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ENVISIONING COMPASSION COMPETENCE

GIVEN THAT COMPASSION IS an interpersonal process, how does an entire organization awaken compassion? Let’s take a look at the interpersonal model we introduced in the first section of the book and build on it. In our research, we have shown that the compassion competence of a system depends on an emergent pattern of collective noticing, interpreting, feeling, and acting in an effective and customized fashion in order to alleviate suffering. Two points warrant further exploration to help us envision compassion competence. First, this definition hinges on collective and coordinated emergent patterns, meaning that the process takes shape across many people and actions and is not determined in advance. A new pattern emerges when suffering surfaces in an organization. Some are simple, others are intricate—competence in the system shapes the pattern in relation to the unique needs of people who are suffering.

Second, this is a definition of compassion competence—it includes the assumption that compassion must be shaped in relation to suffering in a customized way in order to be effective. Patterns that fail to meet the needs of those who are suffering don’t rise to the level of compassion competence. Patterns that fail to generate resources to alleviate suffering likewise fail to rise to the level of competence. We will describe four important dimensions of compassion competence derived from our research and show you how leaders, managers, employees, and change agents at all levels can use these measures to awaken greater compassion competence in their organizations.¹

COMPASSION COMPETENCE AT TECHCO

Zeke was enjoying an unusual moment of solitude as he biked through the park on a bright autumn day. He didn’t have many opportunities to take his mountain bike out now, since he traveled almost every week for his job as a sales representative at TechCo. Zeke had joined the regional office of this large multinational technology organization in Haifa, Israel, just over a year ago. Getting used to his travel schedule combined with adjusting to life with a new baby kept him fully occupied. But today his wife, Geet, had encouraged him to take his bike and get outside. Zeke’s father, Ezra, and brother, Eli, were visiting, and the new grandfather and uncle were keen for time with the baby. Their apartment overlooked a park where Zeke could ride easily without being gone too long. Ezra urged Zeke out the door. “Geet can get some rest,” he said, “and you go enjoy the day.”

Rounding a bend and riding downhill toward home, Zeke felt a strange stiffening in his leg. He didn’t know what was happening to him. He lost the ability to control his legs as the bike was gathering speed quickly down the hill. The stiffening of his legs and his sudden inability to move did not allow him to manipulate the pedals. He grasped at the brake, but he couldn’t control the bike. It careened downhill, tumbling over and over. The bright autumn day melted around Zeke as his consciousness seeped away.

Geet happened to be looking out the window at that moment, watching for Zeke to come home. She saw the bike flip and tumble. She called out, and Ezra and Eli raced from the apartment toward the park. When they got to Zeke, he was not breathing. Ezra and Eli wiped away blood and sand to make room to open Zeke’s airway. They performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. The emergency responders lifted Zeke onto a backboard and moved him quickly.

Little did Zeke know that this terrible accident would launch him, his family, and his workplace into an extraordinary story of organizational compassion competence. We have changed names and a few identifying details of this case, but like the other examples in this book, Zeke’s story isn’t invented. Zeke and other members of his organization recounted this case to us when we were investigating what organizational scholars refer to as positive deviant cases of compassion competence across an entire system.² If positive deviance sounds like a contradiction in terms, it isn’t. It simply means that organizations or systems can deviate from the norm or from what might be expected compared with the tendencies of many organizations in ways that are dramatically excellent (positive deviance) or dramatically dysfunctional (negative deviance). In relation to safety, for instance, some organizations are negatively deviant, meaning that they have far more accidents and safety violations than most organizations. Others are positively deviant, meaning that they have very few accidents or safety violations. Research on compassion in organizations shows that some organizations perpetuate suffering to a great degree (negative deviance), some do relatively little to alleviate suffering, and some have designed systems that enable them to do many things to foster healing (positive deviance).³ We study positively deviant organizations like TechCo to understand how they accomplish this high level of compassion competence.

SPEED AND TIME CONTRIBUTE TO COMPASSION COMPETENCE

Zeke’s work community shared strong bonds. They responded almost immediately when they found out about his accident. Ezra phoned Avi, Zeke’s manager, who let the rest of his team know that Zeke had been taken to the emergency room. Although it was a weekend, members of Zeke’s work team arrived at the hospital right away, filling the waiting room even before Zeke regained consciousness. Looking through the lens of an organization’s social architecture, we can see that Zeke’s colleagues in the Haifa office were highly interconnected by high-quality social ties in their work network. TechCo culture features explicit values of respecting and caring for each other that were put into action by Zeke’s work team.

