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Compassion in a T-Shirt
Transforming leadership: Bringing compassion into corporate culture | Laura Berland & Evan Harrel
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- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Dr. Stan Steindl. Welcome to Compassion in a T shirt. Today I'll be speaking with Laura Berland and Evan Harrell from the center for Compassionate Leadership based out of New York State. Laura is founder and executive director of the center for Compassionate Leadership and she's lead faculty on a range of programs including including the Compassionate Leadership certification training. She has worked in the corporate sector across many years, but has also had a parallel interest and practice in contemplative studies at the Centre. She's managed to bring these two worlds together. Evan is co founder and chief operating officer of the Centre for Compassionate Leadership. He has a long history of working in the non profit sector and is consultant and board member of a number of non profits. He integrates the scientific and business research into the work of the Centre and contributes to the development and delivery of the Centre's training programs. As you will hear, the Centre for Compassionate Leadership has developed a number of training and teacher training programs that are evidence based and widely disseminated. If you are in an organization or a business and you'd like to bring compassion into the corporate culture, then this is the place to go. And so I bring you Laura Berland and Evan Harrell. All right, well, today I have with me Laura Berland and Evan Harrell. Welcome to Compassion in a T shirt.
- [01:50]
B
Thank you.
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C
Happy to be here with you, Stan. Thank you.
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A
Thank you so much for coming to speak with me. When we arrive at your organization's website, center for Compassionate Leadership, the first thing we see is courage, curiosity, love, written boldly across the page. Could we start there? Just tell us a bit about your organization, perhaps organization's values, guiding principles.
- [02:21]
B
Sure, yeah. Those three words are a great place to start. Let me start at the end. Let me just start with love. It's a word that doesn't necessarily get used a lot in business, but we think is completely consistent with, with organizational practices. And we think that leaders who are able to view others with, with positive regard, recognizing their shared common humanity, lead more effectively. And, and that's, that's the love. Seeing another as your fellow human and treating them as. As you would want to treat them. Showing care, showing concern, being upset when they're suffering, hoping to find ways to alleviate their suffering and change things so it doesn't happen again. So the way to get to love is through curiosity. Leaders especially have that categorizing mind. You lay it out very nicely in your book. From our evolutionary background, we want to separate things into good or bad. Should I eat that mushroom or not? Eat that mushroom. But when you start converting that into labeling people again, good or bad, industrious, lazy, team player, selfish, all of a sudden, we're losing our connection to the other. But when we bring curiosity, we can see that our fellow human makes mistakes just like we do, and we can respond to those mistakes in ways that are going to help them grow. So that's where the curiosity comes in. But to do that takes a lot of courage, because as I said, we live in a world, especially in the organizational world, that's highly competitive. And it's so much easier to just write somebody off instead of sitting down and saying, you know, it's not okay to do that. I believe you have it in you to make the changes and do it the way it really needs to be done. And by the way, I'm here to support you and help you. That's. That's not easy to do. It takes courage when you've got pressures on you. And the easy thing would be to just throw them into the bucket of the unproductive employee. Let's figure out how we can get them out of here as quickly as possible. And so that's. That's the courage and the curiosity and the love of compassionate leadership.
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A
There's. It's interesting because I can feel the analogy with the work I do in therapy. You know, there's a vulnerability there, isn't there, to really connect with other people. And we can feel that. And sometimes it feels safer just to categorize them. You know, for me, it might be this person is being resistant or something like that. And I'm sure leaders can slip into that as well. You know, categorizing people, it takes courage to open up and to be curious and to see the whole person. But once you do, then you can connect with compassion or love or, you know, those. Those kind of elements. So it's. It's actually, yeah, I can. I can sort of relate, I think, to those. Those three sort of steps.
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B
Absolutely. And when you do that, they start to flourish, they start to blossom, and their contribution to whatever it is you're working towards grows incredibly.
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A
Because we're watching out for the threat system, isn't it? You know, that that's what can be at play in both the leader and the employee or the therapist and the client or whoever the two parties are. It's kind of. We can both fall into a sort of a threat system kind of conflict thing. Sorry, Laura, you're about to say about.
