Archives for May 2015

Self-Compassion: The Doorway to Wise Leadership

May 1, 2015 By Gregory Stebbins and Marcos Cajina

In Western corporations, there is a deeply ingrained cultural belief that high-performance requires “suffering”. In other words, many people believe that distress, discomfort, and pressure ignites performance. This belief and associated behaviors are toxic in nature, ineffective, unsustainable and lead to burnout and career derailment (Gallup, 2013; Kilburg, 2000).

The primary focus of leaders in a VUCA (a.k.a. Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguious) environment is to deliver results as the only valid measurement of success. Given the preponderance of command and control leadership style in the business environment, executives have few resources to manage the heavy self-criticism that occurs when falling short of the desired performance. When making mistakes, many executives seem unable to compassionately manage shame, blame, and self-criticism. Instead, executives display acute self-criticism, self-condemnation, and negative, harsh self-talk. People do this hoping that the self-inflicted punishment and “suffering” will prevent them from making the same mistake again in the future and gain the sympathy of those around them.

In the safety of coaching environments, many executives secretly admit being harsh on themselves, and/or on other people, just because they believe “being kind” will make them or others complacent and weak. We condition ourselves by what we tell ourselves. We can undermine or encourage ourselves and others. Moreover, we can continue to be blind to the fact that we are in charge of the internal and external environments we create.

The troubling question to ponder is: Has being cruel or harsh increased engagement, innovation, and empowerment in corporations? It seems not, according to Gallup’s(2013) staggering poll results which indicated only 13% of employees reported being engaged. In other words, 87% of talented people either are disengaged or actively disengaged. Is this the best we can do? How long will it take us to let go of habitual leadership strategies that only foster disengagement, disempowerment, and burnout? Is there a need to wise up?

Much of our professional life as academics, consultants, trainers, facilitators, and leadership coaches has afforded us the opportunity to study various approaches to leadership transformation. A great deal of the current syllabus continues to emphasize the use of the head/brain to analyze and solve complex problems to understand what works and why. However, logic alone seems insufficient to find the wisest solutions to the pressing problems.

The Wisdom Economy and Compassionate Capitalism

Information has become a commodity. Transformation has become a necessity. We can access more information than we can currently digest. Still, most of this does not help begin to tap into what it means to be human. The emerging wisdom economy will be more focused on bringing forward the unique gifts of each person. Compassionate Capitalism is about sharing those talents for the highest good of the community. Like the healthy cells in a body that work in harmony with other cells in the body, individuals are called forward to share the best of themselves to shift and uplift the community. No cell in the body accumulates 99% of the nutrients, leaving the rest of the cells starving to death. Shockingly 1% of the population today accumulates 99% of the global wealth. If a body cannot function properly with only 1% of its cells healthy; can a society work correctly when 1% of its population enjoys unparalleled wealth while the other 99% are trying to survive? Can we develop High-Quality Connections without Empathy and Compassion? We claim that cruelty generates more cruelty, whereas Compassion stops the cycle of self-destruction that cruelty begets.

The world is in rapid transition. Moreover, so is the way we understand doing business. Over the years, many approaches to leadership have emerged. For instance, purpose was articulated by Victor Frankl, and the theory of servant leadership by Greenleaf. Furthermore, Fairholm introduced spiritual leadership, Covey the principle-centered leadership, Senge the learning organization, and Barrett the importance of value-based transformational leadership. Today the world needs 21st century leaders who develop cultures that embrace a higher consciousness.

If a healthy body is the result of cells interacting with other cells through loving, humans might have to learn how to interact lovingly. Moreover, its starts with just one. Look what happens in a body when just one single cell decides to kill other healthy cells. We call this dis-ease Cancer. This same process operates in society and in organizations; they become destructive.

Professor Dutton and her team of researchers at the University of Michigan emphasized the importance of developing High Quality Connections as a stepping stone in creating a healthy organization in which people can flourish. When the cells of our body communicate with one another in harmony, the cells are at ease with each other and health results. The body is nothing less than a very efficient society of billions of cells aligned in harmony to keep the body healthy. It is when one cell goes out of balance that the relationship goes out of balance and negative emotions emerge leading to dis-ease and ultimately death. Similarly, organizations suffer today from silo thinking, misalignment between departments, team distrust, and individual conflicting priorities. Organization is indeed suffering and contracting and can eventually disappear.
Wisdom Development Process

The process for developing leadership wisdom requires us to integrate our heart into our experience. If we only use our mind, we can only go so far.

