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Compassion in a T-Shirt
Team Compassion at Work: Psychological Safety & Better Outcomes | Helena Nguyen
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- [00:01]
A
Have you ever worked in a team where something went wrong, someone was struggling, a mistake was made, the pressure was high and you could feel the difference between a team where individuals close ranks and blame, and a team that leans in and supports each other. Hi, I'm Dr. Stan Steindl. Today on Compassion in a T shirt, we're exploring compassion at work, not just as an individual trait, but as something that can live, breathe and operate at the level of teams and whole organisations. I'm joined by Professor Helena Nguyen, whose work sits at the forefront of research on workplace compassion. In a recent special issue examining compassion in organisations across individuals, teams and systems, Helena and her colleagues make a compelling case that compassion isn't just a nice to have, it's a strategic necessity. It shapes psychological safety, well being, learning and even outcomes like patient safety in healthcare. In this conversation, we unpack what team level compassion actually looks like, how mindfulness supports it, what gets in the way and why this work matters now more than ever. And so I bring you Professor Helena Nguyen, foreign. Helena Nguyen, welcome to Compassion in a T shirt.
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B
Thank you.
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A
Lovely to. Lovely to see you. There's been a big rise in interest in compassionate work, I guess, over the last few decades. What's from your perspective, what's driving that and why does compassion feel especially important, I guess, for organisations right now?
- [01:56]
B
Yeah, thanks, Dan. There's been a few factors, I'd say, that's contributed to the interest in compassion over the last decade or so. I might go through some of them, I think, firstly because I'm a work psychologist and I do research in organisational behaviour, I think the landscape of work has changed so much and by that I mean it's become faster, leaner, flatter, if you think about it, more emotionally demanding and especially in sectors like healthcare, where I do a lot of my research. So I think when systems are very. Systems and when people are very stretched, people will feel and people will start to look around and say something is not right here. And we can see that already in things like high levels of burnout, work, anxiety and distress and disengagement at work. So they're the symptoms that you see from a very sort of distress system, I think. I also think Covid though it feels like it was a very long time ago. It wasn't, but it was a huge accelerator, I think, of this type of research. So if we can sort of take a few, you know, our memories back, we saw during the pandemic extraordinary acts of compassion in health care and in other aspects of work as well. And I Think at that point people started to realize that, you know what, compassion isn't just a nice to have, it's actually a really critical thing for getting through crises together. And we saw that. And then what happened then was post pandemic and this is where we're sort of, where we're at the moment, we're starting to see really the fallout and the cost of working in systems that didn't always support it. So it's now a sustainability issue around wellbeing and how much people have left in their tank really. And finally, I'll just say another thing is that looking ahead, I think compassion research will continue to rise in its importance and its relevance. So when we think about the rapid adoption of AI as the thing that's, that's happening, there are so many aspects of work. So thinking about the way work is changing at the moment, the way jobs are changing, so many aspects of work are being automated. So we see that in accounting and auditing, accounting and auditing work, for example, where a lot of that is being automated and the AI does a better job. So we're sort of now tackling a new question, I'd say, which is, you know, what remains uniquely human then at work? What are the human skills that we, that we still need and, and is valuable? So I think AI can try to simulate empathy in the form of writing caring messages. And maybe in that way it's very good at it because it's very good with words. But you we know that compassion isn't just wor, right? It's in, it's inherently action orientated. So it's noticing suffering. Let's say the AI doesn't notice, it doesn't think. And feeling and being moved by suffering and wanting and taking action to alleviate. These are things that I don't think technology is capable of. And these I believe innately human capability. So topics like compassion I think will just become more and more important.
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A
Yeah, work is already difficult in a way, isn't it? We are stretched thin and the resources are hard to come by and time is of the essence. And so in a sense, even at that fundamental level, compassion in and around the workplace is kind of essential. And then certain big global things happen, you know, Covid and so on. And I remember Marcella Matosh did a multinational kind of study and found that compassion did actually increase, you know, around the world in response to that because people were, were wanting to be helpful. But then how is that sustained, you know, and is sort of a bit of a 60 million dollar question. And then this question of AI is, is such a sort of. It's just looming there, isn't it? It feels like stuff is changing so rapidly and what does it mean for the, for our jobs and the massive changes that will come and, and even in, even from a compassion or empathy point of view. Yes. The AI seems to try to simulate something which might not be exactly what we're talking about, but on the other hand, people are also using it in that way, which is, yeah, sort of an interesting thing about how they've, they've adopted it. I must, I must admit, I. Whenever I talk to ChatGPT, it sort of says to me, oh, Stan, what a wonderful thought you've had. What a brilliant idea. Does all of this.
