Making a REAL contribution to the world at Work.

Making a REAL contribution to the world at Work.

Compassion in the Workplace. Real or Stupid?

An email arrives filled with malice. Deliveries not met, promises broken, accusations of incompetence. What to do? The options are limitless. Religious zealots will argue for their righteousness and recruit others to agree. Uninspired individuals don’t care what anyone thinks. Angry people send a tit for tat back by drumming up a “you did it worse than me” insecure people will show the email to others to recruit emotional pity. The options go on.

What does nature guide us to do?

First we must avoid projections of being stereotyped. A tree is a tree, a rock a rock, and we must begin by acknowledging that no two people are going to feel totally the same about an abusive email. We all have varying degrees of the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether in our constitution and this determines our feelings under threat. So, to feel angry, sad, defensive, hurt, reactive, frustrated is genuine and totally human.

Second, we must not act on those feelings. If our real intent is to bring our intrinsic values to the world, then any spontaneous action that comes from those feelings must be seen as corrupt. Reaction causes a ripple to become a tsunami, a problem to become a drama, a moment of unconsciousness to become a life long grudge. The buck stops with you. STOP. Don’t share it, respond to it, act on it, talk about it. Just cut yourself some space to own your feelings without infecting the whole office with your stuff. Accept that your reactions are just your stuff. Don’t get on your high horse and recruit everyone into rescue, resentment or proving you are right. This is causing the world to go downhill. Stop. The Buck stops here.

Third. Have some compassion. Compassion means: put yourself in their shoes. They might, like I do today, have the flu, and so their anger or accusation might be just their own life. Have compassion, maybe they feel that they are right and therefore, feel that every word they say is right. All war on earth is caused by religious righteousness. Two rights do not make a wrong. They just magnify a mosquito bite into the second world war, the war in Israel, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Africa. STOP. Be wrong, have compassion, simply put yourself in their shoes and see that from where they sit, they might feel right in what they say.

Forth. The more you justify yourself, the greater the lie. The person who tells you how clever they are is lying the most. The person who pretends to be so happy around you is lying the most. Really. That happy go lucky person you will you could emulate in the office, has a shitty home life. That’s what they are so happy to be at work. Don’t swap places, get envious of others. Everybody is just like you.. So, relax. This person who wrote the email is no better or worse than you. They are just on their own reaction to something good that happened somewhere else. Trust Nature. Nobody is going to beat them up more than they do to themselves. Trust nature. Don’t feel like you have to be GOD. Let them experience their own morality within them. If you just don’t react, nature will bring them back to love.

Fifth and final. Make them feel heard. What does that mean? It means take their email to pieces line by line and find the problems they are expressing. Like this. “I got your email earlier today. Thank you. I think these are the points you are making. – you feel we promised delivery on 1/1/07 but didn’t deliver until 2/1/07. You feel we promised that we’d do this …but didn’t. Is this what you are saying? Can you confirm that I got your message clearly please.

I know this last point sounds corny, but you can’t believe how much trouble can be avoided if you repeat back to people what you think they are upset about. I think you will find 90% of the time, you are wrong about what is pissing them off. Be conscious to repeat things back under the clear umbrella of “let me get what you are saying” or “I just want to understand the problem, is this it” and make sure you repeat back to that person what you think is upsetting them.

Compassion.

Compassion does not mean taking people’s anger onboard or denying your feelings. Compassion means the buck stops with you. You have a great power if you know how to catch a red hot potato and not get your hands burned. Think about it. If someone throws a ball to you, really hard, do you just hold your hand up to stop it, or do you cushion the catch by moving your hand back and slowing the ball down a bit?

Finally, please remember, nobody can do to you more than you do to yourself. Anger that comes up, sadness, disappointment – it is inside of you already. The only thing another person can do is to bring it out. Don’t blame them, thank them. Better a bad neighbour than a dirty tenant. (better out than in)

Live with Spirit – take the power back – try compassion. It works.

Chris Walker