Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast Today. I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: have Monica Wharlin and Jane Dunnan on the podcast, co
Speaker 1: authors of the new book Awakening Compassion at Work, The
Speaker 1: Quiet Power that Elevates people and organizations. Monica is CEO
Speaker 1: of Enlive and Work. She's a research scientist at Stanford
Speaker 1: University Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and
Speaker 1: executive director of Compassion Lab. Jane is the Robert Distinguished
Speaker 1: University Professor of Business Administration and Psychology and co founder
Speaker 1: of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of
Speaker 1: Michigan's Raw School of Business. She's also a founding member
Speaker 1: of Compassion Lab. Thank you so much for being on
Speaker 1: the show today. Guys, thank you. We're thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm really thrilled too. Absolutely love your work and your book,
Speaker 1: and I know we have lots could chat about. It
Speaker 1: seems like a central thread we're running through a lot
Speaker 1: of the work is how businesses have become dehumanized and impersonal.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes, that's right. One of the things
Speaker 1: that we seem as technology takes over more and more
Speaker 1: of our work spaces and as we get into work
Speaker 1: environments where there's an expectation that people will be always
Speaker 1: available and always on that that is driving out some
Speaker 1: of the human connection of work, and that's an important
Speaker 1: dynamic that we want to pay attention to. Absolutely. And
Speaker 1: you know, this idea of infusing humanity into workplace seems
Speaker 1: like part of purcel to that is compassion, right, You
Speaker 1: really don't have humanity without compassion. And I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you could talk about how you define compassion and caring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think we define it a little bit differently
Speaker 1: than most psychologists, where psychologists talk about compassion as an emotion,
Speaker 1: whereas we see it a little bit more as a process.
Speaker 1: This comes from our background as organizational researchers, where we're
Speaker 1: interested in how the context affects a process. So we
Speaker 1: define the compassion as a process that involves noticing human suffering,
Speaker 1: making sense of human suffering, feeling human suffering, and responding
Speaker 1: to human suffering. Is that four things? Yes? So it's
Speaker 1: a four part human process. And if you just want
Speaker 1: it in for words, we use noticing, interpreting, feeling, and acting. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: would it be okay if we kind of unpacked each
Speaker 1: one a little bit more in depth? Great, let's start
Speaker 1: with noticing. What does that mean? Jane loves to talk
Speaker 1: about noticing, so I'll let her pick up on my thread.
Speaker 1: But that was very astute of you to notice that
Speaker 1: noticing relates to what psychologists would call the attentional mechanism
Speaker 1: of compassion. That we can only respond to and alleviate
Speaker 1: suffering that we pay attention to. And this is really
Speaker 1: important in work organizations because so much of the professional
Speaker 1: norms and demanding culture of work organizations can drive out
Speaker 1: our capacity to notice the human state of other people.
Speaker 1: So a lot of compassion can be blocked in organizations
Speaker 1: simply by virtue of the fact that we try to
Speaker 1: hide our suffering or we don't disclose it for fear
Speaker 1: of not looking professional. So noticing suffering is actually a
Speaker 1: huge part of awakening compassion and organizations. Is it a
Speaker 1: big impediment to that, the fact that we're always so
Speaker 1: distracted by our own internal needs and things that it
Speaker 1: just like distracts us from like working outward. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's that we're distracted by our own internal needs,
Speaker 1: but we're also distracted by the fact that we're being
Speaker 1: always asked to do more with less. So the increased
Speaker 1: amount of pressure to perform tasks again, as Monica suggested
Speaker 1: almost twenty four to seven, means we have very little
Speaker 1: resources attentional and otherwise to attend to other people's conditioned
Speaker 1: let alone they're suffering. Do you think of even foundational
Speaker 1: social psychology studies like the Good Samaritan studies show that
Speaker 1: attentional load and busyness takes away our capacity to notice
Speaker 1: other people who might need our help or need our compassion.
Speaker 1: So if you layer onto that, really the workplace demands
Speaker 1: and the professional norms and the distractions of technology, which
Speaker 1: weren't even available when studies like the Good Samaritan study
Speaker 1: were being run, you can see how much load is
Speaker 1: on our attention. I'll also add that two features of
Speaker 1: work these days make it really difficult for us to
Speaker 1: sense suffering of other people. One is the fact that
Speaker 1: so much of work is distributed, and it's really sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't have face to face contact with other people,
Speaker 1: and so so much of discerning suffering or sensing or
Speaker 1: noticing suffering comes from nonverbals, which are facial displays and
Speaker 1: those kinds of things that make it difficult for us
Speaker 1: to sense suffering. Also the fact that more and more
Speaker 1: work is being done by teams that have relatively short lives,
Speaker 1: so you don't know people that well, you have to
Speaker 1: get together do work fastened, then the tea disbands. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: we notice suffering because people are acting differently than they
Speaker 1: normally act, and so that sort of sometimes invites people
Speaker 1: to inquire how people are doing. But if we don't
Speaker 1: know people well and we're constantly being put into new
Speaker 1: situations with new work colleagues, that can also make noticing
Speaker 1: very difficult. Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: And I see it intimately tied with interpreting, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of how we interpret things affect what we notice
Speaker 1: interprets what we're going to interpret. Obviously it's a cycle
Speaker 1: both of them. Yes, and definitely there's the reciprocal relationship.