- [06:31]
C
Compassion being contagious in a way, and, yeah, I show it to you and you feel the same care and kindness and appreciation. It helps, you know, melt away some of the, the obstacles to expressing compassion once you're in the presence of other compassionate people and leaders.
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A
Yes.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So, so tell us about the founding story, I guess, of, of your center and you know, sort of how, how did that come about? What was the, the inspiration behind it?
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B
Yeah.
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C
I'm the daughter of survivors and refugees from World War II. I am only here because of the care and kindness of numerous individuals whose names I will never know. That planted a seed in me. And then I went off in the world and spent 40 years in the business world, in the non profit world. And it wasn't until about 25 years ago I fell into the world of compassion because I, I personally faced a tragedy. Somebody was kind enough to send me off on retreat and start learning about awareness and compassion and mindfulness. And that opened up an aspect of my being that I didn't really understand, was accessible because so much of the darkness of what my lineage brought forth was still sort of embedded and embodied in me. So as I went, as I kept growing my contemplative life, I kept working in the organizational world. And then there was a moment where, you know, my, my contemplative life had so much energy and possibility and it's really where I wanted to spend my time more directly. And then I, it occurred to me that I'm not alone in this, having sort of two tracks in my life, a work life and an inner life. And in fact, I was becoming a better human in my work life because of my contemplative growth. So that was really the impetus for blending together the beauty and the wisdom of so many contemplative practices with what we know about leadership. And then sort of layered in nowadays, of course, is all the beautiful science and evidence that we have available to us that gives more credibility and authority to these practices. I mean, on one hand, the only authority I really feel we need is what we experience and what we know from the inside out. On the other hand, especially in organizations, a lot of people want to see the data. So it's wonderful that we have all this science to back up what is now, you know, a series of practices and principles that we share and teach around compassionate leadership. We're a non profit, we're based here in the States, but we work with people around the world. Because what we found is that this, this deep desire for us all not only to be compassionate in our personal lives, but to bring that into organizations is really As I said before, kind of contagious. And so many people are alone in that pursuit because this is early in a movement to bring compassionate leadership into organization. So when we find each other in countries around the world, we're very excited because we can stand with and support each other in this work. It's hard work.
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A
Yes, I know you recently met my friend and colleague Marcella Matosh. And you may know she came to Australia recently to present at the Compassion, our UQ Compassion Symposium. That was last year actually. But she presented a lot of her epigenetic work, which is incredible science that looks at the way that experience can help to shape and change our, our genetic expression. And you mentioned there, well, just the, the role that even generational trauma can have initially to, to bring kind of really tough aspects to our existence and that darkness that stays, I guess, across the generation, as you mentioned, but also the way that that contemplative practice can, can change that as well. That, that we, you know, with, with certain effort to, to. To. To sort of practice mindfulness and compassion, we can actually literally make changes to our genetic expression. And the science behind that is, is really, it's at its infancy in some ways, but it's very compelling. And so as you say, you know, like, if we can, if we can sort of develop some of those pract areas of life where people can be a little bit kind of threat system activated, then it can make a massive difference, you know, not least in organizations. But people like the. Like to see the proof.
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C
I suppose they love to see the proof and maybe their bosses need to see the proof because we are talking about organizations that are living with, you know, a lot of traditional baggage, let's call it about the way things should be or how we should behave or the competitive instinct. And it's really important because our work is really focused on organizations in the workplace in elevating this idea that we can treat each other with kindness and care and appreciation and elevate the thriving not only of the individuals, but of the organization as well.
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A
Would you speak literally to organizations about the bottom line? I mean, is that, does that come into your conversations in terms of compassionate leadership?
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B
Absolutely, because compassion in organizations has a positive impact. This is also researched. It has an impact on the creativity of individuals. It has a very strong impact on the engagement of individuals. And so in this post Covid era where people have been talking about quiet quitting and the like, it's so important that organizations create structures where they recognize the real experiences of the people who are working within their organizations. But there is, there is a, there is a catch. Compassion really cannot be instrumentalized within organizations. The motivation has to be for the benefit of the employee. And what happens then is the employees thrive and flourish and their production is then enhanced. If it is an attempt to, ah, I look at this evidence, wow, compassion is going to make me a lot more money. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to do all the things that they say I should be doing for compassion. But the, the authenticity and the sincerity behind the actions are understandable by people. And at the first sign of a threat to the leader who is doing this to instrumentalize, they'll abandon it. And so, you know, compassion is a practice. It's not, it's not, it's not about going and checking off a bunch of boxes. It's about ingraining a whole series of behaviors in the way you react to other people. Creating high quality connections which then allows a better flow of information. It quicker response times, faster turnaround. So the, the instrumentalization is, undermines all of that.