Self-reflection over time is a critical tool for developing wisdom. Our starting point often revolves around data. Some of this data is perceived to be external to us and some internal to us (unless we are living in a state of denial and then all data is perceived to be external to us).

In our quest for wisdom we evolve through several stages. When we take the data we have and start to sort it, we begin to see the various relationships between the individual pieces. Sorted data begins to resemble what we call information. Today, large companies are using their massive computer power to sort accumulated consumer data to recognize relationships. In a case of unintended consequences, Target noticed that when a woman was pregnant she would buy certain products together. Hoping to leverage this newfound information, direct marketing was sent to women who had purchased these items along with advertisements for other baby related products. One irate parent demanded to know why his 16-year old daughter was receiving such a mailing, not knowing that she was indeed pregnant. The information was available but the wisdom to compassionately act on that information was missing.

When multiple patterns start to appear we would suggest that knowledge is also appearing. This doesn’t mean that understanding or insight has begun to appear. For that to happen it takes experience, more specifically experience that has been reflected on. The deeper the reflection, the greater insight into the experience. With enough time spent on self-reflection – regardless of the data, information and knowledge – it’s possible to have a wisdom moment. Does this wisdom moment make us a wise leader? Probably not. To become a wise leader requires multiple wisdom moments that become the new data. This is a process that folds back on itself and takes time for self-reflection.

Many leaders get stuck in a mental loop around data, information and knowledge. When they reach the limits of what they know, they often decide that they need more data or perhaps better data. They then go through the process distilling the new data into information and knowledge. Most of this effort takes place in their head and has relatively little experience added to the equation.

To break through the mental do-loop requires getting out of our head and putting our heart into it.

Heart isn’t often found in today’s leadership education, which mostly focuses on the mind. This can be challenging, as incorporating the heart into any leadership approach, requires courage. Leadership courage has been written about for eons. Both loving and courage have a similar root: heart. However, we contend that leadership wisdom requires integrating head (our mind), our heart (compassion) and our hunch (intuition). It takes courage to engage our heart and to confront fear (our own or others’), pain, danger, uncertainty or perhaps intimidation (another fear-based behavior). The heart knows when the mind doesn’t. Self-reflection requires listening to the heart long enough that the mind quiets.

Our experience is that opening the heart and actively using the wisdom of the heart in making important decisions opens a doorway into leadership wisdom. It has required that we use our heart more often and in everyday decisions. Actively listening to the guidance of the heart is regenerative and thus sustainable.

The doorway to opening the heart and allowing wise leadership to emerge is through self-compassion. So what is Compassion? Compassion is the courage to see the cause of suffering and the willingness to alleviate the suffering in oneself (Self-Compassion) or others (Compassion). Hence, Compassion is a very active, pragmatic, and courageous act, far from the cliché of a fluffy competency or attribute. Compassion is not for the faint of heart.

Self-Compassion Cultivation Process

Although becoming a compassionate leader might take practice, what matters is to initiate the journey of personal transformation. Start now. It is never too late to start transforming. Here are some tips to initiate the journey:

Manage the self-criticizer: Develop instead a courageous, compassionate observer. Watch the way you speak to yourself when things do not go the way you had anticipated. Refuse to self-attack and instead wholeheartedly accept that you are doing the best you can with what you know. Had you known better you would have done better. Encourage yourself to do better next time instead of justifying why not to do better next time. Beating yourself up will not give you the necessary energy to do the best you can the next time. Learn to encourage yourself to do better the next time, and the next time. Please note that we are not saying procrastinate. On the contrary, compassion requires action. Take action now to compassionately self-correct instead of fiercely self-judging.
Resolve to put an end to any feeling of isolation: Develop high-quality connections instead. Change the way you relate. The easiest way to shift the quality of relations is with small acts of kindness. Be kind to yourself first and then be kind with others. Moreover, if this does not work, do kind acts with others until eventually you are kind to yourself. Kindness will purge out any negativity built within, and will elevate energy; it will shift the attitude. It is a fact that emotions are contagious. Let a positive focus elevate others. By elevating energy, you will stop the negative spiral that self-judging generates. The acts of kindness will help shift any negative emotion. Also, being kind does not mean you appear weak or soft. In fact, being kind can require great strength and is a demonstration of self-confidence.
Focus on the doing: Avoid fantasizing about the should or should have that pave the way to negativity. Being mindful does not mean avoiding experiencing the pain present. It means stop ignoring the pain. Stop exaggerating the pain. Pain is part of the growing process whereas suffering is a personal choice. Every one of us on the planet experiences some degree of pain. There are no exceptions.

The Benefit is the Bottom Line

Moving an organizational culture from one that is heavy on criticism of self and others into one of self-compassion and wisdom is not likely to be easy. However, in a transforming world with evolving economic realities, change is inevitable. You can be at the effect of the change or you can take heart and be among those creating the new reality of wisdom leadership based on compassion and, most importantly, self-compassion. The enhancement in performance and greater engagement will become obvious–to you, your colleagues, and your organization.

Marcos Cajina is founder and president of Renewal, an international network provider of customized leadership development services.

Gregory Stebbins is a colleague at Insight Institute and the co-designer of its flagship Letting Wisdom Lead program. Over the last 25 years he has created or co-created five companies. His senior business leadership experience is combined with his in-depth understanding of interpersonal dynamics. Dr. Stebbins is a member of the Consulting Psychologist division of the American Psychological Association.

This article first appeared in the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.

Compassion meditation reduces ‘mind-wandering,’ Stanford research shows

May 1, 2015 By Clifton Parker

The practice of compassion meditation may be a powerful antidote to a drifting mind, new Stanford research shows.

Compassion meditation focuses on benevolent thoughts toward oneself and others, as the researchers noted. It is different in this aspect than most forms of meditation in the sense that participants are “guided” toward compassionate thoughts.

The research article, “A Wandering Mind is a Less Caring Mind,” was recently published in the Journal of Positive Psychology.

“This is the first report that demonstrates that formal compassion training decreases the tendency for the mind to wander, while increasing caring behavior not only towards others but towards oneself,” said James Doty, a co-author on the study, Stanford neurosurgeon and the founder and director of Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.

“Mind-wandering” is the experience of having your thoughts not remain on a single topic for long. Prior research suggests that people spend as much as 50 percent of their waking hours in mind-wandering, often without realizing it.

Doty said that mindfulness is extremely useful in today’s world with its myriad of distractions, as humans are often overwhelmed and can find it difficult to attend to necessary tasks.

“By closing one’s eyes and engaging in attention training through a mindfulness practice, not only does it diminish the negative physiologic effects of distraction, which can result in anxiety and fear, but it can increase one’s ability to attend to important tasks and not have an emotional response to the often negative dialogue which is frequent in many individuals,” he said.

Enhancing mindfulness

One way to thwart mind-wandering is through practices that enhance “mindfulness,” or the state of paying attention in a non-judgmental way to the present moment, the researchers said.

Distinct from other forms of meditation, compassion meditation training involves the recognition of, and wish to relieve, suffering in others and oneself. As such, there is an emphasis on the focus of one’s attention on a particular person, object, or situation, rather than engaging in meditation where there is no specific object of meditation.

“This difference in technique may in turn lead to changes in mind-wandering that are different from what is observed with mindfulness training,” the researchers wrote.

As the researchers noted, compassion is defined by an awareness of suffering, sympathetic concern and a wish to see the relief of that suffering, and a responsiveness or readiness to help relieve that suffering.

The study examined 51 adults during a compassion meditation program, measuring their various states of mind-wandering (neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant topics) and caring behaviors for themselves and others. Participants took a secular compassion meditation training program developed at Stanford University that consists of nine two-hour classes with a certified instructor.