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B
Very good at validating, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
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A
But it's missing something. And I suppose, yes, partly compassionate work is about maintaining that the humanness, I
- [07:16]
B
guess, at work, the human connection at work as well. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
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A
A lot of workplace compassion, a lot of compassion research really is focused on individuals and your work kind of pushes us to look a bit beyond that, I guess. But if, if we start with the, the individual stuff, like what. What do we miss? Maybe in the workplace, if we're thinking, you know, just about, you know, compassion as something that the individual employee has or doesn't have.
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B
Yeah, Stan, I actually think we miss a lot and we also risk a lot. Not just missing because were not able to, I think, realize the full potential of compassion when it's only sort of examined through the lens of the individual. Because it's so much more and its impact is so much more when it extends beyond the individual to more collective domains such as within teams or groups and organizations, communities, societies and beyond. So I'll go back to health and I'll give an example. So when we focus on the individual level of compassion, we will tend to ask, is this nurse, doctor, whatever the health practitioner is, is this person compassionate enough? And when they're not being compassionate enough, the risk in this question will, is that it can make us blame the individual if it's seen through primarily a trait lens or an individual lens, let's say so. But we know that even the most compassionate clinician, we can't always act compassionate all the time. So if we think about ourselves or the work we do, we're running from patient to patient, then workload is the major issue there. It's not us not being able to be compassionate. So we have a paper on this where we found that the link between compassionate care, behaviours and positive outcomes such as psychological safety is weakened when workload demands are high in that work context. So that's an example. I also think that because, and I go back again that the work landscape and work has changed so much in the way work is structured. I mentioned it being flatter. There's greater reliance on teams in terms of teams and collaboration to get work done and get things done. I think that if work is being structured and designed so differently now, then it's really quite questionable as to whether situating compassion as an individual obligation is a practical thing to do, even a sustainable thing to do. Meaning it's not fitting with the context of the current work landscape. And I mentioned impact and that we're missing a lot because. Yeah. So I just think compassion is so much more powerful and when it's enacted collectively. And that's why I do think we need to move beyond just the individual if we want to reach impact. Yeah.
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A
And just pop to mind, I guess for me is the same sort of applies to the notion of self compassion or self care which gets talked about. And yet if that's just considered from an individual point of view, there seems like there might be dangers there too. What are your thoughts about self compassion at that individual level in the workplace?
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B
Oh, I think self compassion is a building block and a. And it is a foundation of compassion. And I do think that, you know, if you ask where do I start and what is the role of self compassion? I'd say it's a critical role. So I'd say you would start with looking at how you care for yourself. And we often say that it's not about caring in that sort of narcissistic way, is it? It's about actually having that non judgmental way of thinking about yourself and, and really being kind in the way you, you think about yourself and the way you perceive and evaluate yourself as well. So I think there are very powerful benefits to starting at self compassion but we can move beyond and I think when we have enough to give to ourselves, we'll be able to give to others. So I think it's a key role. It's just, it's a very multi layered role. And I'll talk about that later as well.
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A
Yeah. Yes. Because I think sometimes the danger is if, if the onus is on the individual to kind of bring self compassion and, and self care to themselves, then the organization is less inclined to actually change the demands that are being placed on the person.
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B
And yes.
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A
And all of the respons sometimes land on the Individual. So you've mentioned their compassion at the team level as sort of a kind of coordinated process, a sort of collective approach. What would be a practical kind of example of what team compassion might actually look like just to kind of get our head around it in that sort of day to day work.