- [15:12]
A
Yes, we people, I suppose it's, it's not, we're not wanting to pretend to be compassionate. We're not wanting to, you know, be compassionate to get our employees to, you know, kind of be better or make us more money. It's, it's, it's actually a whole, a whole different motivation. It's coming from that genuine authent place to be helpful and, and to help, I presume, you know, employees and so on to, to suffer less and to flourish more, I guess.
- [15:45]
B
And, and I will tell you, I'm an MBA and an economist by training and so much of what goes on in the business world is based on exchange theory. So when I do, when I perform an altruistic act, it is oftentimes for the intention to get something in return. We need to change our focus to a relationship theory where I'm simply acting because it is the supportive thing to do for all of us. And, and that's when compassion, compassionate leadership is particularly effective.
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C
This idea of being human has really been beat out of us in modern organizations, right? We're supposed to perform and be robots and maybe we'll be replaced by robots. You know, the whole idea of expressing our authentic selves, bringing our emotions to the table, feeling warm and caring for other people, it's not really part of the agenda in modern organizations. But increasingly they are understanding that creating environments of safety, connection and belonging is really what people want in terms of the workplace environment. They spend a huge part of their lives in, and they want to be well. And all of that contributes to the positive outcomes that emerge as more people stay connected, engaged and thriving.
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A
It's interesting, the shift from an exchange theory to a relational theory. In the relational theory there's still reciprocation, isn't there? It's still a reciprocal kind of a thing. It goes back and forth in that sort of a way, but in a way that cultivates warmth and friendliness and safeness and trust and confidence and the ability to be creative and to explore the world sort of a thing. That's what, what we're trying to foster, I suppose. So you've alluded to lots of really kind of important aspects to it, I think. But how would you define leadership and where does compassion fit in to that?
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B
So we use a very simple definition of leadership, which is the ability to motivate others towards a shared goal. And that shared goal, the shared goal portion is really important. And this is, I think what differentiates the leadership that we embrace from power over leadership is that it is a truly shared goal. Many leaders will know what they want to do. They'll, they'll conceive of the plan or the goals and then they go get buy in, they sell it. And, and, and, and if you sell right and people really are fully on board with you, it will become a shared goal. But a true shared goal includes input from others, includes a collaborative system. Compassionate leadership is an emergent process. You learn as you're going. So that's the shared goal part. But the first part is the ability to motivate others. And we can all motivate. Leadership is not a function of where you sit in a hierarchical structure because the person greeting you at the door is able to motivate in their own way. Just as the, the person sitting at the top of the pyramid can motivate. That's leadership. So where does compassion come in, you ask? Because that is, that is what we are, are working towards. Well, we see compassion coming forth in two ways. And this is, this is a model from, from Monica Werline and Jane Dutton is that leaders lead with compassion and for compassion. Leading with compassion is the individual acts of compassion, how you respond to everyone around you, how you treat them and the like. Whether or not you call people at 9 o' clock at night with an assignment that you want to see done by the next, next day, which is not the compassionate right, that's leading. That, that is that that portion is the leading with compassion domain. The other portion and, and this is where, where there's just the greatest opportunity and that this is leading for compassion. How can I take those individual expressions of compassion and bring them into an organization and help create and foster and nurture and grow a culture that is responsive, where it's not just dependent upon the leader to notice suffering and figure out a way to respond to it, but that this, the organization itself is, is so interconnected and so in alignment with the principles of compassion that, that it arises within the community that's leading for compassion. Did I say that right?
