Compassion-One of Our Best Business Tools.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution (likely earlier), societies have treated business and work as something separate from our humanity and our compassion. We tend to think as if we can compartmentalize and keep various parts of our lives separate. In practice, this is not the case at all. While many of us are good at masking personal suffering in the context of our work, it’s still there, behind the scenes. It makes us less productive, less creative and possibly keeping us from finding meaning in our work and lives.
In this important episode, I talk with one of the world’s top researchers on compassion in organizations and the workplace, Monica Worline Ph.D.
During the conversation, you will learn why it’s so important and how entrepreneurs and organizations can build a more meaningful business by creating a culture of compassion.
We discuss the four keys to awakening compassion in our work.
The role of recognizing suffering as one of the keys to being compassionate.
The role of leadership in creating a culture of recognizing suffering even in tiny businesses and startups.
Pitfalls and common mistakes that leaders make when trying to awaken compassion at work.
We talk about Monica Worline’s Ph.D. new book, co-authored with researcher Jane Dutton; Awakening Compassion At Work “The quiet power that elevates people and organizations”
About the book
Caring Is a Competitive Advantage
Suffering in the workplace can rob our colleagues and coworkers of humanity, dignity, and motivation and is an unrecognized and costly drain on organizational potential. Marshaling evidence from two decades of field research, scholars and consultants Monica Worline and Jane Dutton show that alleviating such suffering confers measurable competitive advantages in areas like innovation, collaboration, service quality, and talent attraction and retention. They outline four steps for meeting suffering with compassion and show how to build a capacity for compassion into the structures and practices of an organization—because ultimately, as they write, “Compassion is an irreplaceable dimension of excellence for any organization that wants to make the most of its human capabilities.”
Book link to Amazon: Awakening Compassion at Work
Links Mentioned on this episode:
awakeningcompassionatwork.com — book website; downloadable chapter; 100 Days of Awakening Compassion and more content coming soon
compassionlab.com — research site; downloadable papers for those who want ...