Speaker 1: There the what we notice we have to interpret somehow,
Speaker 1: And if we interpret what we notice as deserving of
Speaker 1: our empathy or a space where we want to connect
Speaker 1: and inquire more, then we're likely to ask questions or
Speaker 1: behave toward other people in a way that invites them
Speaker 1: to disclose more of what's happening. So we can use
Speaker 1: our capacity to notice and make sense of what's going
Speaker 1: on with other people to actually heighten and amplify the
Speaker 1: attention that we're giving to them and how much people
Speaker 1: are feel safe and willing to disclose suffering in the
Speaker 1: work environment. And in fact, interpreting is so important that
Speaker 1: we see it as really in mutual relationship with every
Speaker 1: step of the process. Oh nice, it's like a thread, yes,
Speaker 1: And I'll just say that. I'll add that interpreting doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in a vacuum. And workplaces with the kinds of cultures,
Speaker 1: differences in organizational cultures, and in particular the kinds of
Speaker 1: shared values or beliefs that an organization has can infuse
Speaker 1: our interpretations of another person's potential suffering, you know, with
Speaker 1: really different ways of labeling and understand it. So can
Speaker 1: I give you an example, Oh, yeah, of course. So
Speaker 1: an example would be we did a study of actually
Speaker 1: faculty and when Hurricane Sandy hit New York, New Jersey
Speaker 1: several years ago. We're really interested in how faculty figured
Speaker 1: out if students were suffering or not and what they
Speaker 1: had to do. And in some universities, in response to this,
Speaker 1: you know, again, the same external event or a hurricane,
Speaker 1: they put faculty on alert to say something like watch out,
Speaker 1: students may take advantage of this hurricane. Basically you better
Speaker 1: doubt whether or not students could be suffering. In other universities,
Speaker 1: the messages out from the deans were things like, give
Speaker 1: students totally the benefit of the doubt. We won't know
Speaker 1: what's happening with them or with their families, and you
Speaker 1: should extend all possible resources to those students. So again,
Speaker 1: the cultural, the shared beliefs of the the school or
Speaker 1: the university, as communicated through the leaders, predisposed or primed
Speaker 1: faculty to have certain kinds of interpretations of the student circumstances,
Speaker 1: in one case making suffering kind of normal and expected
Speaker 1: and calling forth more compassionate responses, and the other cases
Speaker 1: making the student's first impression of a student asking for
Speaker 1: time office one of well, maybe they're trying to take
Speaker 1: advantage of us. So that's an example of how the
Speaker 1: organizational conducts can shape interpretations of even the same kind
Speaker 1: of event that's potentially affecting the humans who are are
Speaker 1: in that organization. Wow, that was like the perfect example. Well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of shocking, you know too. I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: we actually studied six different universities, and the variability and
Speaker 1: how the organizations were equipping faculty to prepare themselves for
Speaker 1: what unfold with the students and their colleagues suffering was
Speaker 1: so starkly different. And even way back when we were
Speaker 1: first starting this line of research and we were studying
Speaker 1: organizational responses to the terrorist attacks of September eleventh, we
Speaker 1: saw real variability in the organization about the messages about
Speaker 1: whether this tragedy was relevant to the work environment or not,
Speaker 1: and whether it was legitimate to express compassion for the
Speaker 1: suffering in the work environment or not. And that is
Speaker 1: another thing that drew our attention to how much conditions
Speaker 1: in the culture, the shared belief systems, and the leadership
Speaker 1: messages could change the whole environment for the expression of compassion.
Speaker 1: Do you want more examples? We could go on in
Speaker 1: a world the thing. Let's save it for when we
Speaker 1: actually talk about the second part of your book, or
Speaker 1: I just want to get the definitions out of the
Speaker 1: way right now, and I feel like that'll be another discussion,
Speaker 1: as were the elements of organizations. But okay, let's talk
Speaker 1: about feeling. Why does it matter to feel? Spock would
Speaker 1: not agree with you. You'd say it gets in the way,
Speaker 1: gets in the way, right. Well, what we know from
Speaker 1: a lot of the interpretation research actually is that the
Speaker 1: kinds of explanations or appraisals that we're making would tip
Speaker 1: us toward feeling more empathy for another person who is suffering,
Speaker 1: or for feeling indifferent or even taking some amount of
Speaker 1: pleasure in the fact that other people are in pain.
Speaker 1: And so like with the range of interpretations in an organization,
Speaker 1: there's also a range of emotional responses to other people
Speaker 1: suffering in that organization. And when the feelings are feelings
Speaker 1: of empower concern, we know that that feeling triggers almost automatically,
Speaker 1: a desire to help, a desire to alleviate the suffering
Speaker 1: in some way, a desire to go toward the person
Speaker 1: who's in pain. But when the feelings are of indifference
Speaker 1: toward others who are suffering, then the action is likely
Speaker 1: to be null, right, very little movement toward the people
Speaker 1: who are suffering. There's very little that follows on noticing
Speaker 1: that someone's in pain. And when our organizations are toxic,
Speaker 1: or maybe they're very highly competitive, and they set us
Speaker 1: up to really experience that if someone else is losing,
Speaker 1: it means that I have a capacity to win. Then
Speaker 1: when we notice that other people are suffering in those conditions,
Speaker 1: we may actually close in for the kill, right, We
Speaker 1: may exacerbate the suffering or take pleasure in the fact
Speaker 1: that someone else is doing badly because it gives us
Speaker 1: the opportunity to step forward and shine. And so we
Speaker 1: really see that the feeling that follows from noticing and
Speaker 1: interpreting suffering is going to make a huge difference for
Speaker 1: the action repertoire that comes next. Oh, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I agree with a lot of that. I wonder is
Speaker 1: movement always a good thing? What do you think of
Speaker 1: Paul Bloom's argument that empathy doesn't always really help the
Speaker 1: person the most what they really need, Although maybe you
