What’s Compassion And Authenticity Got To Do With Successful Strategies?

Compassionate strategies are explicitly designed to remove unnecessary suffering. Authenticity has to be at their core, without it we can’t fully comprehend what the suffering is. This combination may not guarantee financial success by itself. But the question is do you think it increases the probability people want to work for you, buy from you and invest in you.

If you don't it would be understandable. Though we can all be compassionate and authentic, we often believe such qualities are inappropriate in many business settings. Any suggestion they could underpin your people-planet-profit strategies is likely to appear more idealistic than realistic. On the other hand they might just make your chances of success far more likely. Decide for yourself via the three vignettes below.

It's one day in the not too distant future.

You’re reflecting on three questions that arose in separate meetings. One from a candidate for a critical role. Another a presentation to a potential new client for a significant contract. Finally a pitch to “a dragon’s den” of new investors as part of a new funding round.

The Candidate

The candidate was one of several ideal fits for a senior role and seemed keen to come aboard. She asked what you thought to be an astute question towards the end of the interview. “The gap between what an interviewer thinks it’s like to work in their business and what it’s actually like is often huge, how realistic is it to claim your culture is one people love being around and is prejudice free?”

Imagine your answer was something like this.

It would have been unrealistic before 2020. But the pandemic along with the Black Lives Matter campaign were a bit of a wake up call.

They provoked a lot of soul searching. I and those around me felt vulnerable and fragile. I felt it was time to make some serious changes and invited all our people - those of colour, mental health sufferers, our LGBT community, young, mature, male, female staff, everyone - to help in working through three phases of change:

1. Cards on the table - saying what it really felt like to work for us.
2. Mindsets - understanding the role memories play in creating our experiences of life.
3. Culture - co-creating a way of being together that works for everyone.

"Tell me what happened in each phase" asked the candidate

Phase 1 created angst. Phase 2 felt risky and radical at the time.

Phase 1 created some angst.

People didn't know how authentic or honest to be. We worked hard on creating the conditions in which they felt safe, could speak freely and be heard, without being judged. For the most part that worked. A few remained sceptical.

Our conversations were a real eye opener. We learnt about micro-aggression and its hurtful impacts. We realised everyone’s mental health varies from day to day and pretending otherwise only made matters worse. We discovered the word presenteeism: being physically present in meetings but mentally absent. We traced women having to prove themselves more while getting less pay for doing the same job as men back through our company’s history. It was clear that commonly used terms like “Human Resources” or “headcount” were dehumanising for some. Harassment and bullying showed up. I could go on.

There were many cathartic moments. We felt each other’s pain.

Phase 2 - mindsets and the role memories play in creating experience - felt quite radical and risky at the time.

This was a potential pitfall: people can understandably think the intention was to belittle, refute or somehow deprive them of their past. Not the case. Yet I knew, deep down, the emotional pain we'd explored in Phase 1 - be it given or received - is caused by memories that get triggered by our senses, but which we're not always conscious of. We all operate from memory-backed mindsets. 

..moral positions..had such a vice-like grip on people, 
talking about them felt difficult.

We explored memories laid down during our upbringing - on grandparents' knees for instance. Those connected to our biological and cultural heritages as told in stories - many of which we still live from in our heads: the hunter gatherer, only the fittest survive, businesses aren't emotional places, only think positively and other similar memes.

The links between what surfaced and the pain people felt became clearer. Stigma about mental health, often rooted in fear associated with asylums and passed down the generations for example, made comforting and consoling a colleague who was in a low mood hard. Similarly moral positions on homosexuality, colonialism and the role of women had such a vice-like grip on people, talking about them felt difficult.

Crucially, talking openly started to get easier.

We did though. We figured if we can't speak authentically we had little chance of easing suffering. We traced the roots of these memories, wondered about their appropriateness, considered their emotional impacts, questioned their helpfulness etc. We looked more closely at the nature of prejudice. We discovered it’s learnt not innate. We recounted how mainstream and social media create stereotypes we commit to memory but bear little relation to who we each are as individuals.

Crucially, talking openly started to get easier. Colleagues saw how the link between memories and the feelings they generate in any given situation is part of the human condition, not a phobia only some have that needs fixing. This had three vital impacts:

• It diminished the one powerful emotion that can scupper initiatives like this: blame. I was so pleased when the sceptics willingly came into the fold.
• We didn’t fall into the this-is-who-I-am-and-what-I-believe-so-there’s-little-I-can-do-to-change trap.
• We started the process of resetting our relationships, based on our shared humanity, not the memory-distorted lenses we once mistakenly saw each other through.

Part 3 - co-creating the culture - is ongoing but we've made huge steps forward.

We’ve learnt to not take unhelpful memories seriously and in many cases to drop them altogether. We jumped out the heroes-and-villains mindset many, including me, were in for example. Survival of the friendliest, not the fittest, has become a more helpful story to live by!

If you join us you’ll find people may ask which lenses you’re wearing. It's our way of lightheartedly checking that faulty memories haven’t smuggled their way into our purview. Similarly if you’re asked about your “mood elevator” it’s shorthand for acknowledging - not judging - the fact our transient moods go up and down. We tend to avoid big decisions when blurred lenses and low moods are in play! We are at our innovative best when they’re not.

Saying you’re in a low mood is a sign of strength not weakness here. It means we get a better handle on what’s possible in our conversations at any moment. Some colleagues refer to it as “the vibe in the space between us.”

