Making Compassion Work
Compassion is for the weak. Old school management expects results at all costs. No excuses.
“I know it’s tough. That’s why they call it work. Just get it done. Now get out of my office!”
Old school managers get opportunities, promotions, and pay raises. Why shouldn’t they? They deliver results.
Results validate your worth,
more results – more worth.
Problem:
Compassion validates weakness. Weakness jeopardizes results. People who get the job done don’t need compassion they need opportunities.
Extending compassion makes you feel strong, even superior. Receiving compassion, on the other hand, suggests frailty. Strong people do whatever it takes. But, weak people need compassion.
Professionals don’t falter, struggle, or suffer. They deliver. Pros don’t need you. You need them.
Compassion:
The context of compassion is pain. Literally, compassion means to suffer with.
Compassion isn’t:
- Explaining away. “It’s not that bad.”
- Saying you caused this. “It’s your fault.” (Which is usually true.)
- Affirming another’s sense of helplessness. “It’s not your fault.”
- Lowering standards. “It’s just too hard.”
No room for compassion means no room for relationship.
Compassion is:
- Giving a sense of “with” while expecting performance.
- Saying, “You don’t seem like yourself today,” and listening.
- Not solving for. The need to solve fractures authentic relationships. Fixers are frustrated.
- Strengthening for the journey rather than validating low performance.
- Giving to and expecting from.
You’re out of business if you don’t deliver results.
Old school managers resort to management by decree.
“Just get it done!”
Compassion isn’t an excuse to not get it done.
Compassion is creating a “culture of with”
that enables extraordinary results.
How does compassion fit into organizational life?
How can leaders extend compassion and expect results at the same time?
Dan: In addition to “suffering with”, according to some dictionaries compassion also means that you understand the other person and have a desire to relieve their suffering. Therefore, in my book if you have true compassion, you can indeed use that empathy to enable extraordinary results. It’s not about “just getting it done”, it’s about creating an environment where you can get it done and then be ready and willing to take on the next challenge. (Because there will be a next one!)
You know by now what that translates to in my book: Always Care! 🙂
Stay safe,
Paul
Thanks Paul,
You leave us two universally applicable words. I feel their challenge and believe in their truth.
I’m with you on this Dan, though I must confess to needing a real focus to follow the trail. This is a very common area of personal conflict for leaders, and I expect almost all the leadership freak family :).
Firm but fair, keeping personality out and focusing onthe role or task at hand, listening, finding agreement and ensuring the objectives are clear and achievable – can all be done with as all and a shared responsibility – meaning this is the part ill play and this is the part I expect you to play,I’ll keep my part of the covenant and I trust you’ll keep yours.
Great quest to pose Dan
Richard
Thanks Richard,
As I read your comment I thought, Clarity is compassionate. I wish I would have added that sooner. Thanks for making me think.
Well anyone know the 12 Steps are the only therapy if one wants to call them that written in past tense???
The exact actions that enabled the first 100 drunks to recover from a chronic, terminal, fatal and progressive disease. No theory, factual actions.
Why y’all think I share about the 12 Steps with such directness, certainty? Been working for me for over 29 years.
Cause I am a cocky jerk??? Lol ok don’t answer that!!!
Anyways in b-ness I see Bob Chapman at Barry Wehmiller in a similar light.
Based on his and their results I would look to him and them to answer the, “how to handle compassion question”?
He and they get the results I want so why waste time doing anything but what they think, feel and do?
Try being a human being, not a human doing.
SP back to my present
Thanks Scott,
“Human being not human doing” I’m not sure where that came from but it’s a mouth full. 🙂
Compassion is in a sense empathy in action, much as mercy is grace in action. About 2000 years ago, the apostle Paul wrote “Rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep”.
Compassion is the mom that forces her child to pick up toys, but understands that the task of cleaning an entire room is almost paralyzing and monumentally huge to a 3 year old, so rather than yell at the crying child, calms him/her and offers to help and says where to put each object (but does not do the job in his/her place).
Compassion includes asking people to dig deep and produce, but not at all costs, and setting an example in working with them to achieve results.
Compassion is knowing about the lives of people we work with, and really caring about them – without interfering or invading their personal space. It is about really caring whether their job allows them to flourish and grow. It is about being passionate about the mission of the organization you both participate in – and infecting others with that passion. It is about learning to understand why the other person behaves and thinks as he/she does, and learning from them. It is about walking a mile in their shoes, then another, and another.
Compassion is not pity. Pity approaches from the higher level, looks down on the lower one. Compassion involves being at the same level as the person who is the object of the compassion, sharing life experiences.
Compassion in a leader breeds loyalty and deep engagement from followers.
Compassion blurs the manager/worker status line – in a good way.
Compassion requires other-centered thinking.
Compassion is not a sign of weakness, but of the leader being very confident in knowing who he/she is, and not caring about preserving status, but about organizational success.
Compassion may require tough love, like the aforementioned mom who obliges the crying child to pick up the toys before offering to help, and maintains the pressure while helping.
Compassion is a natural outgrowth of wholesome love. It is good.
Thank you, Dan, for bringing up the subject. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it addressed in leadership books or articles before.
Thanks Marc,
I get the feeling you should have written my post.
One of my favorite insights you give is, “Compassion is not pity.” I think the idea that compassion is pity is one reason compassion has a bad rap.
Most all your post bring up words that have a bad rap. I always enjoy reading them. ;o)
How does compassion fit into organizational life?