Speaker 1: differentially like he different sihaps between empathy and compassion it
Speaker 1: sounds like you're defining compassion more than just effective empathy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I remember you're asking us to break our definition
Speaker 1: from four parts into the parts and talk about the parts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we definitely see that there's a role for empathic
Speaker 1: concern as a part of the compassion process. But where
Speaker 1: you know, the big definition is of compassion. And the
Speaker 1: way I understand Paul's argument is that empathy is highly
Speaker 1: sensitive to cues in the outer environment. It's highly sensitive
Speaker 1: to our inner perceived capacity in the moment. Right. So
Speaker 1: if I notice that you don't look quite so well today, Scott,
Speaker 1: but I don't feel that. If I notice that you
Speaker 1: look great today, but if I don't feel like I
Speaker 1: have the capacity to do anything for you, then I
Speaker 1: can close down my empathy really quickly based on that
Speaker 1: internal sense of my own capacity. Right. And so Paul's
Speaker 1: argument is that if we want to build a compassionate
Speaker 1: society and empathy is our only vehicle and it's so
Speaker 1: subject to all of these social and personal costs, then
Speaker 1: it's not reliable enough to get us there. So we
Speaker 1: need to make a case for compassion where it's a
Speaker 1: certain kind of empathic concern that's a part of the
Speaker 1: compassion process, right, And that the other thing about empathy
Speaker 1: research that I find so interesting right now is that
Speaker 1: there's a really wonderful paper saying when we say empathy,
Speaker 1: we mean at least eight different things, Okay, And we
Speaker 1: should get to be more careful as researchers about what
Speaker 1: part of empathic something or other we're talking about in
Speaker 1: order to explain what we're trying to explain. So we
Speaker 1: try to be careful to call on the empathic concern
Speaker 1: for another person as our feeling mechanism in our definition
Speaker 1: of compassion. And that's totally fair. So let's move on
Speaker 1: to acting. All this is well and good, but if
Speaker 1: you just daydream about wanting to help people, maybe that's
Speaker 1: not optimal. Yeah, I think that obviously the phase of
Speaker 1: acting is really important. And I think in our work,
Speaker 1: not all action is the same in terms of of
Speaker 1: how effective or ineffective it is in alleviating suffering. And
Speaker 1: so I think one of the things we've tried to
Speaker 1: do is have a more finely greened understanding of action
Speaker 1: in relationship to someone's suffering. So we've talked about some
Speaker 1: actions as varying in terms of the magnitude of the action,
Speaker 1: how quickly the action is omitted, whether or not the
Speaker 1: action is customized to the particular needs of the individual.
Speaker 1: So even though we have this one phase called action, again,
Speaker 1: our purpose in the book and other research is for
Speaker 1: us to be a little bit more discerning about what
Speaker 1: kinds of actions matter, and that sometimes in action can
Speaker 1: be as helpful as action in alleviating suffering. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: can you give me an example of that? Okay. So,
Speaker 1: one instance where a kind of form of inaction or
Speaker 1: a redirection of action would have considerably increased the competence
Speaker 1: of comp is in a study of responses to Hurricane Katrina,
Speaker 1: where there's an initial outpouring from the whole world of
Speaker 1: wanting to aid the people of New Orleans, and as
Speaker 1: part of that outpouring, people just started sending stuff. Schools
Speaker 1: got truckloads of backpacks, and they didn't have anywhere to
Speaker 1: store the backpacks, they didn't know what was in the backpacks,
Speaker 1: they didn't know if they were safe to distribute, they
Speaker 1: didn't have any mechanism for distributing them, and they just
Speaker 1: kept coming and coming and coming. And one of our
Speaker 1: respondents in the study actually said, first, I felt like
Speaker 1: we were drowning in the floodwaters and now I feel
Speaker 1: like we're drowning in the stuff. So it was the
Speaker 1: intention was to help, the action was an attempt to help,
Speaker 1: but the effect of the action was actually to exacerbate
Speaker 1: the suffering in an unexpected way. That's a great example
Speaker 1: example would be maybe again one of us, one that's
Speaker 1: close at home, being academics working in university with lots
Speaker 1: of students. I'm not sure where you are, but where
Speaker 1: we are there's been just a huge increase in the
Speaker 1: amount of depression and anxiety experienced by students here a
Speaker 1: lot probably like where you are. These students are coming
Speaker 1: from very different cultural traditions where the meaning of mental
Speaker 1: health issues is really different. So again thinking about when
Speaker 1: is in action actually the appropriate or most helpful response
Speaker 1: to students. We have found that some students from some
Speaker 1: cultural traditions, simply naming that is this is depression is
Speaker 1: actually really helpful without any additional need for therapy, without
Speaker 1: any additional need for any sort of chemical help or
Speaker 1: drugs in other kinds. For students, you know, in other
Speaker 1: cultural traditions, they want the full spectrum of opportunities for
Speaker 1: dealing with their mental health our goals, you know, which
Speaker 1: includes therapy and drugs and all kinds of help from
Speaker 1: the university. So again, this is an example where the
Speaker 1: same maybe source of suffering generates different kinds of actions
Speaker 1: by individuals and the institutions. And in one case, and
Speaker 1: they are effective again to varying degrees by how whether
Speaker 1: or not they fit what is culturally appropriate for the students. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys are full of like so many examples on
Speaker 1: like the Ready. Thank you for hosting that. I see
Speaker 1: a lot of feminist values in this book, and I'd
Speaker 1: be remiss not to point that out. It seems to
Speaker 1: be something that guides some of the work you do
Speaker 1: as well. And I'd love for you to comment on that.
Speaker 1: I noticed you kind of differentiate between like male values
Speaker 1: and female values and kind of make a call for
Speaker 1: more female values in the workplace. I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: more if you could unpack that a bit more. And
Speaker 1: I also want to know, as a man, am I
Speaker 1: allowed to have some of those female values? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's do full disclosure. I was a feminist studies major.