They were encouraged to meditate at least 15 minutes daily and, if possible, 30 minutes. At various intervals, participants were asked questions such as “Are you thinking about something other than what you’re currently doing?” and ‘Have you done anything kind or caring today for” yourself and then again for another?

The researchers also gave the participants examples of “kind or caring behaviors” – such as visiting with people at a retirement home, helping a child with homework or in learning something new, and telling a friend, family member or co-worker what they appreciate about that person, for example.

The results indicated that compassion meditation decreased mind-wandering to neutral topics and increased caring behaviors toward oneself.

Moreover, the more that the participants engaged in their compassion meditation practice, the greater their reductions in mind-wandering to unpleasant topics and increases in mind-wandering to pleasant topics, both of which were related to increases in caring behaviors for oneself and others, according to the study.

Mind drift not always problematic

The researchers say the study is the first to provide initial support that formal compassion training can reduce mind-wandering and elicit caring behaviors for oneself and others.

Doty noted that mind-wandering by itself may not necessarily be bad. Unlike mind-wandering that drifted to negative or neutral topics, the researchers did not find a decrease in caring behaviors for self or other when the mind wandered to positive topics.

People allow their minds to wander, by choice or accident, because it sometimes produces concrete rewards – such as an intellectual insight or even physical survival.

For example, rereading a line of text three times because our attention has drifted away matters very little if that attention shift has yielded a key insight or a pleasant topic. This contrasts with mind-wandering that unleashes a flood of anxiety and fear, for example.

Doty noted that one of the evolutionary traits in the human species is the ability to monitor potential threats and immediately focus one’s attention on that threat.

“If there are too many such threats or, in the case of living in modern society with so many events that one feels they must attend, our internal system to analyze such threats can cause us to feel overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted,” he said.

Doty added that mind-wandering can be reflective of this reality as one’s attention keeps getting diverted.

Co-authors on the study include Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal; psychologists Inho Lee and James Gross from Stanford; Thupten Jinpa, the English translator to the Dalai Lama; Hooria Jazaieri,a UC Berkeley psychologist; and Philippe Goldin, a UC Davis psychologist.

Clifton Parker is Social Sciences Writer for Stanford News.

This article first appeared in http://news.stanford.edu/.

Why Compassion Is a Better Managerial Tactic than Toughness

May 1, 2015 By Emma Seppala

Stanford University neurosurgeon Dr. James Doty tells the story of performing surgery on a little boy’s brain tumor. In the middle of the procedure, the resident who is assisting him gets distracted and accidentally pierces a vein. With blood shedding everywhere, Doty is no longer able to see the delicate brain area he is working on. The boy’s life is at stake. Doty is left with no other choice than to blindly reaching into the affected area in the hopes of locating and clamping the vein. Fortunately, he is successful.

Most of us are not brain surgeons, but we certainly are all confronted with situations in which an employee makes a grave mistake, potentially ruining a critical project.

The question is: How should we react when an employee is not performing well or makes a mistake?

Frustration is of course the natural response — and one we all can identify with. Especially if the mistake hurts an important project or reflects badly upon us.

The traditional approach is to reprimand the employee in some way. The hope is that some form of punishment will be beneficial: it will teach the employee a lesson. Expressing our frustration also may relieve us of the stress and anger caused by the mistake. Finally, it may help the rest of the team stay on their toes to avoid making future errors.

Some managers, however, choose a different response when confronted by an underperforming employee: compassion and curiosity. Not that a part of them isn’t frustrated or exasperated — maybe they still worry about how their employee’s mistakes will reflect back on them — but they are somehow able to suspend judgment and may even be able to use the moment to do a bit of coaching.

What does research say is best? The more compassionate response will get you more powerful results.

First, compassion and curiosity increase employee loyalty and trust. Researchhas shown that feelings of warmth and positive relationships at work have a greater say over employee loyalty than the size of their paycheck. In particular, a study by Jonathan Haidt of New York University shows that the more employees look up to their leaders and are moved by their compassion or kindness (a state he terms elevation), the more loyal they become to him or her. So if you are more compassionate to your employee, not only will he or she be more loyal to you, but anyone else who has witnessed your behavior may also experience elevation and feel more devoted to you.