To me, if you were to tot up those vibes, across all our conversations over time, that is our culture. Of course you can’t do that, it’s immeasurable, yet invaluable too.

Borne of compassion we’ve cut through unnecessary suffering. 
We’re better people for it. 

I encourage you to walk around and ask others here to speak for themselves before you decide to join us. Personally speaking I’m far more comfortable in my own skin now than before. We have a new-found clarity about what we’re here to accomplish for each other, our clients, our industry and the planet.

Borne of compassion we’ve cut through mindsets that caused unnecessary suffering and waste. We’re better people for it. Emotionally aware, intelligent and resilient. Ironically, given it emerged during the Covid Crisis, our culture is infectious! It puts our clients and key suppliers at ease too.

Is it free of prejudice? Probably not on reflection. Inevitably, unconscious biases still creep in on a few occasions, especially when our moods are low. But are people free to notice and not take personally memories we all have that can cause or give offence? Absolutely. And I for one feel privileged to be in a position to say I love it!

The Potential Client

The potential client, was evaluating your proposal and those of two competitors. He had a sceptical look on his face when he asked: “What do you mean when you say sustainability is unsustainable and we take a net-positive approach?” You wondered if he thought it was just marketing speak. The kind of thing firms ought to say.

What if your answer was something like this?

In conversations with staff during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic and the BLM campaign, we learnt just how vulnerable and fragile we all felt. Not just because of health and social concerns but environmental ones too. Almost all of us knew of someone who’d been affected adversely by the pandemic, various isms and extreme weather events.

This prompted us to look closely at our firm’s relationship with the planet. We asked ourselves questions such as:

• Are we dispassionate or compassionate on issues like biodiversity loss, air quality, ocean acidification, carbon levels, deforestation, plastic use etc?
• Are we powerful or powerless on doing something about it?
• What does sustainability actually mean?

We concluded we felt deeply uneasy about increasing planetary degradation and must act. But we thought sustainability - or what we think of as matching what we take out to what we give back - is unsustainable. On a global level for example zero carbon is a) unlikely to be achieved and b) does not repair damage already done. It simply delays the point in time when the planet dies.

We therefore decided to play our part in regenerating eco-systems to what they were in 1750, before the Industrial Revolution.

To give one illustration, we collectively need to plant about 20 billion trees a year over the next 50 years to take out the 40% excess carbon now in the atmosphere that was not there 270+ years ago.

Practically speaking this net-positive approach to nature has meant we’ve baked three goals into our culture; or our way of doing business.

Mitigate. Adapt. Restore.

We mitigate ecological damage and adapt to negative environmental effects through several processes: design, procurement, waste reduction, travel and transportation etc. This is getting us to net zero but to be net positive we also invest time and money in local and international environmental projects. Five in particular:

• barrier reef restoration
• drone-based tree planting
• topsoil enrichment
• plastic eradication
• organic, robotic farming that curtails the need for deforestation and reduces the number of miles from farm to plate.

Our intention through these actions, alongside our prejudice-free culture, is to be known for setting the bar in our sector on social and environmental responsibility. We believe that’s in everyone’s long-term interests, not just our own.

The Investors

The would-be investors were keen. They understood why compassion for people and planet was at the heart of your business model. They shared your take on scaling up opportunities too. After a period of mediocre results, recent growth in revenues, margins, and cash generation impressed. As did KPIs such as on time, on budget project completion, sales pipeline, high employee engagement, low labour turnover and high client retention.

Their question that struck you as unusual wasn't about the numbers though. It invited you to lead on the kind of relationship you wanted with them. You wondered if they were testing your commitment not just your business strategy that needed funds, but to them too. “Be honest with us, what do you need from your investors that you’ve not traditionally had until now?”

Imagine you spoke freely in response and your answer was multi faceted.

You began by saying you wanted them to feel part of what you’re creating not remote from it. You stressed you were not inviting them to micromanage, more to recognise that in these more socially and environmentally aware times the route to wealth creation for them, lies in delivering value to others - employees, suppliers, clients and society more widely. You suggested Milton Friedman's doctrine of shareholder wealth maximisation needed a rethink in these new times.

You spelt out what this meant in practice. You asked that they reign in any tendency towards the tyranny of either / or, and thought both / and instead. “If the lens through which you look says it’s either us or employees who reap the rewards or take the hits, swap them for both you and staff. We’re one team.”

You suggested that in essence they’re investing in the rate at which you and your teams keep learning, innovating and adapting. That’s what’s most vital in this age of rapid change.

You said trust between you and them mattered too. You suggested it’s based on feeling safe enough to be vulnerable in conversations with each other. This meant voicing mutual interests and concerns, and working together to solve them. You cited the mindset and culture work with staff as a good example of what can be achieved when people are able to be their authentic selves. That, for you, was the primary reason why the numbers were now looking very attractive.

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Your reflections on your day made you wonder whether you’d said and done the right thing. Would the candidate accept your offer? Would the client choose your bid? Would your next funding round be successful?

Your colleague noticed you pondering these questions. She wanted to know where your mood elevator was. “About half way. Not sure how I’ve done today. Feeling a bit uncertain about the outcomes” you revealed.

“I get that” she said. “I wear that self-doubt lens too sometimes. Remember, you’re not in control of what sense others make of your words. The only test you have is did you speak from a place of compassion inside and were your words authentic: chiming with what you truly believe? That’s what moves your and their elevator up a few floors.”

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Roger is a Co-Founder of The Mindset Difference, a London-based company whose purpose is to make transformation easier by accelerating senior teams' potential to innovate.