Speaker 1: I know it, so I come by my feminist credentials. Honestly,
Speaker 1: what we've learned in the course of writing the book
Speaker 1: and looking talking with a lot of other researchers and
Speaker 1: looking at what people are writing about compassion, is that
Speaker 1: we see it especially in America right now, but I
Speaker 1: think probably across the West at least, that the word
Speaker 1: compassion has resonance for women in a different way than
Speaker 1: for men. So the word compassion has cultural connotations to nurturing,
Speaker 1: It has cultural connections to the feminine sphere. It has
Speaker 1: connections to care giving roles like parenting or caring for
Speaker 1: elders in the community. And so the word passion when
Speaker 1: we transport it into the workplace, has resonance for women
Speaker 1: in relation to other life domains. That makes it easier
Speaker 1: for them to pick up and see as relevant to
Speaker 1: their work or how it might help them in their
Speaker 1: work role as well. And for men, the word compassion
Speaker 1: in the work sphere often raises a whole category of
Speaker 1: fears that are there for women too, But that may
Speaker 1: be more of the first response of men in work
Speaker 1: environments to the word compassion. So when I hear the
Speaker 1: word compassion and you want it to apply to me,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't fit my schema, it makes me worry
Speaker 1: Am I going to be seen as weak? Am I
Speaker 1: going to be taken advantage of? Here? Are people going
Speaker 1: to use my compassion as a reason to not give
Speaker 1: me expertise or credibility in my field? And so it's
Speaker 1: not that as a man you don't have thecity capacity
Speaker 1: for compassion that we do as women, right, but that
Speaker 1: the resonance to the label may be very gendered and
Speaker 1: very differently gendered. And so one of the things we
Speaker 1: really want and call for in this book and in
Speaker 1: the way we're talking about the book, is to help
Speaker 1: us find language that would help quell the fears of
Speaker 1: compassion in the workplace, ways of talking about caring for others,
Speaker 1: ways of talking about the legitimacy and deservingness of people
Speaker 1: that appeals to men or helps everyone in the workplace
Speaker 1: overcome these fears that go along with compassion. So, yes,
Speaker 1: it's one of the fears that men have on average
Speaker 1: that if they show more compassion and care, if they
Speaker 1: introduce more caring to the workplace, that it'll like get
Speaker 1: in the way of their bottom line, like their success.
Speaker 1: They're a competitive advantage. That's a pretty widespread kind of
Speaker 1: heroistic across the business world. I mean I don't know
Speaker 1: the research actually on whether men hold that heuristic more
Speaker 1: than women. In the business world, I think that's pretty
Speaker 1: much a There hasn't been a strong business case for
Speaker 1: compassion out there in the popular culture. I think that
Speaker 1: they so the fears that are studied at least are
Speaker 1: often the more interpersonal fears. But the business case for
Speaker 1: why compassion would feed your strategic advantage make you a
Speaker 1: more competitive organization is also something that's been pretty invisible
Speaker 1: until relatively recently. What are interpersonal fears? I want to
Speaker 1: make sure I understand this well. This is drawing primarily
Speaker 1: on the work of Paul Gilbert and his research lab
Speaker 1: and a bunch of people that have adopted his thinking
Speaker 1: about what he calls compassionate mind, and he's developed a
Speaker 1: scale that he calls fear of compassion scale. So we
Speaker 1: all have fears of compassion. It's not that that women
Speaker 1: don't have them and men do. We all have them.
Speaker 1: They just also get triggered by different environments, trigger them differently.
Speaker 1: But the number one fear of compassion is that it
Speaker 1: makes me seem weak. A second fear of compassion, and
Speaker 1: this is in relation to giving compassion, in relation to
Speaker 1: receiving compassion is that if I give or receive compassion,
Speaker 1: it opens the door for other people to take advantage
Speaker 1: of me. Right. And then there's a third prominent fear
Speaker 1: of compassion that's more about compassion directed to the self,
Speaker 1: which is, if I am more compassionate with myself, I
Speaker 1: won't be high achieving. I see, because we have in
Speaker 1: the West really an internalized logic that high achievement comes
Speaker 1: from self discipline and from self harshness. So we don't
Speaker 1: have an internalized heuristic that is, if I'm kind to myself,
Speaker 1: I might achieve more. Yeah, that's what I meant by
Speaker 1: the fear that it again in the way of a
Speaker 1: competitive advantage. Yeah, okay, now I got Yeah, I'll just
Speaker 1: said that. You know. Another part of the and plasant,
Speaker 1: I guess the feminist move in the book is we're
Speaker 1: trying to very much talk about compassion as skilled practice.
Speaker 1: That it's not just I think another sort of sense.
Speaker 1: Compassion is soft and it's not skilled. It's quote unquote natural.
Speaker 1: But one of the things looking at this in a workplace,
Speaker 1: as we've suggested before, is some compassion is more effective
Speaker 1: than others. Some makes ways of expressing expressing and responding
Speaker 1: to other suffering, you know, moves people further towards suffering
Speaker 1: or it alleviates it. And so we're trying to show
Speaker 1: both at the organizational level as well as at the
Speaker 1: interpersonal level, that some compassion is better than others in
Speaker 1: terms of alleviating suffering. And I love that as the
Speaker 1: feminist move because that puts us out of feminism being
Speaker 1: just about gender, and it takes us into feminism also
Speaker 1: being about power and skill and capacity. And so we're
Speaker 1: also very careful and moved by examples of deeply, deeply
Speaker 1: skilled compassion practice that come from men as well as women,
Speaker 1: and we have them in the book. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: revealing the invisible work of compassion is like a feminist
Speaker 1: theorizing move that liberates all of us. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for elaborating on that. Yeah, please go on. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'll just want to do I don't need to really
Speaker 1: talk at all this entire interview, because I feel that
Speaker 1: if I just let it go organically, you answer all
Speaker 1: my questions. Well. One of the people that worked with
Speaker 1: us early on fifteen years ago when we were starting
Speaker 1: the Worker on Compassion was a faculty member named Peter Frost,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a book called Toxic Emotions at Work,
Speaker 1: and he also wrote about roles that people took on
Speaker 1: and work organizations called toxin handlers, and those were examples
Speaker 1: mostly men, because he was actually studying and teaching mostly
Speaker 1: senior executives, and he was trying to point out the
Speaker 1: important role that certain men played in cleaning up the
Speaker 1: toxins the suffering being created by workplaces. And so that
Speaker 1: was an example, I think early on where we became
Speaker 1: highly sensitive to the roles that various people were picking
Speaker 1: up spontaneously in both sensing people's pain but also trying
Speaker 1: to mobilize and galvanize resources in the organization to help
Speaker 1: people with that kind of pain. So that's so women
Speaker 1: were picking up the toxins, Is that right? Women's and men.