Conversely, responding with anger or frustration erodes loyalty. As Adam Grant, Professor at the Wharton Business School and best-selling author of Give & Take,points out that, because of the law of reciprocity, if you embarrass or blame an employee too harshly, your reaction may end up coming around to haunt you. “Next time you need to rely on that employee, you may have lost some of the loyalty that was there before,” he told me.

We are especially sensitive to signs of trustworthiness in our leaders, and compassion increases our willingness to trust. Simply put, our brains respond more positively to bosses who have shown us empathy, as neuroimaging research confirms. Employee trust in turn improves performance.

Doty, who is also Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, recalls his first experience in the OR room. He was so nervous that he perspired profusely. Soon enough, a drop of sweat fell into the operation site and contaminated it. The operation was a simple one and the patients’ life was in no way at stake. As for the operation site, it could have been easily irrigated. However, the operating surgeon — one of the biggest names in surgery at the time — was so angry that he kicked Doty out of the OR room. Doty recalls returning home and crying tears of devastation.

Tellingly, Doty explains in an interview how, if the surgeon had acted differently, he would have gained Doty’s undying loyalty. “If the surgeon, instead of raging, had said something like: Listen young man watch what just happened, you contaminated the field. I know you’re nervous. You can’t be nervous if you want to be a surgeon. Why don’t you go outside and take a few minutes to collect yourself. Readjust your cap in such a way that the sweat doesn’t pour down your face. Then come back and I’ll show you something. Well, then he would have been my hero forever.”

Not only does an angry response erode loyalty and trust, it also inhibits creativity by jacking up the employee’s stress levels. As Doty explains, “Creating an environment where there is fear, anxiety and lack of trust makes people shut down. If people have fear and anxiety, we know from neuroscience that their threat response is engaged, their cognitive control is impacted. As a consequence, their productivity and creativity diminish.” For instance, brain imaging studies show that, when we feel safe, our brain’s stress response is lower.

Grant also agrees that “when you respond in a frustrated, furious manner, the employee becomes less likely to take risks in the future because s/he worries about the negative consequences of making mistakes. In other words, you kill the culture of experimentation that is critical to learning and innovation.” Grant refers to research by Fiona Lee at the University of Michigan that shows that promoting a culture of safety — rather than fear of negative consequences – helps encourage the spirit of experimentation so critical for creativity.

There is, of course, a reason we feel anger. Research shows that feelings of anger can have beneficial results – for example, they can give us the energy to stand up against injustice. Moreover, they make us appear more powerful. However, when as a leader you express negative emotions like anger, your employees actually view you as less effective. Conversely, being likable and projecting warmth — not toughness — gives leaders a distinct advantage, as Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School has shown.

So how can you respond with more compassion the next time an employee makes a serious mistake?

1. Take a moment. Doty explains that the first thing is to get a handle on your own emotions — anger, frustration, or whatever the case may be. “You have to take a step back and control your own emotional response because if you act out of emotional engagement, you are not thoughtful about your approach to the problem. By stepping back and taking a period of time to reflect, you enter a mental state that allows for a more thoughtful, reasonable and discerned response.” Practicing meditation can help improve your self-awareness and emotional control.

You don’t want to operate from a place where you are just pretending not to be angry. Research shows that this kind of pretense actually ends up raising both your and your employee’s heart rates. Instead, take some time to cool off so you can see the situation with more detachment.

2. Put yourself in your employees’ shoes. Taking a step back will help give you the ability to empathize with your employee. Why was Dr. Doty, in the near-tragic OR moment, able to respond compassionately to his resident? As a consequence of recalling his own first experience in the OR room, he could identify and empathize with the resident. This allowed him to curb his frustration, avoid degrading the already horrified resident, and maintain the presence of mind to save a little boy’s life.

The ability to perspective-take is a valuable one. Studies have shown that it helps you see aspects of the situation you may not have noticed and leads to better results in interactions and negotiations. And because positions of power tend to lower our natural inclination for empathy, it is particularly important that managers have the self-awareness to make sure they practice seeing situations form their employee’s perspective.

