The Culture of Compassion

In a recent column I shared some personal observations about corporate culture. Based on my experience, I classified cultures into four groups— Red Culture, where everyone cares; Blue Culture, where nobody cares; Pink Culture, where people pretend to care; and Black Culture, where everyone hates each other. We can agree that these are over-simplifications, but a study of company culture set against these backdrops can provide insight for the executive to review and self-assess their own culture and leadership.

Red Culture, the culture in which everyone cares, is the most desirable. Red Culture is the Culture of Compassion. Red Culture is very difficult to achieve because of an array of issues. First, most people operate from self-interest. The challenge to achieve Red Culture is to stimulate people to put aside self-interest and elevate team interest. As the old saying goes, “There is no I in TEAM.” In order for teams to work, there must be trust— trust in leadership, trust in team members, and trust in team design. Most important, there must be competency.

Patrick Lencioni defined the Five Dysfunctions of a Team in his famous book, so-named, as:

1.      Absence of Trust

2.      Fear of Conflict

3.      Lack of Commitment

4.      Avoidance of Accountability

5.      Inattention to Results

Notice that Absence of Trust is at the top of the list. Lencioni suggests elements of team strength that at the surface seem contrary to the emotions of love and caring— conflicts, commitments, accountability, results. Thus the concept of “care” and “caring” are not simple emotions. They are actions centered around outcomes.

To achieve Red Culture, there must not only be trust, there must be action— actions to do the right thing. An organization full of human beings by its nature can be unruly and complicated. Communication styles are different, and different people respond to the same messages in different ways. To achieve Red Culture, there must be some burning platform, some common goal.

Some of the best examples of Red Culture in history are groups of people who are threatened with survival. In Northwest Nebraska in the 1800s the Lakota Sioux Indians encircled a band of Crow Indians, their arch enemy, on a butte. The Sioux elected to wait out the Crow rather than trying to attack from below. The Crow appointed an older man to tend fires so as to trick the Sioux into thinking that the Crow were still atop the butte. They then slaughtered their horses and made ropes from the skin. During the night the Crows climbed down the cliffs undetected and the old man sacrificed himself for the team. This is Red Culture.

America during World War II is another example of Red Culture. There is a reason people refer to that generation as “The Greatest.” Leaders of Red Culture must be humble and have the ability to galvanize a simple vision. The people must sacrifice for the team.

Leaders must ask themselves “What does caring even mean?” In today’s world, “caring” has been deconstructed into symbolic gestures, as opposed to real acts of charity. Leaders who care about global warming fly on private jets. Many people who looked the other way when it was going on, now care about women who have been sexually abused or harassed in the workplace. Politicians care about issues but get nothing done. And in business, how many times have you been asked by a business that cares to complete a survey while waiting on hold for eons of time, only to have your call answered by someone in another country who you cannot understand?

The greatest risk to Red Culture is that it evolves from a culture of people who actually care, to people who pretend to care. In Pink Culture, which I will cover in a future article, people pretend to care. How ironic that high school football players now wear pink during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Do football players wear pink because they care, or because they saw their NFL star where pink? When someone does something for the simple act of raising awareness, is that really someone caring for another?

Red Culture is a culture led by servant leaders who galvanize a clear vision, for a group of people who put the interest of the team above their own self-interest. The people hold their leaders accountable and their peers accountable, but most importantly, they hold themselves accountable. In Red Culture there is trust.

That is not easy to achieve.