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A
Yeah, yeah, that, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. There's the sort of the, the motivating people towards shared goals. In a way, one of those goals is compassion and cultivating a compassionate environment, I suppose. And yeah, I really like that. I mean, leading with compassion makes a lot of sense. That's the sort of thing I think about all the time. And that might be the leader wherever they sit in the organization, the leader who is sort of being compassionate towards others and so on. But leading for compassion, it's almost like compassion is a sort of a party to all of this and that we're sort of leading on behalf of compassion to bring compassion into the organizational culture at wide sort of thing and, or at large. And, and, and that's fascinating. Now you have developed the compassionate leadership certification training and I think that's one of the things that, you know, you were alluding to disseminating, you know, across the world. And I know you've had a lot of success with that. What are some of the components of the program? What approaches do you use or include there? You know, how does it transform people or participants that come along.
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C
Yeah, thank you for that question. Because sort of getting this into a curriculum. Yeah, Evidence based curriculum. And now we've had over a couple of years research done on outcomes for people who have been through the training. It's a 12 hour curriculum. We offer it in that standard sort of 8 week, 90 minutes a week format that many compassion programs are offered. We also now sort of condense the, the elapsed time and we do it on a three week period. And for organizations, we often do it on a retreat basis over two or three days. But this 12 hour curriculum which we piloted with Cornell University in New York, is really about moving from the inside out. We take participants on a journey to look at and understand the inner workings of compassion so they can really do that. Leading with part. Right. So that they start to understand and embody awareness and self compassion and vulnerability. That's the first aspect of the curriculum, then we move into a series really of leadership development skill skills that we work on together. How do people relate to each other and start working the compassion for outward? How do we lead for compassion? How do we create a growth mindset? How do we cultivate a psychologically safe environment so people feel that they can show up and they belong and they can connect and they can communicate? Yeah, we do quite a bit of work on compassion communication so that we learn how to engage with each other in ways that fosters compassion in all who are are involved. And then we work to help participants really think about how can they bring this compassionate impulse out into the world, both leading with and leading for compassion. So we try to make it very concrete and give them ideas and tools to help them, excuse the word, operationalize compassion, so they can learn the skills to bring it into environments, either large organizations, small ones, nonprofits for profits, and people. What the evidence has shown us in terms of how it's impacted participants, we've seen the data that tells us people grow in statistically significant ways across dimensions of self, compassion, compassionate work, compassion for others, and resilience. So it's a start. The program is only a few years old. We've had the privilege of working with people from over 50 countries. Over 500 different leaders have gone through the training. And it really feels now we have an alumni community that meets monthly. And we really need to stand with and for each other as we take this work out, because often there will be one person within an organization who's holding the light of compassion, and they're trying to move it forward. Sometimes we work with teams, and then there's like an internal group that can help each other. But then when we come together as a global alumni cohort, it's really beautiful and powerful to hear stories and share resources and support each other on these journeys, because it's not the norm. I keep thinking one day this will be the norm, but today it's not yet the norm.
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A
We are the trailblazers, aren't we, with this sort of thing, sort of bringing it to the world. I like to think about that too. As you know, I think I'm a bit of a devotee of Paul Gilbert's work, and he would say, I think, you know, compassion is both the compassionate engagement, the sensitivity to the suffering and the action, the sort of taking steps. And I can sort of hear that both of those bits are really given focus in your sort of work as well. Just a curiosity, you mentioned that sometimes people might Attend more individually and sometimes it might be in teams. I was just wondering, like, do you notice that there are certain pros or cons of both?
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B
Compassion in organizations requires at some point a. A community compassion is by definition a relational practice. So it is. It is difficult for an individual, even the individual at the top of an organization, to change the culture of an organization. So when it is, when we are able to engage groups, that has a shorter path, a quicker path to a more mature, compassionate culture, compassionate leadership environment. I mean, one of our, One of our best successes, and we've talked about this publicly at conferences, is in an organization called the Carter center, which is a global NGO that has both health public health, global health work, and peace work. Their effort, which is now in two planks of their strategic plan, started with one individual wanting to bring a mindfulness practice into the organization.
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C
I was sorry to interrupt you. To alleviate the clear suffering of her colleagues. She couldn't watch them suffer any more, and she was drawn to take action. She wasn't clear what that would be, but starting with the mindfulness work was what she did.
