Empathy at Scale: James Warren on the benefits of emotional archeology (pt 2)

Empathy at Scale: James Warren on Building SEEQ, Trust, and the Emotional Data Behind WorkThis week, we continue our conversation with James Warren, who left a successful corporate career and built Share More Stories (SMS) alongside an investor/partner through a decade-long, sometimes exhausting dual-company arrangement that required relinquishing control, building trust, and personal growth. James explains SMS’s evolution from storytelling workshops into SEEQ, a productized platform that captures employee and customer stories and analyzes emotions to reveal the “why” behind metrics like NPS and engagement scores. After launching in late 2022, the company faced market re-education in 2023, gained momentum in 2024, and is now scaling with added generative-AI capabilities such as SEEQ GPT for rapid, high-context analysis. He describes how leaders must model healthy vulnerability, and shares a case where employee and customer trust curves mirrored, linking employee experience to customer experience. The host closes by reflecting on SEEQ as infrastructure for measuring an organization’s emotional layer.00:00 Part Two Setup01:40 Arranged Marriage Partnership02:56 Letting Go Of Control06:25 Two Businesses One Gearshift07:43 Startup Hiring Build Mode08:53 Going Full Time SMS10:03 Being Early In Market11:05 SMS Origins And Pivots12:45 Workshops To Tech Breakthrough15:06 First Big Pitch And API Demo18:49 Launching SEEQ And Reeducation23:29 Empathy At Scale Value26:08 What Stories Reveal At Work29:11 Psychological Safety Signals30:05 Facilitating Live Storytelling30:49 The Magic Moment32:39 Leaders Embrace Vulnerability35:18 Asking Better Questions37:03 Selling Employee Experience Value40:41 Trust Links EX and CX45:01 Emotional Archeology47:06 SEEQ GPT Breakthrough53:56 Advice For Feeling Stuck57:26 Trust Reflection Outro