MC86 Manager Emotions: Compassion

compassion and empathy is like at times a little bit better i've got something about that oh good empathy is feeling with and compassion is feeling for or something no it's more subtle than that uh sorry more subtle noise is different it's slightly different at least this is what i found so listeners welcome to the management cafe if you haven't met before my name is pilar or tea and with me as always with his cup of tea i have to say rather than coffee is co-host tim verges and we are you should see his face listeners what is your face saying at the moment this coffee this coffee thing is really uh it's taking over the world probably more people actually drink tea to be fair oh that'd be interesting listen we'd love to hear from you about whether you drink coffee or tea you can go over to managementcafepodcast.com and tell us there through the contact form but for now we are in the middle of our series on manager emotions and today we're going to be looking at compassion if you haven't listened to the show before we usually talk for about 20 to 30 minutes and we'd love you to hang around and be part of the conversation tim as always shall we start with the definition yeah i think it's important to clarify compassion because it nudges up against other emotions yes so compassion literally and actually i'll tell you the source first this is from a website i've never come across and i think it's a well worth a look the website is called greater good and it's over at greatergood.berkeley.edu and it says compassion literally means to suffer together among emotion researchers it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering compassion is not the same as empathy or altruism though the concepts are related while empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective off and feel the emotions of another person compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help so that's what they're saying is the main difference and then altruism is the kind selfless behavior often prompted by feelings of compassion the one can feel compassion without acting on it and altruism isn't always motivated by compassion so i think to your point of compassion and empathy i think that compassion is that you feel that empathy and then you want to do something about it whether you do or not it's a different story that's what they're saying here have you got another definition somewhere in your book well then i think there's also sympathy right so you've got empathy is where you take the emotion on and then sympathy is where like you keep the distance and so it's almost like you're like looking down in some ways that you know like oh you poor thing look at that bad thing something to you whereas compassion is sort of getting down next to them but not necessarily sharing the emotion it doesn't mean that you are suffering for them no yeah you take the perspective and you want to help well empathy isn't always tied to suffering or you know pain or discomfort whereas compassion is ah yes i get you now and i think sympathy in some sense is what with sympathy there's that you're feeling sympathetic to someone because something bad is happening to them it's not like you feel sympathy for someone who's just won a gold medal at the olympics ah it's really compassion in the manager's role what are your thoughts around this i think compassion is a really important emotion for leaders because if you want people to trust you and you're going to go through difficulties as a group as you are people want the support and companionship of their leader in those situations so that means that you need someone who says you know i'm going to be with you in your challenges i'm going to be with you in the in the hard times and when you're down and that requires compassion compassion is not saying well you're really struggling here and i'm going to you know i'm going to keep a distance from you and let you suffer and so i think it's i think it's a really important skill and emotional requirement for good leadership when i'm thinking around that is that is it enough to know that someone is going through difficulties and suffering in the words of the definition but you're not just that you are acknowledging as well there's a suffering and that there is a way to relieve that suffering with that i don't necessarily think that it's solving the problem it's companionship if you go back to the definition suffer together that's the literal meaning of the word but yes okay so there's the literal meaning and then there's the thing that it says here that the definition that's more broadly given by emotion researchers and they're slightly different actually which is also weird well when i think about compassion if i want to experience compassion from someone else so if i have a problem and i go to somebody and i say oh this is going on and i'm having difficulties with this person and they say oh you should do this and then you should do that and you should do this other thing that's not compassion to me that's them trying to solve my problem i don't necessarily feel better if they say oh i've had that exact same problem i know exactly how you're feeling yeah this is anything that's empathy it's a different different thing but if they say wow that's tough yeah i i can see that's difficult and what do you need how can i help do you need any help like well i'm here for you if you need it for me that's compassion and that's that's support it's very nuanced then so yes if we go by the definition you feel motivated to relieve that suffering and someone might be motivated and know that relieving that suffering the best way is doing exactly what you said which is okay i'm here for you what do you need but actually someone else in a different context might actually say well i know how you feel everything why don't you try this or okay i know where you are this is i know that is getting bad let me see what i can do because there might be instances where that is needed and that is part of that compassionate because it's part of wanting to relieve that so good point good point it just goes to show the level of self-awareness and knowledge of our team members to not let the compassion actually backfire and leads to hopelessness for example in the other person yeah so that's a really good point and going back to my first example now i'm rethinking that that if you know there are times that providing someone with a solution is trying to relieve their suffering i guess it's very contextual because i've also experienced that where it feels like it's the other person trying to say they know the answer but they don't really understand the problem you know they don't really understand what i'm going for what i need it's just them trying to solve what they think