Compassion and collaboration. The new kids on the block.
What if we gave more space to our emotions?
Emotions guide us daily, so much so that emotions have become a significant focus of work life, podcasts, film, series and research. Welcome to the age of feelings.
Emotions have often been thought of as intimate mental states, but they also respond to cultural, economic and social environments and can become collective. I was particularly interested in the ‘yellow waistcoats’ movement. There, for example, we discover that the role of interpretations of collective emotion is essential because it is often the commentators who will identify the emotion of a movement. In this case, they spoke of resentment, hatred, and anger, which has other consequences than telling of indignation. Indignation is a noble emotion, and resentment is a low emotion.
While some people seek to be efficient in their free time to get ahead in their work, others take time to recuperate and cut back on work. So how do you find that balance? Here is our post on resilience at work—a more serene and efficient way of working.
Our brain needs rest as much as our body to cope with everyday life’s constraints and hazards. Resting well and refocusing allows us to maintain our efficiency and performance in our work! So, to avoid finding yourself in a delicate situation caused by work, dare to switch off your brain to recover. Also, put this kind of situation into perspective. Taking a step back and sharing with your peers will open your chakras and help you find a solution to the issue at hand.
The answer is compassion. According to the Buddhist tradition, it is defined as the desire to end the suffering of others and its causes. It is a generous act of benevolence. Based on the principle of interdependence, that we are all connected to others, compassion is the binding force that helps us enter into harmonious relationships first with ourselves and then with others.
Compassion promotes the secretion of oxytocin, which helps to develop inner strengths such as self-confidence, resulting in a fear-reducing effect with the bonus of an increased propensity for happiness.
Compassion is active empathy. Empathy is action-oriented to help change an unwanted current situation.
Compassion is the realisation that in business, as in other areas of life, joint success depends on the full collaboration of all in a unity made possible when the ‘I’ gives way just a little to the ‘we’.
When a corporate culture encourages cooperation rather than competition and where failures are welcomed and encouraged to keep trying because failures are proof that someone dared to try, so if you think about it, compassion leads to the development of qualities that can benefit company performance.
Business performance results from aligning many actions taken by humans who join forces towards a common goal. We might as well ensure that everyone involved in the wealth creation process fully possesses their means before committing to it.
We all know about compassion for others, sensitivity, and helping a suffering third party, but what is compassion for yourself? How do you do it? More importantly, how can this attitude reflect on your colleagues?
First, self-compassion is about adopting a caring attitude towards yourself when faced with a difficulty instead of being self-critical. “Easier said than done, you may say. Indeed, we have an innate propensity to demand more of ourselves than others, especially when things go wrong. This is a common tendency among managers.
So how do we become compassionate towards ourselves? There are three things to remember:
Recognise and build on your strengths (self-compassion);
Putting things into perspective, considering dissatisfactions and disappointments as usual and part of the human experience (shared humanity);
Staying focused on the here and now (mindfulness).