Speaker 1: It was just sort of taking a particular kind of role,
Speaker 1: like that person the go to person that you would
Speaker 1: go to if you not in HR, so not in
Speaker 1: human resources, but someone in your management team who you
Speaker 1: know just had the capacity often to listen, well, the
Speaker 1: politics are going really bad, Like who's the person everyone
Speaker 1: goes to? That It was like the toxin handler, which
Speaker 1: had never that role, had never had a name before
Speaker 1: and he I cared so much about that was again
Speaker 1: so that organizations would notice a reward and help support
Speaker 1: people who are playing that role as in the ecology
Speaker 1: of you know, of people in the workplace, it was
Speaker 1: really important to name it and reward it. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the listeners right now may identify themselves as toxic as
Speaker 1: a toxic handler, yeah, or a toxic person. We have
Speaker 1: all sorts of types. On the Psychology podcast that listened
Speaker 1: to the Psychologic Thank you so much for unpacking that
Speaker 1: for me. That makes a lot of what you said
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. I felt what me put
Speaker 1: this way. I feel like in society and kind of
Speaker 1: books talking about the importance of giving and caring, there's
Speaker 1: this trend for the writer to get pressure from publishers
Speaker 1: to make sure that you make it clear that it
Speaker 1: will also make you successful and achieving, and it drives
Speaker 1: me nuts. Like I found your book itself a really
Speaker 1: refreshing take on it. But at the back of the
Speaker 1: book it says right at the top, caring is a
Speaker 1: competitive advantage, And that was a completely different message than
Speaker 1: the two hundred and something pages of the book itself.
Speaker 1: That's logan in the back I think is what's wrong
Speaker 1: with society. But I think your book is what's right
Speaker 1: with society. So I hope you'll forgive me for being
Speaker 1: so honest and blunt. But well, yeah, so we are
Speaker 1: very much agree with you, and it's important for you
Speaker 1: to know that there are two versions of that. There
Speaker 1: was a whole other version of this book that was
Speaker 1: written first, much more about trying to bring the humanity
Speaker 1: of this form of human caring center stage. And probably
Speaker 1: like the other people who are right about some of
Speaker 1: these more humanistic capacities and capabilities, you know, the business
Speaker 1: of publishing has, you know, I think moves people sometimes
Speaker 1: to wrapping it with a more instrumental bottom line kind
Speaker 1: of logic, when in fact I think we would scream
Speaker 1: at the top our loves about at some level it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Compassion is important in and of itself exactly,
Speaker 1: and then it of itself in the story. Every single
Speaker 1: thing I see these days, the pendulum has swung so
Speaker 1: much towards how this will make you hack your job,
Speaker 1: how it will give you efficiency, it reduces us to machines,
Speaker 1: and the whole spirit of your book, I thought was
Speaker 1: about infusing humanity into it, which is the opposite of
Speaker 1: that message. So I do think it's notable that when
Speaker 1: we wrote the chapter two of the book, which is
Speaker 1: really to try to say, like what does this mean
Speaker 1: for business, we did a road review and tried to
Speaker 1: look for many, many people's work to link into that
Speaker 1: chapter because Dane and I have been studying compassion for
Speaker 1: twenty years and we've very very seldom done what people
Speaker 1: would call an outcome study. We've really been focused on
Speaker 1: the process and on the organization and system level kind
Speaker 1: of how does compassion get more competent and more skilled
Speaker 1: in organizations? So we're definitely leaning in your direction, but
Speaker 1: I also think I'm leaning in your direction. You guys
Speaker 1: are the experts on this s yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: it's really also important. I mean, one way to think
Speaker 1: about it is again is like what we're trying to
Speaker 1: do with this book partly is to empower change agents
Speaker 1: who are in lots of different settings, and I think
Speaker 1: helping people be multi lingual about why compassion counts, you know,
Speaker 1: why we should care about this is also really helpful.
Speaker 1: So teaching a business, you know, I have a joint
Speaker 1: appointment in psychology in the business school. Like in the
Speaker 1: business school, this is the entree you kind of have
Speaker 1: to get past the bottom line case to get to,
Speaker 1: you know, the sense of this. You know, just people
Speaker 1: are so hungry to reintroduce humanity into the workplace because
Speaker 1: they're very alienated by what their experience is. But I
Speaker 1: think in teaching about this and writing about this, where
Speaker 1: it's not either or, I feel like it's incumbent upon
Speaker 1: us to give people multiple ways of having people pay
Speaker 1: attention to this and to be mobilized to act to
Speaker 1: unleash it or awaken it, or whatever metaphor you want
Speaker 1: to use. So that's another way to think about it.