the problem is so the same behavior might be different depending on the circumstance and the intent and everything else and also what's coming to mind is this thing of okay i'm seeing you are not you are suffering let's stick with that and the way of solving the problem is just so that i don't have to deal with that which is why i think this will become really nuanced like when when do we suddenly solve our problem rather than their problem or when you know when are we relieving our own empathy and when are we actually helping the other people relieve their suffering it's again i mean i wish i had an example because then it might be clear i've experienced this situation i mean the examples that they gave so many times but that you can see when somebody as a leader i've had so many times when someone has early early on and i was just trying to solve problems all the time i was in problem solving mode and someone would come to me with an issue and i would be just wanting to get off my desk as quick as possible and so i didn't want to give it the time to really develop i just wanted them to be fixed and you know and get back to the other stuff that i had to do and you can see that when you jump too quickly to solving and you don't act with compassion actually the other person is repelled you know they become defensive they close down because it's not what they need it's not a safe space for them to open up and to receive support because all you want to do is tell them what to do certainly that's a mistake that i still make all the time but i think in terms of as managers and in terms of the people that we manage if we see compassion at work and we see people demonstrating compassion it becomes a lot safer environment for people to be up and down for people to be honest about what's happening and how they're feeling and what they need and goes back to that concept of psychological safety and how teams will perform better and be more creative and share more ideas and be more open to having different experiences and taking risks if they know that they will be treated tenderly and with compassion and they'll still have support even in those situations i think this seems to me it's a more active form of empathy even if we don't solve yeah well because empathy i think is like is companionship but not necessarily help whereas compassion is companionship with like it's support like it's mentioned with help and that show of support is very strong that show of support is very powerful how about being compassionate with ourselves i don't know if the definition does quite go into that but what i mean with that is sometimes allowing ourselves to i don't know feel bad about something or allow ourselves to make mistakes allowing ourselves to know that we've done something in a way we didn't want to is there something around that or is there a better word maybe i love i love this direction you've taken i totally agree i totally agree i think that's one of the um one of the most damaging behaviors that sometimes happens with people is that their internal voice doesn't match their external voice where uh they might be really compassionate to other people but really hard on themselves someone framed it once to me that you should be like the most compassionate to yourself the kindest to yourself and that that behavior is then reflected out like how can you expect other people to be compassionate to you if you're not compassionate towards yourself i've never heard that before how would that manifest i'm immediately thinking oh what would it look like is it i suppose it's just not putting yourself down and things like that i don't know yeah i think so i think it's that voice inside your head and how you frame things and when you we have that scenario right where something we're in a difficult position and some people say to themselves you know get back up and get back into it come on come on you're better than it so you know don't feel sorry for yourself whatever it works for some people in some situations etc but i think that if that voice if you're able to model compassion or bring compassion into that voice then you have a nice relationship with the people in your head yes which is good yeah so i suppose it's more than thinking of the actions towards the outside it's about being in that mindset where you are more compassionate and then just therefore in that way that extends naturally into your way of being and expressing yourself okay and that hopefully helps others yeah well another lens to this is that as a manager right we've talked before about how managers can be quite isolated and you can feel alone and that your problems are often your problems and no one else's and you have to keep things a little bit segregated between what the team knows and above and beyond and managing side but you can experience compassion right because compassion doesn't require the person to take on your problem it doesn't require them to experience the exact same emotional state that you can but if you have a compassionate team around i've experienced the benefits of this enormously i've worked with some tremendously compassionate people and loved loved every minute of it one of the reasons being that if they see you suffering they will be compassionate towards you you know they'll they'll see you sitting off by yourself having a difficult time they'll come and sit next to you and check on how you're doing and ask if you need anything and that helps it helps a huge amount yeah yeah i have to say i've experienced that as well and that is it is really nice to see that you can yes that you can be in a bad place and people still they support you and deliberately show you the support good is there anything else to say i think i don't know for me i've gone as far as possible with this one i think i think so specific yeah it's well and it's sort of between these other emotions which makes it quite like you've got to be very meticulous about this is compassion not sympathy not empathy yeah great good good well listeners if you have anything to say that if you've got any stories anecdotes any other thoughts around compassion or if you think actually we've missed this little nuance around what compassion is then let us know managementcafepodcast at email.com or managementcafepodcast.com there is a contact form there anything else you want to say tim before we sign off not to hear from the listeners as always yeah well coffee's over from us now it's over to you thank you for joining us for this episode of management cafe you've been listening to tim burges and pr or t we let me to subscribe to the show or whatever podcast you use and if you want to get in touch you can do so over at managementcafepodcast.com coffee's over for us now it's over to you thank you for listening you