This #TeamTalkTuesday was written by Aimary Rubio and edited by Elizha Corpus, with panels constructed by Lea Zarza, all of Elizha Corpus Consulting.
It goes without saying that the pandemic has had a profound impact on workplaces worldwide, and one of the enduring concerns throughout this global experience has been the question of how we can best maintain our human resources towards organizational resilience. This has brought about more discussion on how we must invest in maintaining the mental health and well-being of our workforces, both as a humanistic and corporate responsibility. We can translate this as organizational compassion, which is essentially a consciousness and acknowledgement of colleagues’ experience of suffering that in turn drives collective action towards alleviating that suffering (Chatterjee et al, 2021).
While it is important to put into place organization-wide policies and strategies that address employee needs towards strengthening their well-being, it is equally important, and often understated, that employers recognize the unique and complex circumstances of individual constituents by engaging in a more personal, engaged and involved approach (McGuire, 2020).
Something as large-scale as culture transformation might be an ideal and necessary step in this direction, but building a compassionate workplace can also start with something as simple as fostering constructive and encouraging dialogue.
Guiding this week’s Team Talk is the core framework of an outpatient psychosocial type of treatment called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy or DBT. In DBT, patients are inculcated with the skills that allow them to balance acceptance with change, i.e., they are taught to accept intense emotions or thoughts that arise from those emotions, while at the same time changing their behavioral response to their experiences. Although, of course, DBT is used to address severe mental health problems such as bipolar disorder or suicidal behavior, we can take away from its core dialectic and apply to our workplace dialogue the value of alternating between validating emotions and experiences and encouraging progressive, problem-solving behaviors towards infusing compassion in our workplace conversations (Miller & Lynam, 2019).
DBT has proven that acceptance of past and present realities that were or are out of our control can help us to both acknowledge our emotions and respond to them more head-on and more effectively (Chapman et al, 2011). And one way to foster this kind of acceptance is by validating others’ emotions and experiences, i.e., to recognize what someone else is going through without judgment. The following are examples of validating statements that could occur in the workplace:
“Having to guide your kids through online school while doing work from home must be challenging.”
“You’ve really been working hard and putting in the hours these past few months, and I hope you can see that.”
“I know it’s disappointing that the project was discontinued, we all worked so hard on it after all.”
With validation, you don’t necessarily try to alleviate or solve someone's suffering, but more of orient yourself towards their pain and sit with them in their experience of it.
It’s a simple but powerful way to show compassion in our daily interactions with our co-workers, and can help reduce feelings of isolation that arise during challenging times.
Alongside validation, it’s important that we evaluate ourselves objectively towards growth and learning, because contrary to what most people may believe, part of showing compassion is keeping each other accountable to our shortcomings/mistakes in order to enable us to adopt a problem-solving approach to difficult situations. The following are examples of statements that could occur in the workplace that are both encouraging and constructive:
“You may have failed to meet your targets, but you are not a failure. Let’s look at where things can be done more effectively next time.”
“Anyone in your position would find it hard to adjust to our blended work set-up. Is there any way I can help you figure out how to do things more seamlessly?”
“It looks like your initial framework for this project isn’t working out, and we can work together to figure out a solution.”
Validation in the absence of a growth mindset can lead to stagnation. On the other hand, focusing purely on solving an issue without pausing to recognize our present realities and the emotions that come with them can feel discouraging.
Compassion, therefore, should involve fostering both the acceptance of what cannot be changed, and the willingness to work on things that are within our control.
Sources
Chapman, A. L., Gratz, K. L., & Tull, M. T. (2011). The dialectical behavior therapy skills
workbook for anxiety: Breaking free from worry, panic, PTSD, and other anxiety
symptoms. New Harbinger Publications.
Chatterjee, S., Chakraborty, S., Fulk, H. K., & Sarker, S. (2021). Building a compassionate
workplace using information technology: Considerations for information systems
research. International Journal of Information Management, 56, 102261.
doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102261
McGuire, D., Germain, M.-L., & Reynolds, K. (2020). Reshaping HRD in Light of the COVID-19
Pandemic: An Ethics of Care Approach. Advances in Developing Human Resources,
152342232097342. doi:10.1177/1523422320973426
Comments