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B
And, you know, a few quick steps further, we can, we can compress them. But she brought a handful of people to our training together. Nearly, I think 24 or 25 from their organization have been through our program. They have a Compassion employee resource group. And they then turn towards, how can we bring this in? How will this benefit our organization? And they have it in, in their strategic, in the organization's strategic plan. One of which, one of the two references is around employee flourishing. This is an intentional way to support employees and support the organization's competitiveness in attracting employees. But it, but it starts with the recognition that they are in time zones all over the world and that there's some crazy challenges that that presents. They're in fields that are, where they are trying to treat diseases, neglected tropical diseases, in many cases suffering all over the place. And so they, they recognize and have been able to bring in compassion that way. So that started with one person and.
- [30:46]
C
Then caught the ear of the CEO who's like, what is that, that conversation going on with those 20 people? I want in. She literally had to ask to join the group.
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B
But this is the catch about there's, there's, there's a, there's a chicken and egg cycle around compassionate culture. If, if an existing culture is not. Compassionate culture is just the cumulation of the actions of, of all the players. So you go in and you want to change the, the behavior of the employees, but the culture is reinforcing the existing sets of behaviors. So if you step out of line and attempt to engage in, in these. Sometimes people look at it and they're like, wait a second, that's not how we do things around here. But if the, if the person at the top says we're going to have a compassionate culture, you know, people are going to roll their eyes and they go, yeah, right. You know, show us in the paycheck, show us in the time off. And it's, it takes incremental steps to change behaviors which change culture, and then you get a virtuous cycle coming.
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A
Yes, it's, it's, it's sort of its own version of evolution, isn't it? You know, cultures kind of evolve in, in a, in a similar way. Yeah, that. Yes. I, I like that example that you give. I appreciate that because the woman who was the leader there, who, who sort of really brought your program in, she began from a place of compassion with. Didn't she? She, she was aware of her colleagues who were suffering in certain ways or struggling and, and so on, and so that it was coming from a compassion with kind of place, and then it moved into a compassion. Now, hang on. Yes. Is that right? Compassion for. Yeah. And, and it really, in the end it ended up in the strategic plan or whatever, you know, which is sort of like, that's where it's a beautiful example of, of that move towards cultural change.
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B
And we can give you an example in the other direction. We, we have a colleague who's a medical director of a large hospital system, and he was recruited because of some of the work that he, that he had done around compassion in a prior hospital. He came in with a very clear intention to up level the compassionate culture of the organization. Now, of course, he does part of it through, through leading with compassion. But he now asks in all of the resident interviews, what is your definition of compassion and can you give an example of when you have acted with compassion? And so he is attracting people who have already a more developed compassion competence, if you will, in the places where he has influence on continuing education. When he, he said, he said that every year when they would give people an annual gift, they were always chotchkis that people would, would probably 80% of whom would throw away or, or give. Give away. He bought, he bought Jim Do's Jim do first book. Yeah. Into the Magic Shop. Yeah. And is. And is offering on grand rounds people who are able to connect compassion directly into their fields. And so slowly and, and he recognizes that the culture changes very Slowly, but that's, that's where you, you can do it from the top if you're patient and have, have a field that's, that's open to it.
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A
Yes. There's a, there's multiple ways in. You sort of, you can, you can come from different directions. One way is to, to gradually change the culture of people who are there and the other way is to gradually bring in people who kind of can bring the culture in with them because they're already somewhat established in, in that sort of a way. The couple of examples that you've mentioned, I, I sort of, they feel like they're, they're places that are almost adjacent to the field. You know, the, the sort of, the, the Carter Group is sort of peace and, and nonprofit and this is a medical, hospital, health kind of scenario. What have you noticed with organizations where maybe it's like Wall street or you know, people who are very focused on the, the money side of things and, and you know, just, just different industries, I guess. What, what have you noticed with that?