Speaker 1: It's not either or. It's an issue of giving people
Speaker 1: multiple languages for mobilizing people to pay attention to it
Speaker 1: and to devote resources to it, and to try to
Speaker 1: reinforce it as part of a social not just an
Speaker 1: individual skill set, but as a collective a community's capability
Speaker 1: around compassion. So I think that's a really compassionate, agreeable answer.
Speaker 1: But I want to push back on that a little
Speaker 1: bit because I think that, you know, sometimes they can
Speaker 1: be a conflict each other, and I think it's up
Speaker 1: to the values of the organization to make that call.
Speaker 1: Are they going to put people first? You know, I
Speaker 1: think that it's not always the case that choosing caring
Speaker 1: and compassion first leads to greater productivity and success. And like,
Speaker 1: sometimes I think organizations need to make that choice, Like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't care if we lose some efficiency.
Speaker 1: We're not the type of an organization that doesn't care,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Oh, totally, totally I think
Speaker 1: you know again, I think I'm more probably more and
Speaker 1: meshed in this type of logic, you know, the instrument
Speaker 1: economic logic. But yeah, I mean, you're you know what.
Speaker 1: I deeply resonate to what you're saying. And there's often
Speaker 1: a short term, long term horizon issue there with what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, right, Like, organizations are so often forced
Speaker 1: into short term economies and they have to maximize profit
Speaker 1: in a three month period rather than choosing to make
Speaker 1: the long term investment in the humanity of people. And
Speaker 1: what we know is that when managers and executives have
Speaker 1: the longer time horizon, the investment in people also comes
Speaker 1: to make much more sense. So there's a big conversation
Speaker 1: to be had there. I think about what you're opening
Speaker 1: up the interface between empathy and compassion and economics and
Speaker 1: economic decision making. Yeah, but we'll say that for another
Speaker 1: podcast chat. Well, just what the appetite of the listeners
Speaker 1: we have probably at this point now our listeners are divided.
Speaker 1: Are toxic people are like they can like rooting for
Speaker 1: the achievement side and the toxic handlers are like rooting
Speaker 1: for the capassion side. Well, I know, but Scott like
Speaker 1: that was wrong, but I feel like that. So one
Speaker 1: of the goals for the book is also for people
Speaker 1: to be more forgiving and compassionate towards themselves. Because the
Speaker 1: thing is is I'm a toxic person in one context.
Speaker 1: I can become a toxic person in one And now
Speaker 1: I don't think that people are These situational cues are
Speaker 1: really important, the setting is really important, and so part
Speaker 1: of the goal of writing an organizational book is to
Speaker 1: say is so that people can understand that in certain
Speaker 1: situations they're not maybe being as compassionate as they like,
Speaker 1: because again, the situation, there's so many things in the
Speaker 1: situation that are shutting this down at the individual level
Speaker 1: and at the collective level. So yeah, so talking about
Speaker 1: toxic people, I mean This is one of the things
Speaker 1: about my belief about positive psychology is that I feel
Speaker 1: like unless we can understand how to change institutions that
Speaker 1: are shaping these psychological dynamics, you know, we don't have
Speaker 1: hope of building the human capability that we need to
Speaker 1: be able to deal with these really pressing issues. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you. I mean, in terms of
Speaker 1: there's a you know, a fundamental human nature of needs,
Speaker 1: we can kind of like shine organizations can shine the
Speaker 1: spotlight on what do they want to bring out, you know,
Speaker 1: like they can make the decision like we rather bring
Speaker 1: out these set of need you know, values and needs,
Speaker 1: We would rather bring out the worst in people or
Speaker 1: the best in people. With that said, I also do
Speaker 1: research in the field of personality psychology. I think there
Speaker 1: still are layered on top of that, there are just
Speaker 1: layers upon layers. There are meaningful individual differences that even
Speaker 1: if you put everyone in the same environment, there are
Speaker 1: still going to be I'm going to be very trying
Speaker 1: not to use the word for toxic people, but there
Speaker 1: are going to be people who have tendencies towards being
Speaker 1: more goal oriented and like, let's get things done done
Speaker 1: done undone, you know, and which could in itself be
Speaker 1: a result of lifetime of experiences interacting with biology and
Speaker 1: so all this stuff is complex, and but your message
Speaker 1: is duly noted, and I'm right there with you on
Speaker 1: that for sure. Okay. The organizational layer adds so much
Speaker 1: complexity too, because I can see situations from my research
Speaker 1: and then going into doing field research and organizations and
Speaker 1: talking with people about what compassion looks like in their work.
Speaker 1: Lives in an organization that's floundering around, where people don't
Speaker 1: know what to do and they don't have a sense
Speaker 1: of progress. That person who's really goal oriented, who can
Speaker 1: create clarity in the midst of the uncertainty, and who
Speaker 1: can set a path for people to feel like they're
Speaker 1: going somewhere together, could actually be a huge doing huge
Speaker 1: compassion work. That's good. Yeah. So, and you know, one
Speaker 1: thing definitely that I've learned over twenty years is that
Speaker 1: there's very rarely a simple answer when it comes to compassion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very rarely. And I do not mean at all to
Speaker 1: equate goal oriented folks as toxic people. I actually don't
Speaker 1: mean to make that conflation whatsoever. So I want to
Speaker 1: be very clear. I would alienate, like seventy five percent
Speaker 1: of my alody ince anyway, if I if I conflated that,
Speaker 1: So I want to be very clear, I'm not saying that. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move on. Okay now, So, awakening compassion competence in organizations,
Speaker 1: I mean we fit on a lot of this, right,
Speaker 1: or hinted a lot of this. How elements of organizations?