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B
Yeah, so the, the construct of team compassion is fairly new, Stan, I'd say. And it has been that much research on team level compassion and we are starting to look at it. But at a very practical level, team compassion, I would say looks like small coordinated actions that's carried out by the team. So let's, let me, let me explain a bit more what I mean by that. So if you look at the way people work in teams, so if you have a sort of, you're an observer of a team and you sort of stand away and look at them, you will notice and that there are certain shared practices and shared ways that the team members are working together. So these sort of behavioral norms that you'll see emerge, that is compassionate or not so compassionate. And that's what I mean. So for example, team members noticing, let's say a colleague who is being, let's say unusually quiet after a difficult patient interaction action. This is, this is small actions. And then someone checks in and say, are you okay? Would you like me to cover the next patient? Let's say then the team adjusts that work demand or workload without any drama or judgment. So, so it's having some sort of a team process and you'll see it. And that could be also team process for debriefing after certain critical events. Making space and giving time. The team making space and giving time to show care for one another. The team slowing down actually when noticing something or someone or something doesn't feel right and then coming together. But I think the key thing about team compassion is that no one person is carrying it alone and that the team notices it, he feels and it responds together. And that these practices or these shared practices, they are as I mentioned, shared but legitimized. It's reinforced and it's value and it's prioritized in the team. So it's more than just the individual. Yeah, that's, that's how we've been looking at team compassion.
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A
Yes, there's the shared word. It seems important and there's a kind of a reciprocal nature to it. And there might be different times when different people are on the giving or the receiving end or whatever and we're able to be flexible I suppose as well and kind of Pivot, so to speak, when necessary, to just create that team sense of support.
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B
That's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we really mean.
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A
Yeah. You mentioned noticing, and I think in your research you've sort of looked at team mindfulness playing an important role in enabling kind of team compassion. So what's the relationship there really, between mindfulness and compassion in the team at the team level?
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B
That's a complex question, Stan. The relationship. Because it. Look, I don't want to get all like, academic, but it does depend a little bit on how we measure team mindfulness. So I'll say a little thick bit there. So we do have a paper where we just. We aggregated individual mindfulness traits. So how mindful you are, how mindful I am. And, you know, and we. We work as a team, so. And then we bring that up to the team level and that's sort of an. An aggregated mindfulness of that team. Just like if you were to look at how extroverted a team is and you'll just get the extra version of each team member and then average it up. So when we did that, we did find positive relationships. So teams that had more mindful members is how I would describe that way of measuring. So we found that teams with more mindful members did engage in more compassionate interactions with each other, and they also then reported greater team satisfaction. So they actually had greater enjoyment working together, which is important because that's around wellbeing, team wellbeing, team viability, team sustainability. Right. You can't work with people you don't like for a long time. So it's. It was a nice finding. But colleagues have also looked at team mindfulness as a shared phenomenon, and that's measured slightly different. So that's not just measuring each person's trait mindfulness, but something that bit more collective. And. And they've defined it more as when the team is aware and accepting of itself as a team. And it's very different to each team member, let's say practicing meditation or mindfulness on their own, which is perhaps potentially the way that. That paper that I mentioned, we looked at just the individual. But that. And it's not that it's not important. The individual mindfulness is really important as well, but it's more about what the team does together and the shared awareness. So that collective noticing without judgment, the example I just gave as well, and this enables the team to be able to catch issues and problems much earlier and they're able to respond a lot more quickly and often more compassionately. As well, which is why mindfulness is an enabler of compassion to each other, but also to the people they serve, such as their clients or their patients. So there's a lot of positive outcomes when team mindfulness and compassion go hand in hand together in terms of the flow on effects to others.
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A
Just sort of elaborate a bit more on the second, because I definitely understand that idea of the individual kind of levels of mindfulness across different team members and how that can kind of work towards compassion. So what. Because what really interested me there, you sort of almost said an awareness of the team in a way, or even an awareness of kind of being a team. Almost was the impression I nearly got there. So, yeah, how was that team mindfulness sort of measured? Or can you just sort of give us a little bit more on that?
- [18:52]
B
So there's a bit of an overlap, I think, between team mindfulness in that shared perspective to that shared mental model, which is a very well established construct in the team literature. So when you see teams that have a shared mental model, they're just in sync. So every. All the members have a very good sense of the task, the workload, what needs to be done, where things are at, who needs backup, who needs support at any point in time. So there is this really good sense of what's going on in our team, who needs to do what, when. And that is almost. So I would say there's a bit of a Venn diagram between team mindfulness that's being measured in that very share way, that shared awareness way with that construct that's more well established of shared mental models. And it's different ways to measure it, but you're trying to tap into a convergence that the team has about the way the team is functioning together. And there's a great sync in that. So synergy, there's a synergy where you see in aircraft, in aviation crew, your teams, they just seem to know and they're all like, if you look at a batch of ants as well, when they're working together, they just seem to all know where to go and what to do, and it's just very well organized. And that's what they were talking about when they're saying that team mindfulness and that shared awareness of each other.
