In their book, Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power That Elevates People and Organizations, Monica C Worline and Jane E Dutton say that “compassion at work is neither a luxury nor an ideal. Organizations cannot afford the hidden costs to human capability that come from perpetuating suffering. In desperate need of new sources of adaptability, collaboration, innovation, quality, and engagement, workplaces must turn toward making compassion at work a reality.”* However, it should be kept in mind that there is no shortcut to building a compassionate culture and that the onus is on the leadership.
Over the years, I have had the good fortune of interacting with leaders, organizations, and individuals at various stages of their respective careers. Strangely, I have found a common answer to the question on compassion, ‘I/ We are a compassionate person/organization’. If we treat this as the gospel truth, what then is the need to even discuss compassion at the workplace and/or developing a compassionate workplace?
It all begins with the definition and perception of the word compassion. The origin of the word is from Latin and means ‘co-suffering’. A more modern definition from the Cambridge English Dictionary describes it as a ‘strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others and a wish to help them’. It is very evident that in both the origin and present definition there is sufficient similarity and dissimilarity. This is exactly the point at which the dissimilarity originates within individuals and organizations.
It is then technically correct that all human beings ‘feel’ the suffering of others. The more humane ones feel sympathy, the sadists find pleasure (in the suffering of others). Similarly, organizations ‘feel’ the pain of their employees and stakeholders. The problem then is in the second half of the definition—the desire to help or suffer with them. Many that I have engaged with treat the question of helping others as a good desire but one that is not easily actionable. I have heard ‘fund crunch’, ‘resource crunch’, ‘time crunch’ and many other crunches as reasons for ‘not’ fulfilling the desire to help a sufferer.
This story is from the November - December 2018 edition of The Smart Manager.
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This story is from the November - December 2018 edition of The Smart Manager.
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