Speaker 1: You know, you guys talk about the network ties between
Speaker 1: people we touched on cultural values, work roles, routines, actions
Speaker 1: of leaders. Is there anything else you wanted to add
Speaker 1: about that concept? Well, I think the most popular way
Speaker 1: of talking about compassion at an organizational level right now
Speaker 1: is to talk about building compassionate cultures. And I think
Speaker 1: it's helpful and important, and anything that introduces more compassion
Speaker 1: into the rhetoric around work is a helpful step. So,
Speaker 1: if you think like an organizational psychologist, culture usually means
Speaker 1: to us researchers a set of beliefs and values and
Speaker 1: an underlying set of assumptions about how things work and
Speaker 1: what's appropriate and what our human beings like. Right, And
Speaker 1: we can take on pretty invisibly and unconsciously those assumptions,
Speaker 1: and that's part of being acculturated. So if the only
Speaker 1: mechanisms that we have for change our culture mechanisms, it's
Speaker 1: actually very hard and slow work to change the deeply
Speaker 1: embedded values and the deep assumptions about human nature in
Speaker 1: an organization. It's not impossible, and it does happen. We
Speaker 1: have cases of culture change. But part of the reason
Speaker 1: that we like showing other levers in the system, if
Speaker 1: you want to think about it that way, or other
Speaker 1: routes toward change that can open up compassion, is that
Speaker 1: while you're working on the long term culture change in
Speaker 1: an organization, you can actually help people much more quickly,
Speaker 1: like redesign their role and the roles that neighbor them
Speaker 1: and say, how could we just do our zones of
Speaker 1: responsibility with more compassion? Like how could we incorporate more
Speaker 1: compassion into what we think our job is all about?
Speaker 1: And that will actually foster and reinforce over time the
Speaker 1: underlying value change that's happening in building a compassion culture.
Speaker 1: So we think that this social architecture of networks, values, roles,
Speaker 1: and routines is a really important way to help leaders
Speaker 1: and change agents have more avenues towards creating compassion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will say again, I think if we use a
Speaker 1: faculty example, it's one that I think is very familiar
Speaker 1: for all of us. And you know, what would it
Speaker 1: mean if we thought of ourselves as researchers or teachers
Speaker 1: who were compassionate, who are trying to get better at
Speaker 1: being a compassionate human being in the course of doing
Speaker 1: our work. You know, how does it expand our imagination
Speaker 1: of what we could do, How does it change how
Speaker 1: we think about how competent we are. I mean I
Speaker 1: actually sat in class right before we came up here
Speaker 1: and said, you know, I've been a faculty member for
Speaker 1: forty years. I've never had any training on empathy. I've
Speaker 1: never had any you know, sort of skilling of myself
Speaker 1: around a relational attainment that would make me a more
Speaker 1: compassionate faculty member in tea. And it's kind of crazy,
Speaker 1: because crazy. Yeah, so we're in the business. So that's
Speaker 1: an example of not trying to change the culture of
Speaker 1: the university, but changing our conception of our role and
Speaker 1: what our duties and responsibilities are in our role. Changing
Speaker 1: you know again, how much we are attuned to collaborating
Speaker 1: around you know, helping doctrial students in trouble or helping
Speaker 1: you know, students who might be trying to we're really
Speaker 1: having a hard time getting project work done. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just so much more possibility for increasing the collective
Speaker 1: capability around compassion if we looked at kind of what
Speaker 1: is the basis for our current networks, How can we
Speaker 1: make them so that they're more humane, they're more humanely responsive?
Speaker 1: You know, how can we change our roles, How can
Speaker 1: we change the way we onboard people or the routines
Speaker 1: that we have in ways that would increase our compassion.
Speaker 1: So I feel like in the human service work of
Speaker 1: being faculty members, if we look at these different levers,
Speaker 1: as Monica sort of suggested, there's all kinds of possibilities
Speaker 1: for expanding again the collective capability of the heart, which
Speaker 1: I would call versus the collective capability of the mind,
Speaker 1: which is what trumps everything when we're thinking about you know, academics,
Speaker 1: did you just make a Donald Trump reference? No, she
Speaker 1: used it as a verb trumps everything. Oh, I see.
Speaker 1: You know you have to unverb yourself that one, just
Speaker 1: because it has too many connotations. Now that's hilarious, that's hilarious. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, I'm with you, So can you guys
Speaker 1: give me one way, like, how can organizations overcome obstacles
Speaker 1: to compassionate work? Because they're going to be these obstacles, right,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that when you go in and you do
Speaker 1: trainings that that's something that they say. Right, Well, it
Speaker 1: depends on which obstacle we're talking about. You know, this
Speaker 1: is where it goes back to this point that's already
Speaker 1: sort of a tender point in our conversation is you know,
Speaker 1: one of the obstacles is believing it's not consequential, that
Speaker 1: compassion doesn't matter, and you know, the case for making
Speaker 1: the business case is in some sense it gives people
Speaker 1: evidence that then helps people to overgride their resistance or
Speaker 1: the obstacle that comes from saying compassion. You know, it's nice,
Speaker 1: but it's not significant, it doesn't really matter. So that's
Speaker 1: one way is to give people evidence that it matters.
Speaker 1: I guess I would say my one way is that
Speaker 1: we all develop a pretty deeply held professional script as
Speaker 1: we come into our own whatever profession we're in, and
Speaker 1: that professional script dictates a lot of what we think
Speaker 1: is legitimate to do in our work. And many times
Speaker 1: our professional scripts, I don't incorporate caring for other people,
Speaker 1: noticing other people's humanity, extending compassion and empathy as a
Speaker 1: part of what it means to be at my best
Speaker 1: as a professional. And so, going back to Jane's faculty
Speaker 1: member example, when being a faculty member and my professional
Speaker 1: script incorporates having empathy and concern for the people around
Speaker 1: me and doing my best to be compassionate toward the
Speaker 1: people that I meet as I'm doing my research, as
Speaker 1: I'm doing my teaching. That shift in what it means
Speaker 1: to be a professional can overcome huge obstacles in organizations
Speaker 1: that are otherwise we're holding at bay lots of our
Speaker 1: capacity to notice and feel with the people around us.