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A
Yes. No, it's really, it's really interesting, the mental model. But also team mindfulness possibly promotes a number of really positive aspects to team functioning, but including, I guess, team compassion in a sense as well.
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B
And I think of Stan, I can't help but think of soccer, you know,
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A
when you look, I was thinking of soccer myself.
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B
Were you? Yeah. It's like you get a group of people together, right? And they're, they're, they're, they're amazing as they are. So you, you want superstars and they're all in, but they all need to know how to work together. And when you're on the field and it's high pressure, and a lot of the environment that I work in is high stakes, high pressure. It's how they're able to notice what's going left, right where the goal is and just being able to pass the board to each other and to support each other when needed to fill in the gap. So I think it's a great analogy. There's great team mindfulness when you look at a game like soccer where no one individual can do it on their own. And I think that's a powerful thing. I don't think we've really done enough on sort of looking at that shared
- [21:18]
A
awareness and bringing into it, I guess, a shared awareness of suffering, I suppose, is perhaps the bit that the might. Yes, yeah. That then kind of take us towards compassion in a sense. Actually. It's just made me think. Have you found that health practitioner or health teams are more or less team mindfulness or team compassion than other workplaces? Or like the accountants or auditors that you mentioned earlier?
- [21:49]
B
Oh, it's dangerous comparing across occupations, Stan. I wouldn't, I haven't done that type of research myself, so I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to comment on that. And I'm not sure there has been research. I think it's a, it's an interesting one. But I'm not convinced actually necessarily that you'll, that some occupations are. Well, you would maybe, maybe, maybe in high stakes you have to, as a function of what you're trying to do. So I'll just leave it at that because I don't know.
- [22:21]
A
Yes, no, that's, that's very appropriate. It's a bit of a. One of those questions, but I guess I was just thinking that with the soccer team, but perhaps in an accounting firm, there, there are other motives at play. You know, there's the competitive motives and sometimes there can be a sense of the other person on the team is someone you're also competing with because you may or may not be picked next week, or you may or may not, you know, get the bonus this week because of. So there's a competitive motive potentially that can make that shift to team compassion. Trickier. But, yeah, maybe not.
- [23:03]
B
In fact, No, I think you're onto something. And I was at a conference recently actually at UQ and we had a few colleagues present their research and one of the colleagues was presenting work on a competitive organizational culture and what that does. And I think that's sort of similar to what you're saying. And indeed that makes it really hard for people to enact sort of more citizenship, more empathetic behaviors or more other orientated behaviors because the system and the culture is set up to not reward that type of behavior, let's say. Or there's that added pressure in, to enact in a certain way.
- [23:41]
A
Yeah, I mean one of the striking things about your work is that compassion also isn't necessarily just linked to well being. It actually is linked to outcomes of various sorts. And in the health sector, perhaps outcomes in even patient safety or fewer errors. So what's the relationship there do you think? Why do you think compassion has such a tangible impact on performance as a team and safety outcomes?
- [24:12]
B
I think this is the most exciting bit of my research and the most impactful actually being able to link compassionate behaviors and in this case compassionate care behaviors in healthcare to more hard outcomes or bottom line outcomes and particularly around patient safety and patient safety metrics because that's when organization really start to sit up and actually, you know, show a lot of interest that this, this, this thing matters a lot. I think that compassion is able to have such tangible effects, as you were saying, because it is so action orientated the construct. It is not just a feel or notice, it is a doing, it's an. And I. So I think it's action orientation gives it the ability to change behavior in that very practical, tangible way. So I'll make again just to give you some examples. We know that there's a, there's a lot of evidence to show that, that showing compassion makes people. And if you're interacting with patients and it's patients or your or your team members feel much safer to speak up about their concerns. And there's a lot of good links there and when people feel safer, what they do is they'll be able to tell you more about what really is going and also that would really help also them to prompt, to seek help and continue to seek help as well. So I think when you're showing compassion with like let's say now to team members, like what I just said to you, perhaps even nurse or junior doctor or someone saying, admitting, admitting like I actually, I'm not sure, I don't know. I think that can in some contexts Save lives. Right. Because then others can actually jump in and be able to support, support that person as opposed to feeling a lot of fear or shame to say that, which is dangerous actually, particularly in the health context.
