The Power of Compassion
Why compassion? As an organizational consultant for the last 20 years and a former college professor of Organizational Behavior & Change, I’ve noticed a real lack of empathy and compassion in organizations, among leaders, and within teams.
When we define compassion, we are really talking about being aware of, responding to, and preventing the suffering of oneself and others. While this definition is quite straightforward, there are often connotations of weakness and being soft associated with the term/concept. We live in a society and operate in systems where we don’t want to appear as soft, weak or vulnerable. We are often asked to operate from this place of constructed identity where we wear a mask to show up and project an image that keeps us looking like we have things under control. Yet this keeps us disconnected from ourselves and others.
Compassion reflects our ability to connect from our heart center where we can feel and empathize with the experience of others. In our society and in our systems, we are rewarded for our intelligence, how we solve problems, and how we show up with the “appropriate” image that is a cultural fit. In this age of human-centered workplace design, we have a real opportunity to dig deeper and begin to empower each person to come from their full, authentic power.
Yet, my question, are these systems actually designed to allow for the full expression of one’s authentic power? Have we truly created cultures that allow us to take off our masks, to show up fully, to allow our emotions to have a place, and to be vulnerable with each other.
I’ve had a number of experiences recently that have demonstrated that there is a shift happening in organizational systems. I had a conversation with someone from Goldman Sachs who asked if I could help change agents and learning specialists in the company become more vulnerable to allow more vulnerability in facilitated spaces for the employees and leaders of Goldman Sachs. I was also asked by a police chief if I could help deepen the level of compassion among new officers and to hold space for conversations among officers and the community to humanize each other and develop a new relationship going forward.
These are examples of the organizational systems that are expressing a readiness for more compassion and connection in the workplace. These are also hyper masculine cultures where compassion has often been severely lacking.
In these conversations, I always speak of compassionate masculinity as I don’t think we can have compassion conversations with a subsequent masculinity conversation. All of us across the gender continuum are impacted by a masculine ideal - an ideal that doesn’t allow for full emotional expression nor a more heart-centered approach to connecting, decision making or leading.
We talk a lot about developing leaders who are more heart centered, but have we addressed the systems and cultures themselves. The fact that we need to keep justifying the ROI of heart-centered approaches and so many dollars are being spent on neuroscience to justify empathy and compassion, suggests that the masculine ideal is requiring the evidence.
Working at EILEEN FISHER, I was a co-author of an article focused on Nurturing the Soul of the Company at EILEEN FISHER. In writing this article, we asked the employees and leaders what most reflected the soul of the company. The response that spoke to me most was the fact that Eileen, the founder, operated from the deep intuitive knowing and knew instinctively the next right action for the company. She built a $425M company with double digit growth year after year, 4% turnover, and was named a Great Place to Work 10 years in a row. Success from a feminine energied company that valued empathy and compassion in the workplace. The leadership model was based on compassion and embodiment yet the system and culture also allowed for this type of expression without apology.
Where do we go from here? There are a lot of men (and women) who are working with men on an individual level to work with their masculinity work. There are a lot of women (and men) supporting women in their masculinity work. There are a lot of individuals that don’t identify as either male or female who have been in a journey of exploring their masculine and feminine.
Yet, we don’t talk enough about the systems that are built on a masculine model. We talk about patriarchy and that feels like a different conversation that we’ve been having for years. I take a different approach, I use the patriarchal language less as I think it hasn’t moved the envelope as far as it needs to move. I believe we need to explore this from an innovation standpoint. We need to speak to men and those at the root of the power centers from language that will speak to them rather than language that feels forced upon. This is where compassion comes in by honoring each of our journeys and creating change from an invitation.
We’re in an age where compassion is needed more than ever and the way we access compassion is through the feminine. The feminine reflects healing versus the masculine way of fixing. When we talk about fixing, we come from a place of problems that need to be fixed. When we talk about healing, we come from a place of wounds that need healing and nurturing. The world as we know it isn’t broken as much as it is deeply wounded.
As the systems around us continue to crumble, we can ether see problems that need to be fixed or wounds that need to be healed. And many people are in a place of confusion and feeling lost, this is where compassion comes in rather than rightness and righteousness, wokeness and judgment. Compassion is the antidote to judgment where we have a choice - fear or love, scarcity or abundance, fixing or healing. Compassion is what is most needed now more than anything.