In relation to compassion competence, speed is defined as the timing and rhythm of actions that address suffering. Greater speed is an indicator of compassion competence, and speed can be measured in two ways. First, immediacy means that organizations can spring into action quickly and respond effectively to the shock of suffering caused by an unexpected trauma or loss. Second, speed also refers to adjustments over time. Competence means that organizations can speedily shift what they are doing and quickly make adjustments as what is necessary comes into view.

THE VALUE OF IMMEDIACY

TechCo mobilized many resources quickly to address the suffering of Zeke and his family, not least of which was the comfort of Zeke’s colleagues’ immediate presence. Beyond that, one of Zeke’s team members brought an extra prepaid cell phone and gave it to Geet for the family’s use. Zeke’s coworkers brought food for those in the waiting room. As they waited to understand Zeke’s condition, Geet and Ezra received a call from Raoul, the vice president of TechCo’s European and Middle Eastern operations, the division governing the Israel sales office. After the call from Ezra, Zeke’s manager, Avi, had issued an immediate alert to executives across TechCo, which was standard practice after a major injury or illness of an employee. This alert got Raoul’s attention and allowed him to quickly tap into resources across a broader network of people within the organization. Looking again through the lens of TechCo’s social architecture, we see that activating the regional and division networks that tied people together across the organization greatly enhanced TechCo’s speedy response. The standardization of alerts about significant sources of suffering such as injury and illness contributed to the speed of this call from Raoul. The call also included reassurances to the family that Zeke’s job was secure and that TechCo would support them.

ADJUSTING OVER TIME

In gauging compassion competence, immediacy isn’t the only temporal marker that counts. A competent response can also require sustained adjustments over time, which demands ongoing attention to suffering, interpretations of changing conditions, extended feelings of concern, and ongoing coordinated actions. Many criticisms of compassion in the wake of natural disasters, for instance, focus on the lack of sustained responsiveness as needs shift from the immediate crisis to the challenges of longer-term rebuilding and recovery. In the face of large-scale suffering, competence can falter when systems fail to sustain the capability to quickly adjust their responses over time.⁴

At TechCo, we will see that compassion competence involved sustained attention for Zeke and his family, ongoing interpretations of their condition, elaborated empathy and concern, and the rapid coordination of many compassionate actions over a long time period. Zeke’s hospitalization was extensive. His coworkers coordinated a schedule for visiting that spanned months. This pattern meant that there was almost always someone on hand who could run an errand, hold the baby, listen, or sit and talk. Avi and Zeke’s other work colleagues remained attuned to Geet, Ezra, and Zeke’s needs, just as they had in the beginning of Zeke’s hospitalization, and used their inquiry work as well as their presence and empathic concern to pick up clues about what might be most helpful as Zeke’s condition changed.

KEY POINTS: SPEED AND COMPASSION COMPETENCE

∞ Speed, defined as the timing and rhythm of actions that address suffering, is one measure of the compassion competence of an organization.

∞ One dimension of speed involves immediacy: how quickly a compassionate response begins to unfold following an episode of suffering.

∞ Another dimension of speed involves sustaining compassionate actions over time and continuing to quickly adjust as conditions change.

SCOPE OF RESOURCES CONTRIBUTES TO COMPASSION COMPETENCE

The breadth of resources called upon to alleviate suffering forms a second measure of compassion competence. In Zeke’s case, the extensive surgery that had been performed immediately after his accident was not successful. His surgeon told Ezra and Geet that Zeke might not walk again. When Raoul called to check in with them and learned of Zeke’s condition, he told Geet, “I just want you to know that we’ve given instructions to your local office to do whatever they can to support you. And I am going to call each day to check on Zeke’s progress. If you need anything, please call me. Here’s my direct number.” A little while later, Geet received a call from Barbara, the vice president of human resources at TechCo headquarters in the United States. She repeated what Raoul had offered and said that she could be reached at any time. Looking through the lens of TechCo’s social architecture, which helps us see with more technical precision what is making a difference in organizations, we can see that these executives deployed communication routines that were designed to enhance compassion competence in the system by facilitating the flow of information. In addition, we can see how these leaders’ actions made the organizational values of respect and care come alive at all organizational levels, contributing to compassion competence in the system overall.