- [26:19]
A
Yeah, that's really cool. The bit about action is really interesting and it's often something that can be a misinterpretation around compassion is that it is more of a feeling or something like that. But actually it's a very action taking steps, being helpful, kind of a sort of a motivation. And so the action itself leads to changes that might create more safety. For example, even the early example of someone noticing that someone's kind of struggling coming out of a patient session and then offers to do the next one for them. You could imagine that that would create potentially an improved outcome. Even just little bits by little bits.
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B
Yes.
- [27:06]
A
Little incremental improvements and then that person has a little kind of moment, they're able to kind of settle themselves and ground themselves and then they, off they go to the next person and they're more able to have a really positive interaction and, and so on as well. And so there's, there's sort of the, the, the action piece, but then there's also the safeness piece as well. And, and it seems so important in, in the health kind of sector that we're able to speak our concerns or things that we've noticed or something that often if people aren't feeling very safe, they don't want to look silly, they don't want to be sort of, you know, humiliated by asking a question and so they stay silent and, and something gets missed. So the, the safeness piece that, that creating of, of safeness is, is really interesting as well.
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B
Yeah, I mean there's some good research, Stan, on looking at how GPs who are more compassionate and have more compass patients with their patients are able to get more out of their patients about, you know, the, the, the, the health, the health challenges that they're having and that leads to better treatment, which is why you're getting these flow on effects to better safety outcomes. Because they're feeling safe. To tell you, actually this is what I did and this is what happened. And then you're like, okay, now we can find better solutions because I'm hearing you and, and you feel safe to tell me that what's, what's going on? So there's some good links then even links to mortality rates. So it's an impressive literature looking at compassion and safety outcomes.
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A
And it does make me wonder again about more the corporate world or commercial Sort of sectors where it wouldn't surprise me at all if team compassion would be predictive of better outcomes there as well. Well, not least the well being kind of outcomes amongst the people or the individuals themselves but actually just better performance in the role. So it would be really great to start to look at some of those other sectors as well, I suppose.
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B
I agree 100%.
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A
We sort of in the caring professions, you know, the sort of doctors or nurses or psychologists, you know, should just be compassionate, you know, even in really tough systems they are often really tough environments I suppose. And what are some of the real risks there I guess of placing the responsibility of compassion and for that matter of coping with all of that, you know, like solely on individuals rather than the team or actually perhaps even the organization.
- [29:57]
B
Yeah, yeah, I think I, I think this relates very much to what we've been discussing as well where I spoke about how it's just not sustainable, you know, that, that onus on individuals to carry the load and the burden of compassion and mentioned burnout and so indeed that's one of the biggest challenges we have in the healthcare and social assistance and we've been doing a lot of research looking at the number of psychological injury claims actually in the healthcare and social assistance and it's triple the rate of any other industry. So in fact we have looked at some comparison across industries Stan, actually on that and there's very strong research there. But yeah, so when it's on the individual I think, and you know, you and I, we can reflect on this. I'm sure we've seen colleagues ourselves have gone through this process of just feeling great, great shame and guilt and emotional exhaustion, feeling quite, making errors at work because, because of all that and what it's been doing at least in, in absolute health and, and social assistance is pushing people out of that profession which is hugely problematic because we're now having major issues with workforce sustainability in the healthcare and social assistance where people just don't want to be in professions that are, that carry this individual burden. And, and you know, we as a society place that on carers. It's, it's just we're not going to have a good outcome and we need carers, that's the thing. We need people to be in hospitals, we need people to take care of our infants, we need people to care, care about elderly and the most vulnerable people in our society. It's an absolutely critical workforce but it's a workforce where as I said, this traditional view of them having to, to carry the load of being Compassionate. It's really tricky. I think we need to recognize, and psychologists are very good at recognizing this, but not necessarily every. Every other profession, that in. As individuals we have limited resources to cope, that. That is human. We. We only have a certain amount a day to give. So I think if. I think we need systems that are designed better, organizations that are designed better work in jobs that are designed better, leaders to support people to do good work. It can't just be left to the individual. And I think that's been sort of what we've been trying to keep pushing.