3. Forgive. Empathy, of course, helps you forgive.

Forgiveness not only strengthens your relationship with your employee by promoting loyalty, it turns out that it is also good for you. Whereas carrying a grudge is bad for your heart (blood pressure and heart rate both go up), forgiveness lowers both your blood pressure and that of the person you’re forgiving. Other studies show that forgiveness makes you happier and more satisfied with life, significantly reducing stress and negative emotions.

When trust, loyalty, and creativity are high, and stress is low, employees are happier and more productive and turnover is lower. Positive interactions even make employees healthier and require fewer sick days. Other studies have shown how compassionate management leads to improvements in customer service and client outcomes and satisfaction.

Doty told me he’s never thrown anyone out of his OR. “It’s not that I let them off the hook, but by choosing a compassionate response when they know they have made a mistake, they are not destroyed, they have learned a lesson, and they want to improve for you because you’ve been kind to them.”

Emma Seppala, PhD, is a Stanford University research psychologist and the Associate Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. She consults is a corporate well-being consultant as well as a science journalist with Psychology Today, Huffington Post, Scientific American Mind and the e-magazine she founded, Fulfillment Daily. Follow her on Twitter @emmaseppala or her websitewww.emmaseppala.com.

This article was originally published in the Harvard Business Review, at https://hbr.org.

A Compassionate Work Culture Benefits The Bottom Line

May 1, 2015 By Alena Hall

We know that being kind to others feels good, helps us heal, and even makes usappear more attractive. Now there’s evidence that acting with compassion in the workplace can also have a profound effect on both the internal and external success of a business.

While the idea has previous been labeled “touchy-feely” and quickly discarded, creating an emotionally positive work culture can boast big benefits for both customers and employees, according to a new study from researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the George Mason University School of Business. They found a clear, positive correlation between compassionate behavior, work satisfaction and company success. Their results were recently published in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly.

In the study, researchers Sigal Barsade and Olivia O’Neill focused on exploring the idea of a compassionate love culture, which they describe as the following in their report:

To picture a strong culture of companionate love, first imagine a pair of co-workers collaborating side by side, each day expressing caring and affection towards one another, safeguarding each other’s feelings, showing tenderness and compassion when things don’t go well and supporting each other in work and non-work matters. Then expand this image to an entire network of dyadic and group interactions so that this type of caring, affection, tenderness and compassion occurs frequently within most of the dyads and groups throughout the entire social unit: a clear picture emerges of a culture of companionate love.

Specifically looking at long-term care facilities, they observed 13 units of a particular company in the northeastern United States including 185 employees of various healthcare professions. They also gathered survey data from 108 patients and 42 family members to see how work culture impacted the quality of patient care offered. Everyone filled out questionnaires about their work culture, and then 16 months later when the researchers returned, they evaluated their answers.

They found that the units that operated with more compassion experienced less burnout, fewer unplanned absences from work, better team work and a higher job satisfaction. When it came to their patients, they visited the emergency room less, and experienced higher moods, satisfaction and overall quality of life. They were even more likely to recommend the care to other future patients and their families. (It’s important to note that the study revealed a sort of correlation — but not causation — between compassionate love work culture and these benefits.)

Since most healthcare professions naturally rely on a component of compassion to some degree, so seeing how the results fared in different fields would be telling of just how interconnected kindness and these benefits are. Recognizing this limitation, Barsade and O’Neill surveyed approximately 3,200 employees from a variety of industries regarding their work culture, which led to similar findings. The more compassion experienced within a work culture, the higher rates of job satisfaction, accountability, performance and commitment.

“For decades, management scholars have encouraged leaders to take ownership of their cognitive culture,” Barsade and O’Neill said in their report. “Similarly, leaders would do well to think about and take ownership of emotional culture.”

This new data aligns well with previous research that shows just how strong of an impact having good friends at work can have on your happiness levels, for in order to build and maintain such relationships, you must behave with genuine compassion for those around you. Feeling able to express yourself genuinely goes a long way in creating a productive environment and a strong culture — both inside and outside of the workplace.

Alena Hall is an Associate Editor of the Huffington Post.

This article was orginally published in http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.