My evenings this week and next are largely booked with events surrounding the visit of internationally known author and convener of the Charter for Compassion (www.charterforcompassion.org). I am having a lot of fun, and it is great to connect with people from across the region and across various sectors of our community, including business leaders, politicians, academics, religious leaders, social entrepreneurs and the ever present ‘movers and shakers’.

What struck me for our purposes last evening during one of Karen’s speeches was how surprised she has been by business leaders to the Charter. She told a story of one business person in Pakistan who has done amazing work in enhancing compassion in the workplace and in society generally. I was also reminded of the work of the Global Alliance on Banking with Values (www.gabv.org) who have been making very healthy returns by all metrics by working through what some might call “soft” values like respect, dignity and environmental sustainability.

As I’ve been reflecting on this, I’m less surprised than Karen. As business leaders we recognize that the planet is exponentially smaller than it was even a generation ago. We are far closer to a global village than perhaps Marshall McLuhan even imagined.  The inextricable links in our financial system are but one aspect of this emerging village. And what did our ancestors discover was key to surviving a shrinking world? Well, in the shrinking world, we are prone to what has been called a cycle of violence. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard)  It looks like this, if I cause you some pain, then you’ll want to cause me some pain, and so we go round and round; you punch me, I punch you back, so you have to punch me, so I have to punch you back, so you then kick me thinking that will fix the problem, but no, I kick you harder, and to teach you a lesson, I also push you down and so you need to kick, push and then throw a bag over me… you see how this works. This kind of behavior, inevitably leads to catastrophe. And so our ancestors began to work out that the way out of this catastrophic cycle was collaboration, compassion, and forgiveness. And the emerging global village is not different.

So this week, think about a workmate, a colleague, a friend, or a family member with whom you have had a long standing conflict or point of friction. What could you change in your behavior that would change things for the better? How could you rethinking collaboration, compassion and forgiveness might actually make a difference in your life and theirs?