- [32:33]
A
Yes, it makes me think there's sort of individual compassion, there's team compassion, and maybe there's organizational compassion or something at that much broader systems level. And in the recent special issue that you edited or led, what's it called with a special issue that you're the
- [32:56]
B
special issue editor in chief or something. Something fancy like that, but it doesn't mean anything.
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A
Well, it was a great. It was a great special issue. But yeah, it seemed that compassion can be sort of constrained by structures or policies or the culture of the broader organization. What would be some of the most common organizational barriers that might get in the way of individual or team compassion at work?
- [33:30]
B
Yeah, it's an excellent special issue. And there's an excellent paper actually, in this special issue by Mia park and colleagues from the University of Helsinki. And that paper was very much focused on the organizational level. And I loved it because it interviewed managers and employees from a variety of different organizations, not just healthcare. And they identified five key organizational barriers. They called it organizational barriers. But I'll just summarize what the five barriers are. The first is mindset, which is an individual. An individual barrier. But. But it's about intersections and interrelationships. I'll go there. But with mindset, it's about, you know, am I even aware? These are some of the questions that sit within the mindset. Some people are not even aware. Do I even care? Compassion might not even be on their minds. And, you know, they're not even thinking about it necessarily, or thinking that it's. It's a valuable thing or. So there's a mindset challenge. Then they've mentioned behavior. And this, this is more about people reflecting on, you know, do I have what it takes to. To. To. To action. So that's more. Or to. To carry through the behavior. Then they've got culture, and that's sort of more like, do I have. Is there permission within that culture to raise these issues or to bring these. These challenges up and Then they speak about system as the fourth barrier. So are the systems and the process well being and compassion or they geared more towards say efficiency or profitability or, or competitiveness let's say. And then finally leadership which is do the leaders care? What is it that they value? Is compassion at the forefront of, of their values, let's say. And these barriers you could see mindset and behaviors and cultures, there are mixed, of individual and communal factors and they're also a mix of internal and external. So sort of there's a, a quadrant that, that the paper speaks about. But what is particularly, I think what I particularly love about this paper is it's not just looking at the barriers in their siloed layers, right, which is often what we tend to do. We look at individual teams or whatever it is, but actually looking at the way that these different layers interrelate and are interconnected as part of more complex systems. And so instead of saying the shortcoming is to do with the individual or the problem is to do with the team, or it's the institutional fault such as culture, they're saying that it is about the way that these layers influence each other at different levels. So there's knock on effects as well. It's a very complex paper but it does call for what they've called for more systems intelligence thinking, which is a systems driven way of thinking. And it's about embracing more the complexity of, of, of, of this, of work I think and, and the need to think about the entanglements I think to develop better solutions. So I tend to see it in layers that are siloed. They've gone up and down across the different layers and said look, these things all are interconnected and you can't unpick one without, or you can't uproot one barrier without addressing the others. And I think it's a very intelligent way of thinking about that compassion.
- [37:03]
A
Because really an organization kind of is just a whole lot of people I suppose in all different roles and all different levels and layers and with various motives at play that they're trying to juggle. And quite often there might be threat system or drive system at play even for people at different levels that can make it hard. But it's the interplay amongst all of that that that is, is sort of. Well, it's complex but also that's, that's where we need to, to try to address. It's not, it's not as simple as saying well you know, the, the leader should be, you know, leading the way and be more Compassionate or. And it's not really to say, well I've, I've come here and it's just the culture that's, the culture's not going to, you know, it's all these sort of multi. Factors that. What, what, what. I mean, how do we address that? That's probably complicated question as well.