Speaker 1: I was really well said that, Yeah, cool, So you
Speaker 1: want to remove the barriers to learning and feeling and
Speaker 1: noticing and acting. That makes a lot of sense, and
Speaker 1: you're doing a great service with this. Did you guys
Speaker 1: want to end on? Did you want to give like
Speaker 1: one more example of how a concrete thing an organization
Speaker 1: could do? You know, because you might be having some companies,
Speaker 1: I guess there's no such thing as that company is
Speaker 1: a person like you might have someone from a company
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast and is eager to like, you know,
Speaker 1: have another takeaway or feel free to say buy the book,
Speaker 1: you know, like, I totally feel free to answer that
Speaker 1: however you want right now. But I want to give
Speaker 1: you a chance to leave on something. Can we each
Speaker 1: leave on one ex So yeah, that would be great, Okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: So I think one thing to take home is that
Speaker 1: compassion is actually everywhere. I mean, that's been one of
Speaker 1: our findings is that sometimes it's not visible, but it's
Speaker 1: because it's so deeply human. It's in most places, it's
Speaker 1: oftentimes underneath the surface, and people are doing it quietly
Speaker 1: and sometimes in hidden ways. And I think in organizations
Speaker 1: that celebrate acts of compassion in the workplace, that make
Speaker 1: it part of and what the organization sees as valuable
Speaker 1: human action can make it an incredible difference. And it's
Speaker 1: more and more organizations you know that value innovation, creativity,
Speaker 1: quick responsiveness, whatever the strategy is, and they try to
Speaker 1: till the human connections between people in order to get
Speaker 1: the work done. People are more naturally experiencing each other's suffering,
Speaker 1: and they are in many cases very compassionate, but it's
Speaker 1: being hidden as opposed to actually celebrated as a capacity
Speaker 1: of the human community. So I think the more that
Speaker 1: it can be made visible, celebrated, and in some cases rewarded,
Speaker 1: I think that will yield benefits that we cannot even imagine. Wow,
Speaker 1: that was awesome, Okay, Lonica, Okay, Well, Jane and I
Speaker 1: one of the things that one of the nerdy things
Speaker 1: that we both really love to do together is to
Speaker 1: use metaphors deliberately to help us see new dimensions of
Speaker 1: compassion and to understand new things about it. And so
Speaker 1: one of our favorite metaphors is as a garden. And
Speaker 1: if you're trying to create your organization as a garden
Speaker 1: where compassion flourishes, then the soil of that garden is
Speaker 1: how people are connected to each other. It's the quality
Speaker 1: of the connections between people is like the soil of
Speaker 1: your garden. So anything you can do, from a very
Speaker 1: small move to a very big one that helps more
Speaker 1: people be connected together and helps the connections be of
Speaker 1: better quality, that's going to awaken compassion. And sometimes it
Speaker 1: means changing the way you do your first five minutes
Speaker 1: of your meetings so that people connect differently. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: might mean designing your whole organizations off site with a
Speaker 1: major focus on connecting, but it can be from small
Speaker 1: to big. But of focus on tilling the soil for
Speaker 1: those connections, can I elaborate and then so sort of
Speaker 1: building on tilling the soil. So we have written a
Speaker 1: case about LinkedIn and kind of how they select people
Speaker 1: into their organization. So you have Jeff Weiener sort of
Speaker 1: saying at the top, you know, I care about compassionate leadership.
Speaker 1: But again some of the worry is when top leaders
Speaker 1: say things, does that really trickle down into the every
Speaker 1: day of what's happening on the ground in the organization.
Speaker 1: And I guess one of the surprises has been how
Speaker 1: managers at LinkedIn and they do it in different ways. Actually,
Speaker 1: before they let people in the door, they're trying to
Speaker 1: select on how compassionate they are. And yeah, so there's small,
Speaker 1: small actions on the ground that can make a difference
Speaker 1: in terms of tilling the soil in ways that there's
Speaker 1: vibrant human connection as well as what leaders at the
Speaker 1: top a spouse and celebrate and those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: You know, imagine if like getting in admitted into college
Speaker 1: was not just your SAT scores, but also how compassionate
Speaker 1: you've been. Yeah, yeah, that is far more. Actually, what's
Speaker 1: happening hopefully? Yeah? So can I end on something too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to get it. I want to get a
Speaker 1: turn to tell you my favorite passage of your book.
Speaker 1: You talk about the difference between seeing and beholding. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's my favorite. It's also my favorite because it proceeds
Speaker 1: directly a quote from my dear friend Emma Sapala. But
Speaker 1: let me read this quote. Whether it is small in
Speaker 1: private or immense in public, beholding suffering with compassion sparks
Speaker 1: a sense of wonder and beauty, renewing our belief in
Speaker 1: what is possible in organizations. I think that really gets
Speaker 1: to the heart of the spirit of this book is
Speaker 1: you all have a vision that organizations can be so
Speaker 1: much more than they are. And as I wanted to
Speaker 1: end on that note, what a terrific book, guys it
Speaker 1: thanks so much. It was a real treat to chat
Speaker 1: with you today. Yeah, thank you for thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and thank you for that ending. Yeah, I'm thrilled that
Speaker 1: that's the sentence that Thank you so much for listening
Speaker 1: to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I
Speaker 1: hope you found this episode just as thought provoking as
Speaker 1: I did. If something you heard today stimulated you in
Speaker 1: some way, I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 1: at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology podcast
Speaker 1: dot com.