Compassion fits into an organization because it affirms that reality and frailty that we all are subject to. Compassion is equal opportunity. It can be dispensed/embraced at all levels of the organization from the parking lot attendant to the VP. It supports and encourages the loyalty of the team by creating a framework for flexibility and sensitivity. Compassion supports the team concept in that we are only as strong as the weakest among us and so when and where necessary the team rallies, reconfigures, makes adjustment so that the goals and the objectives of the organization advance.
How can leaders extend compassion and expect results at the same time?
No doubt that compassion can be a double edged sword. As with any act of kindness it can be taken advantage of, manipulated, seen as weakness/favortism by others. There is, and always will be a bottom line. There is, and always will be an expected outcome result. Leaders who extend compassion also have to weigh the impact of how it is extended on the organizations ability to advance. This might call for some creativity but it can be done. One of the challenges about being compassionate in this setting is that what ever grace you are extending to an individual you may not want to be publicized/advertised to the group at large. Sensitivty to privacy or confidentiality may make it difficult to be compassionate without engaging others. Being open and honest with the team member about what can be done and what will be expected is critical. The other person understanding that whatever allowances are made are finite, have an expiration date, are not a long term solution but a short term intervention. Be clear and honest about these things helps the person understand that they are still accountable and expected to produce even if the output it modified. Continuing to check the pulse and the production will help the leader determine if the results are at risk.
Thanks Enna,
YOu’re a compassion expert. I particularly like the idea of compassion as intervention. The purpose of compassion isn’t validating failure, it’s enabling success. That’s why compassion is an intervention. Thanks for the great thoughts
Compassion is creating a “culture of with”
that enables extraordinary results.
I love this because it takes a belief of our Hospital (a Rehabilitation Hospital) and puts it in terms we can use in our Foundation.
Thanks Katie,
I hadn’t thought about the broader context of health care. Thanks for extending the application of these ideas.
With compassion there is an immediate power differential. Old schoolers’ take advantage OF it (short sighted and short term thinking) to the detriment of themselves, others, and the organization in the long term, ignoring the fact that they too will need compassionate connection sooner or later.
In faux ‘walking in others’ shoes’ we need compassion, empathy, really just being ‘human’ as SP noted…1) because we will want others to walk in our shoes sometime too and 2) because as much as we do empathize and may have been in similar situations, we don’t truly know the depth of the challenges others face, so respect their space.
What a responsibility and honor it is to show compassion well. That someone trusts you that much, wow!
Thanks Doc,
Your comment elevates my spirit… those last lines “responsibility and honor” open an entirely new way of thinking about compassion. Man that’s powerful.
Well said Doc – like Dan – I love your finish ( in a good way)!
Only, and only if, an individual get’s over the compulsion of being compassionate towards herself, instead of the other.
The flight towards conscious growth happens on two wings:
– Compassion for the other and
– Contentment for self
Normally (abnormally), in most, the direction is reversed. You are contented to see the other suffering and going through pain and make a lot of fuss for the promotion or raise denied to you.
No amount of work with compassion will help unless you become aware of this mix up and get ready to reverse it.
I also see many naive attempt to teach / train people to be compassionate. It’s like sticking a beautiful flower to the stem of a plan with an adhesive. Get out of this myth and get in touch with the innate compassion of an enabler (if you are one) to walk along painstakingly with other to enable awakening of the compassion, she is born with.
One of the most successful things I did in my first manager role was to ask at the start of the day how my colleagues were, not what they were going to do. The next step was to step into the frontline firing line when they needed me, or even when they didn’t, to make sure I knew what they were feeling and experiencing as a result of what I was asking them to do. Only by doing that could I make it seem like a team effort, and understand where they were coming from when they were struggling.
I did this because my own experience of management was the ‘get on with it’ mode which clashed with my tendency to ask ‘why’ and ‘what if’ when work came my way. As a result, I was valued as someone with an intellect, but devalued as someone who delivered.
The hard part for me was when people I had connected with and supported then stepped out of line, once in a severe way, stepping back to manager role was not always easy.
Something that I’ve struggled with from a personal and professional perspective and if old habits allow, would continue to struggle with today. Love the quote at the end of your article. For me, that says it all, to allow compassion, or as I like to say, “be human” and use that compassion to develop extraordinary results!
In my opinion, this subject in not included enough in leadership development as it should. It could be the number one strength in a leader’s toolbox to lead her/his team by showing your humanity while expecting continued positive results.
Heavens to murgatroid! This is the just the validation i have been looking for. I have been on multiple discussions on LinkedIn, trying to convey this exact thing to Project Managers and Leaders in general. I have developed a theorem regarding the base qualities that define what a Leader is:
Competence x Confidence x Character x Compassion ==> Charisma
Where Charisma is the motive force of Leadership. By itself it does not motivate, it is just the Potential Motivation that a Leader may employ to inspire and influence people. Of the four factors, Compassion is the single most important trait that defines the difference between a Leader and a Tyrant.
Thanks for the insight.
Jeff Porterfield
“No room for compassion means no room for relationship.” EXACTLY! I’ve suffered from managers who feel they are doing the right thing by building relationships out of fear (or rather not building a relationship). Most managers receive little or no support and rarely have mentors they can trust. This “old school” management style has no vision of what can be.
A culture of building with…creates a stronger team and leadership from all team members and succeed in ways that may not have been thought of by just one person.
Keep plugging away with your philosophy so that we can change the environment of leadership for all corporations.
Sue Bock
couragetoadventure.com