- [38:01]
B
How do we address that? I think that's, that's a nut we haven't cracked yet, Stan. But there, look there, there, there are a lot of, maybe we'll talk more about what do we do and you know, where do we go from here in a sense from, from a strategy point of view. And so I'm, I'm an optimist and I'll just declare that. And I'm a glass half full kind of person and I'm, I'm hopeful. So we spoke about just now how complexities and how embedded things are and I think in some way that's a good thing. So going to lean into this interconnection and the fact that it is complex because what it means is that even small change and small gestures and small things can have great impact. So these things are all interconnected. As you were saying, you know, the leaders embeds in the culture, the culture is part of an organization. And then within that, in, within all that there's mindsets, mindsets traveling through all of it. You can see it. Then I think there's, I think we lean into that and say, well, what can we do? We can do a lot. So for managers and leaders and reflecting on this and I work a lot with, with managers and leaders. I mentioned starting with the self and I still, I still believe that. I think that's an important place to start to look in the mirror often. And that's about mindset and self awareness and social awareness. And you know, where is your view on this as a leader? And, and how are you also thinking about compassion for yourself? And I think we mentioned a little bit of self compassion, your resource, your individual mindfulness. Yeah, thinking about mindfulness because you know that these two are very, very related and, and one enables the other developing your own emotional intelligence. I think this is all around the interpersonal skills. This is all within that domain. And I think what's really also important is engaging in what I call collective learning or mutual learning. And that is about having, I'd say dialogue and learning from each other. And one of the key things that I've noticed more and more is being able to have difficult conversations. That's a big one. I Think. And the leaders and managers role to be able to navigate difficult conversations well and equipping them with the skills to be able to do this. Well, because as you were saying, at the heart of compassion, it's all about facing pain. It is about suffering. It's about acknowledging and noticing suffering instead of walking past it. Which is, which is, you know, easy to do, I guess, but it's. But we need to have the skills, I think we need to equip our leaders and managers and, and our teams to be able to have the skills to manage these more difficult conversations as opposed to just saying, yeah, you go, go do it. So, yeah, I'd say. I think I've gone on a bit of a tangent there, Stan, but.
- [41:23]
A
That's right. I think what I'm getting from you is that the beauty of the complexity in a way is that there's many ways in, therefore, and there's the individual sort of intrapersonal aspect to it. We might start in and around mindfulness and self compassion and mindset and emotional intelligence and those sort of things that's very worthy and worth doing. But then, you know, there's the interpersonal piece, which is. Yeah. How to, how to relate to one another and, and that might be, you know, sort of people at our own level or people sort of in at different levels and creating that interpersonal piece. Even a sort of a sense of the, the group or the communal kind of. There's a, There's a kind of a. An awareness around that the team mindfulness and the team compassion that we can start to bring into that as well. And it's about skills by the sounds of it. It's skills, not least communication skills. But we might be trying to work with leaders in certain ways, but with team members in certain ways. And there's just sort of many ways in. And it's probably a work in progress and sort of change, especially at that cultural organizational level, might just kind of move along kind of at its own pace. But yes, it's actually possible because there are all of these identified aspects to it.
- [43:02]
B
Yeah. And yesterday I was doing a workshop with leaders and we were looking at, and I mentioned circles of control because I think there are so many ways to. There are so many actions and so many things that can be done. But where do you start in a way and you think about could be quite overwhelming given that these are wicked problems that we're talking about. They're not simple solution problems. So yeah, when I think of those, when I think of, you know, what can we Control directly. These are absolutely our own behavior and how we signal and how we, what we're signaling and how we're modeling to others around us because everyone, someone's watching and noticing and these are norms and we start to create what we think is acceptable, what is not. So the inner circle, I think is where we can control the most. And then obviously there are things that we can try and influence as leaders and as managers and that is around having these difficult conversations. You know, when you nail a difficult conversation, your circle of influence increases, expand, expands out a bit more, you feel, because you become more interpersonally confident as well. You expand on your skills. And then there are things that are in our circle of sort of concern, they're important and they impact us, but that we don't have direct control or influence. And most of it sometimes we can get quite overwhelmed when we just sort of try and focus all our attention on the things that we're concerned about but don't have direct control. So I think it's about thinking through what we can do quite immediately to help with, to help ourselves in terms of our own well being and those of others. Yeah.
- [44:52]
A
Does psychological flexibility come into that? Has that been kind of looked at? That ability to sort of have a strong intention on what one might be trying to achieve but not hold too tightly onto the outcome or you know, sort of being able to move and shift and pivot when, when, when necessary?
