Empathy is a term well known to us business analysts and one which is sometimes regarded with suspicion. After all “being aware of and sharing another person's feelings, experiences, and emotions” (http://www.wordcentral.com/cgi-bin/student?book=Student&va=empathy) does sound a bit eerie I suppose. I think one of the issues with empathy, and emotional competence in general, is that it can be a bit elusive, as it’s all about sensing or feeling emotions and thoughts of another