Greetings from Vancouver, where the bulbs are beginning to burst, Spring is here!

I’ve been reflecting recently on the idea of compassion and the ‘bottom line.’ The responses I see fairly often about compassion and business is that kind of quizzical look from your dog when s/he turn’s their head slightly trying to work out what you’re doing. Compassion in business is not only seen as weird, but the whole concept is seen as rather alien.

I think this is likely related to how ‘compassion’ is defined. Compassion as pity, is not good for business. In fact, pity is not good for much, it’s hierarchical and subjects people to disempowerment. Compassion, in it’s strictest sense, is about putting my self in the shoes of the other person, and not doing anything that might hurt that person. And that leads to some very interesting perspectives that are very much about business and especially leadership. So, for example, if I know that someone is desperately unhappy in their job, and is not being productive, not performing at the best of their abilities, is it more compassionate to keep them employed in the organization, or is it more compassionate to support their efforts to find employment elsewhere, even to the point of firing them? Pity would support the former, compassion is about the latter.

In a phone conversation with a friend and sometime colleague yesterday talking about how compassion has improved their workplace, he explained that their research shows that their initiatives around compassion saved the organization about $1 million dollars over the last five years. They saw dramatic decreases in sick days, in tardiness, in losing good people because of bad relationships, and in short term disability costs. I asked him how that had happened. He said, first of all they framed the work under the auspices of compassion and forgiveness, and not for example conflict resolution. Both compassion and forgiveness require work on my part in order to succeed; often conflict resolution is seen as something others have to do. Next it was about the distinction between a team and a group of people who work together on projects. Teams meet regularly and hold each other accountable. It was also about clear job descriptions; team members know what their job is, and how it fits into the bigger picture. And it was about the good of the work. He said that in his organization people often fell back on “friendship”, thinking that although person ‘x’ was not pulling their weight, because of a ‘friendship’ they didn’t receive feedback. What was interesting was that true friendship is actually about reciprocal honesty, feedback and accountability. If I’m not pulling my weight, it is important that you let me know that, and then listen to my story about it with compassion. Perhaps there’s something going on in my life that is precluding me from pulling my weight. And if you cut me some slack for this short time, I will be able to do the same for you soon enough, because, compassion teaches us that we all have bad days.

And then, this important part of the equation, forgiveness. If we have been reciprocally honest and accountable with each other, then we are more likely to be able to forgive each other and move on. It’s the unclear and then unmet expectations, the triangulation of talking about each other and not to each other, and the long silences where we expect people to “get our point” that insidiously cause long term pain that manifests in sickness, tardiness, bad relationships and short term disability costs.

May this week find each of us adding to the bottom line by living and working more compassionately.

The 12 Days of Compassion continue here in Metro Vancouver, and this has presented me with some great opportunities to witness leadership on a daily basis. For example, the patient and diligent work of one of the members of the organizing team. An engineer by trade, his amazing skill of identifying the constituent parts of a situation and then mapping out the steps to mitigate, alleviate or ‘fix’ problems, is brilliant to behold. Another person, a quiet and soft spoken soul, who is so well respected and  connected in the communities that a simple call or email from her gets doors opened immediately. She is a human and far more gracious ‘Linked In’. I’ve also noticed the leadership emerging in young people. For example, I was speaking with a young man last evening, and as I told him how much I’d enjoyed working with him and his colleagues, I said, ‘you know, every encounter I’ve had here has been great, every person here was wonderful.” He said, “I wonder how much that has to do your attitude as well.” I thought, wise words, it is all about reciprocity.

And then today, a follow up conversation with a business leader who is interested learning more about compassion and the impact it has in the working parts of our lives. She said; “compassion to me is 80% of people working in work they love.” What a great image! She continued, “you know if you’re not happy in your work, you’re not going to be able to do much more than scrape together stuff for yourself. If you are happy in your work, you’re going to be more interested in going outside of yourself.” I was reflecting on the CEOs with whom I’ve been working this week, and how each of them was in fact doing what they were called to do. They had a flow, they had a sense of strength and courage about them, in  large part, I suggest because they were doing what they were called to do. Working in work they love.

So, for us as leaders in organizations, especially those of us fortunate enough to be doing what we love to do on a daily basis; perhaps we might ask ourselves, how can I facilitate opportunities for the people in this organization, or in this department to work at what they love? How can I support the creation of places where others experience the flow the strength and courage that I get every day working at what I love. And if you are reading this, and thinking to yourself, “I don’t actually love the work I do, I’d rather be doing something else.” That may be a very important exploration for you to go on, both for you and for the organization and team. In fact it may be the most compassionate thing you could do for yourself.

  
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Good morning from a sunny Vancouver. I’ve been thinking about ‘fairness’ recently, and have been reminded of an important lesson I learned from a few years ago.

When we talk about ‘fairness’ we need to be sure about what we mean, and how the word is understood by others. There are two ways of defining “fair” and it is likely useful for each of us to recognize which is our default understanding. So let’s imagine that we have a pie, and there are 9 people who want a piece. How do we divide it ‘fairly’? Think for a moment, how would you divide it?

For many of us, we’ll default to cutting smaller pieces so that all 9 get ‘something’.

For others of us, we’ll wonder is there some criteria by which we might distribute various pieces to some, but not necessarily all 9 people. So for example, we might say the people who made the pie get served first, or the people who were first in line, or the people who worked hardest today, or the people who are hungriest.

When you distribute the pie ‘fairly’, make sure that everyone understands the definition of fairness you used.

And so this week, may each of us find moments of clarity both as distributers and receivers of pies.

And a wonderful Easter and Passover to us all…

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?