- [45:14]
B
Absolutely. I think. And given that, you know, the world that we live in now is just so volatile and, and, and fragmented and things are changing so rapidly, I think you that, that ability to think a bit more, to have that more flexibility in the way we cope and, and deal with change. We did measure psychological flexibility in one study looking at nurse patients, patient dyads and there we actually conceptualize psychological flexibility in, in two, in two ways. Stan. We looked at it in, in the form of mindfulness because that helps that, that that is part of that being able to be more psychologically flexible and what we've called values driven action, which is the way, you know, just being able to, to be values driven in our decisions, in our thoughts and how we behave. Yeah, so it's, it's absolutely relevant as well. Well,
- [46:13]
A
well, the special issue is really great to dive into. It's got a lot of excellent papers in there. I'll have the link to all of that in the, the description. It's the Australian Journal of Management, which is cool and compassionate work I think is the special edition. So. Yeah, but where, where and And I'm sure that was a, you know, an, an accomplishment that you then had to kind of recover from. But what's happening next for you? I mean what, where are you, you, where's your thinking taking you in in terms of this compassion at work kind of idea?
- [46:48]
B
Yeah, I, I think where everything we spoke about, I'm keen to keep moving forward so really pushing the field to go beyond the individual. And I think that the team is a great start because it is often people's most salient context at work. The organization can sometimes feel quite removed, especially if you work in a very big organization, but your team and your team member very strong impact on your everyday well being. And so I think team compassion deserves a lot more work. And, and, and that would be something I'd focus on. But I think this more systems driven thinking way of thinking about compassion in that more sort of complex is something that I think needs more research. I think that's where the research on compassion is heading. That sort of notion of compassionate organizing which is an organ way of thinking about compassion. Just what you mentioned. How are organizations designed and organized to, to actually prioritize compassion and compassionate interactions. That works. So we have now compassionately, for example in our policy, you know, so that, that, that isn't it. That is a policy driven example of compassionate organizing and something we shouldn't take for granted for because we didn't have such a leave a while back. And I think really. Yeah, just moving away from the more traditional like heroic view of the individual. I work with a lot of nursing colleagues and they often say, you know, the traditional view of nurses is sort of the white angel that comes floating through and really resolves and helps everyone. And that's really not a sustainable view of, of, of compassion. And really seeing I'd like to see compassion research as something that we, we know more about in terms of how we build and enact compassion together. So that more collective sense,
- [48:57]
A
We're just getting back to the, the humanity of it all, isn't it? And this it is that I find that really interesting, that notion of kind of moving away from the heroic because yes, it sort of becomes a sort of martyring.
- [49:14]
B
Yes.
- [49:14]
A
Sort of experience in some ways. And, and really coming back to the humanity of, of each, each person, the humanity of the team, the organization.
- [49:23]
B
And yeah, the notion of vulnerability. Actually Stan, like I think there's not been a lot of research on vulnerability as well. And, and I think even the word suffering feels odd in the corporate context. You know, like when, when we, because I obviously publish more in the management space and in the, in the business school sort of papers that they sort of react to this. When we talk about compassion, to suffering, as if it doesn't belong in workplaces, I think that's so odd because when I look at workplaces, I see suffering all around us in different forms. So I think we're still a long way, if I can be honest, in the business world to really start to normalize what human experiences.
- [50:09]
A
Yes. Yeah. Yes. And, and I, I will let you go in a moment because just I know you. We. We need to finish up, but. Yes, the, the. The way of the world at the moment is, is just sort of even intrudes, really. You know, there's so much. I've just come this morning off doing a webinar about, about working with grief and, you know, with compassion and so on. And, and there is a lot of grief and loss around us at the moment in terms of how the world is changing, and that comes into all facets of our life and work and, you know, as. As well as our personal lives. So it's. We're the same person whether we're at home or at work, and now sometimes we're at home when we work, and that makes. Makes it kind of complicated as well.
- [51:00]
B
Yeah. And let's not forget compassion for, for our environment. So there's so many layers of compassion that we sort of haven't tapped into at all. So it goes well beyond us. And I think this has been the major theme of this, this sort of conversation, isn't it?
- [51:16]
A
Yeah. Well, Professor Helena Nguyen, thank you. Well, thanks for the, the, the work that you do and, and you presented at the UQ Compassion Symposium last year, which was really wonderful, and, and kind of clued me into the special issue and all the rest of it. So thanks for all of that great work. But also thank you for speaking with me on compassion in a T shirt.
- [51:40]
B
Thanks for having me, Stan.
- [51:44]
A
Good. All right, I'll just press stop.