SCOPE IS MEASURED BY BREADTH OF RESOURCES

When we take a system view of compassion, we see that alleviating suffering requires the generation of resources. When we say resources, however, we don’t just mean material goods or money, we mean anything that can be put to use to alleviate suffering.⁵ We measure compassion competence in part by the breadth or scope of resources an organization devotes to alleviating suffering.

This way of thinking about resources shifts from a focus on inherent value (such as dollars) toward a focus on how a wide variety of actions and things take on value as they are put to use to alleviate suffering.⁶ In Zeke’s case, we can see a wide breadth of resources, including the physical and psychological presence of coworkers, the attention of managers and other leaders, acts of empathic listening, words that conveyed emotional concern, supportive reassurance, flexible time for Zeke’s recovery, meals, a cell phone, help running errands, child care—and the list goes on.

Looking again through the lens of TechCo’s social architecture, we see that the attention of the regional and global executives was not just nice to have; it was a resource that fueled compassion competence. While Barbara and Raoul reassured Geet and Ezra, they also used their attention to unlock other kinds of resources within TechCo, such as added insurance coverage. And they helped unlock significant financial aid, as we will see later, in conjunction with employees in TechCo worldwide. Leaders are important in the social architecture of compassion because they are models for behavior and can use positions of power to mobilize many other kinds of resources that can alleviate suffering. The breadth of resources that marked TechCo’s high level of competence was enhanced not just by the improvised actions of local employees but also by networks of leaders and others who participated in spreading the pattern all around the world.

SCOPE REQUIRES CALIBRATION

To create positively deviant compassion competence is no simple task. And organizations must generate a wide breadth of resources and calibrate the variety to the unique needs of those who are suffering. Too many resources that aren’t useful can undermine competence instead of enhance it. For instance, in Zeke’s case, the donation of material goods was not useful because Zeke had to transfer to different hospitals for more experimental clinical treatments, and it was difficult for his family to manage too many material things in the moves. TechCo calibrated the breadth of resources that it offered with what remained useful to Zeke and his family as conditions changed. Employees continued to visit, to run errands and provide help with child care, and to offer consistent expressions of empathic concern and words of comfort. But they also added to this breadth by providing coordination help to move Zeke into different care facilities, making arrangements for new forms of insurance coverage, and investigating new treatments. The sustained attention and generous interpretations of Zeke’s condition as it changed helped TechCo to calibrate the breadth of resources to Zeke’s needs. Zeke and his family told us that the scope of resources offered to them and how the pattern was calibrated with what was useful to them made them feel as though they were being swept up in a tidal wave of affection that helped them heal.

KEY POINTS: SCOPE OF RESOURCES AND COMPASSION COMPETENCE

∞ The scope of resources is defined by breadth. A broad array of resources that can be mobilized to alleviate suffering provides a measure of compassion competence.

∞ Resources as they relate to compassion competence are defined as anything that can be put to use to alleviate suffering.

∞ Common resources mobilized by organizations include presence, empathic listening, running errands, providing child care, words of comfort, tangible goods such as meals or clothing or household items, flexible time arrangements, and money.

∞ Scope must be calibrated to what is useful as needs change over time.

MAGNITUDE OF RESOURCES CONTRIBUTES TO COMPASSION COMPETENCE

In his conversations with Ezra, Avi picked up on small clues that Ezra was feeling anxious about having enough money to cover the costs of a set of expensive experimental clinical trials. These experimental treatments offered a small but significant chance for Zeke to regain use of his legs. Wondering about this one morning, Avi asked Ezra to sit with him in a quiet corner of the waiting room. “I am thinking about Zeke’s expenses,” he confided, “and I cannot imagine that the insurance will pay for all that Zeke needs with these new treatments.” Ezra felt his shoulders rise with tension. Avi continued, “I do not want to insult Geet or Zeke. But do you think that they would be willing to accept a donation, if we find a way to raise money?”

Avi engaged in skilled inquiry work in this conversation, using his questions about a potential need to explore what would be useful in a respectful manner. Avi’s inquiry work allowed Ezra to keep his financial situation private and to decline the offer of a donation if it was not welcome. Avi’s example shows the ongoing need for generous interpretations of new forms of suffering that arise as conditions change. Ezra’s worried manner was a clue that Avi picked up on, and his willingness to inquire and to offer a generous interpretation of Ezra’s suffering opened the door to a new wave of coordinated compassionate actions at TechCo.

INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF RESOURCES TO ALLEVIATE SUFFERING

One aspect of magnitude simply refers to the amount of resources generated by a system to direct toward alleviating suffering. At TechCo, Avi began choreographing another pattern in the elaborate dance by alerting the human resources leader in his local office to his desire to begin accumulating funds for Zeke. In response, TechCo suggested activating its vacation-time-donation policy, which enabled people to donate the value of their unused vacation time to Zeke. This policy applied to all TechCo divisions around the world. Zeke’s coworkers began spreading the call for help to anyone they knew in TechCo who might be willing to donate. They wrote a story about Zeke for the TechCo employee spotlight newsletter, asking for donations. Money poured in from TechCo employees worldwide, providing Zeke and Geet with a significant amount of financial aid right away.

Avi also reached out again to Raoul, asking that the European and Middle East division of TechCo provide matching funds for all the money donated by TechCo employees in Israel. Avi knew, based on past experience with Raoul, that the trust and respect that existed between units would make this achievement seem important and urgent. Raoul approved Avi’s request right away. TechCo’s Europe and Middle East division matched the funds raised by Zeke’s coworkers in Israel. This matching fund greatly increased the amount of money available for Zeke’s ongoing treatment. Raoul in turn reached out to Barbara to convey the size of Zeke’s expenses. Barbara approached the CEO of TechCo to approve a matching grant from the US headquarters for a portion of the money that had been donated by employees across TechCo. TechCo’s CEO personally reviewed the case and approved the additional matching grant.

Looking through the lens of TechCo’s social architecture, we can see that the magnitude of financial resources TechCo mobilized was enhanced by organizational routines for donating unused vacation time and converting it to cash. This organizational routine is now widespread, and many organizations allow employees to use this sort of policy to alleviate suffering. At TechCo, additional routines for using pools of money from the organization’s human resources budgets to match employee donations further enlarged the pool of resources. The trust that existed in the network ties between managers and executives at various levels all across TechCo further enhanced the magnitude of resources, because generosity was met with generosity rather than with mistrust. Altogether this created a pattern in which employees at all levels of TechCo, spanning all the way from the CEO to engineers in India to the receptionist in the Israel office, participated in alleviating the suffering of financial strain for Zeke’s family and enabling Zeke to continue to seek the best treatments available.

MATCHING MAGNITUDE TO NEED

It would be a mistake to say that greater magnitude by itself is always a marker of compassion competence. When the magnitude of resources overwhelms the capability of people to use them, more resources actually can be a hindrance to compassion competence. Compassion scholars Dean Williams and Trent Shepherd have studied how local ventures spring up in the wake of large disasters in order to add to the competence of local systems. These new ventures often try to match the large magnitude of resources that are donated immediately after a disaster with people who can use them. Without this matching, resources simply go unused, increasing waste and lowering the competence of the overall system. So in relation to compassion competence, another aspect of magnitude involves how well matched the amount of resources is to the needs of those who are suffering.

At TechCo, the magnitude of financial resources wasn’t wasteful or extravagant. It was matched to the extraordinary level of expense involved in Zeke’s treatment and recovery. Ezra, Geet, and Zeke were stunned by TechCo’s generosity. It helped them to see the values of the organization in action. As Zeke described, “I think that the company instills a sense of responsibility for healing or compassion to employees through the personal examples of the management. I have seen that from the day I joined the company.”

KEY POINTS: MAGNITUDE OF RESOURCES AND COMPASSION COMPETENCE

∞ The magnitude of resources that are generated by an organization in order to alleviate suffering is one measure of compassion competence.

∞ Magnitude involves not only the amount of resources but also how well those resources are matched to the changing needs of those who are suffering.

∞ While the existence of too few resources is a marker of incompetence, having too many resources that are not matched with people’s needs can exacerbate suffering rather than alleviate it.

CUSTOMIZATION CONTRIBUTES TO COMPASSION COMPETENCE

Many organizations have a relatively simple and standard repertoire of responses to difficult or painful life events—perhaps sending flowers when someone is ill or feeling blue, sending flowers when a pet dies, and sending flowers when there is a death in the family. While a symbolic expression of concern is welcome and meaningful, the fact that the same repertoire is deployed in response to quite different episodes of suffering can be a marker of low competence. To achieve high levels of compassion competence, organizations must enable complex and novel repertoires. When they do, a system is capable of generating idiosyncratic and highly individualized resources to alleviate suffering, which is what we mean when we refer to customization of resources as the fourth measure of compassion competence.

