even realize they have this problem. I don't think it's the lower level employee being lazy. I think it's the leader not realizing how important customer and market empathy is, and not baking it into the company culture and processes. I agree wholeheartedly with the op comment at the top of this thread.

It's one of the reasons why monopolies lead to such bad experiences and products because there's no competitive pressure to empathize with the customer.