TechCo offers an example of the opposite of simple and standard response repertoires. Rather than one kind of action or resource, TechCo employees engaged in an elaborately coordinated, complex repertoire of actions that generated highly individualized resources for Zeke. For instance, after one of the experimental surgeries enabled Zeke to regain feeling in his legs, he moved from a hospital to a rehabilitation center where he could engage in physical therapy and strengthening. In the rehab center, TechCo built him a customized workstation and Avi arranged for a modified laptop computer and a secure network connection. All the while, Zeke’s coworkers continued their visits and elaborated on their compassionate actions. During one visit to the rehab center, Zeke’s colleagues realized that there was not going to be a Hanukkah party. Later that month, they showed up with candles, food, drinks, games, desserts, and decorations and threw a Hanukkah party for all the residents.

The first time Zeke logged in to his email, he discovered a personal message from the CEO of TechCo wishing him well. He found personal messages from the global, regional, and local human resources leaders and many others in the organization. People across TechCo who had heard of Zeke’s condition had written words of comfort and good wishes for his recovery. Avi began to prepare for Zeke to return to work full-time. TechCo commissioned new equipment for Zeke’s office. The human resources team secured a transfer for Zeke from a role that had required a great deal of travel to a similar role that could be done primarily from his local office. Since he would sometimes need to meet with clients, TechCo secured a company car outfitted with appropriate hand-operated technology so that Zeke could drive.

Seen through the lens of TechCo’s social architecture, the generation of highly customized resources relies on an amalgam of many elements of the organization, such as social networks imbued with trust and cultural values that emphasize care put into action by managers like Avi, who envisioned his role as a manager in ways that encompassed compassionate action for Zeke as part of his normal work responsibilities. Long after these events, Zeke told us that the constant presence and care expressed by his coworkers was deeply meaningful. It blended with other resources such as the money and customized return-to-work equipment to inspire him even in the dark times. He said, “I feel that TechCo helped me a lot through this rough time. It was encouraging and inspiring to see my friends from work calling and visiting. I think that the fact that I knew that they would continue to visit, and that I would return to work for TechCo, provided a lot of very much needed peace of mind.”

CUSTOMIZED RESOURCES AREN’T ALWAYS EXPENSIVE

Learning about TechCo and its response to Zeke might create the impression that highly customized resources are always as expensive as a specially outfitted car or workstation. But that is not the case. Customized resources come in all shapes and sizes. One organization we studied regularly created unique handmade cards for people in distress. In this pattern, upon learning about a difficulty or a source of suffering in someone’s life, one member would begin a folded paper card and pass it around the organization. Others knew the pattern and added materials and words to the card. What started as simple folded paper was passed from person to person, each member adding something witty, supportive, or creative. We saw ingenious use of bandages, pennies, paper clips, dollar bills, pressed flowers, drawings, magazine clippings, and innumerable small items incorporated into the cards. They became treasured expressions of compassion. Because they were created in direct response to a specific episode of suffering using the organization’s knowledge of a colleague’s likes, dislikes, sense of humor, and so on, these inexpensive customized resources took on great value.

KEY POINTS: CUSTOMIZATION OF RESOURCES AND COMPASSION COMPETENCE

∞ The customization of resources, how individualized they are to unique needs and preferences, is a measure of compassion competence.

∞ Many organizations have simple, rote repertoires for responding to suffering, such as sending flowers. These generate resources but do not do much to customize them.

∞ Customized resources, while individualized, need not be expensive.

AN INVITATION TO REFLECT ON COMPASSION COMPETENCE

Zeke’s story and TechCo’s response help us to envision compassion competence in an organization. Many of us have not had an experience of a workplace like Zeke’s or been swept up in the coordinated effort of an extraordinarily competent compassionate system. We need new ways to imagine what’s possible. Examples like TechCo help us to see in a whole new way what we mean by an emergent pattern of collective noticing, interpreting, feeling, and acting in an effective and customized fashion in order to alleviate suffering. Far beyond any one person, this pattern involves many people and resources in responding to suffering.

We also need examples like TechCo to illuminate how the structures and processes of an organization contribute to collective patterns of response to suffering. A social architecture like TechCo’s takes a spark of concern and breathes it into a fire of compassionate action. That is no accident—it is a competent pattern of compassionate action, deliberately created by many people but not controlled by anyone. This emergent pattern is fragile but meaningful. It helps us to see the immense capacity of organizations to alleviate suffering.

∞

How does a story like the TechCo case spark your imagination about what is possible for compassion competence in your organization?