- [35:48]
C
Yeah. So there's a multi part answer. Well intentioned question. I'll first share a case study for a technology software startup. Okay. And the CEO went through our program and had worked for a number of years with the, the lead engineer who was almost like a co founder. And in startup land, you know, the CEO and the co founder highly intertwined. This was a person she loved and respected. But over the last couple of years the work product just wasn't coming through and she knew she had to make a change and she couldn't, she couldn't separate her love and appreciation for this person as a human and their work. Like it was all too, too bundled together in her mind and she was, you know, was clear about what she needed to do in terms of decisive leadership. She just kept hitting a wall as she learned about honoring people with compassionate respect and love, but also separating the behavior from the person. She found a way through, through her obstacle to really have the difficult conversation with this colleague and let him go, fire him, release him and still learn how to maintain that loving friendship and relationship over time and still respect him as a human being. So that's just one example. In tech and we in tech, it's, it's very, it's a familiar story both in large tech organizations and small ones. When people aren't performing, how do I handle them? What do I do about boundaries, accountability, firing, hiring, all of that? Yeah.
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B
And I want to make sure I reiterate something that Laura expressed. She had done all of the intervention that she could to try to move the, the, the alignment of the individual with the job. It was not a, it was not this, the person was no longer the right person for that job. And you know, so that's obviously where, where one starts. But as we all know when we look at the world just as it is, sometimes we have to accept, you know what, I have to do something really hard here and so I'm going to learn how I can do it with compassion.
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A
Well, I suspect that in some ways that's where your sort of original sort of values and of the organization courage. You know, it takes a lot of courage to be compassionate and in some ways it's much more compassionate to have the difficult conversation, to give the person the difficult feedback to give them a chance to know and reflect and grow from there than it is to avoid doing all of that because that's. Now we're back in the threat system. And, and so it, yeah, that's the, the courage piece really comes into it again.
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C
Finance.
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B
Yeah, I mean I was, I was at a lunch just last week on, on with a group of people of mindful Wall street and compassion in finance in, in zero sum settings. It's hard. It's very hard because I mean Jennifer Natal in the UK is doing amazing work in compassion in politics. Now when you're running for an office, it's kind of hard to be compassionate about your opponent because only one of you can win. But if we could bring this sense of interconnectedness into all of these highly competitive fields and, and perhaps dampen down this sense that if I win, I'm a winner. This is part of the disconnection of the behavior from the person is many of these highly competitive fields, people are strongly identified with their success. And so the approach in the really competitive fields is to recognize that we are all more than our job, we are all more than our paycheck, we are all more than our last bonus. And that's harder in some places than others. And, but there's, there's receptivity in places and you know, as time goes by, I truly believe that compassionate leadership is back to evolution. A more evolved form of leadership that will create stronger, more deeply connected communities of trust that then can function more productively as organizations.
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C
And just a little P.S. on that you mentioned, the two organizations that we talked about first came from the caring fields. And in fact while we think about all the compassion that these organizations give out in the world, the beautiful work that they do and share and that they sacrifice so deeply to provide it really takes a toll on the individuals. And we often find that those caring organizations have the most trouble aligning the compassion impulse internally. Because people are so used to saving the world and giving it out, they're not used to bringing it in for themselves or for the organization. So even though they understand what compassion is in the outflow, it's really hard for them to let compassion flow in.
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B
And yes, to let it flow in or to experience the self compassion. So I don't know what your research in your field shows related to the correlations of the different flows of compassion, but in those caring fields we see a lot of really strong flows outward that Laura says, but the work needs to be done in other areas.
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A
Yes, exactly, in, in being open to receiving it from others firstly, but then also, yeah, the flow of, of self compassion and trying to kind of get that balance right. It's interesting, isn't it? Actually different, different organizations, different sectors and yet still various challenges potentially in terms of, you know, kind of establishing those flows. And I suppose I was thinking that a competitive motivation doesn't need to be mutually exclusive of a compassionate motivation. You know, we can still compete and have compassion. It's a, a delicate balance a little bit, but it is possible. I mean there's a long way that modern politics could come before they have to let go of much competition. They're sort of, I think if we can sort of let go of some of the more hateful stuff, then at least we're moving in a direction of something more competitive but also more compassionate.
- [43:40]
B
Well, one of the things that our, the previously referenced colleague who's a medical director of a hospital system says is, listen, I'm just trying to move the needle from where we are. So if I can get rid of some anti compassion, things are getting better. And I mean that's exactly why I think what you just said. We just have to just keep trying to move a little bit at a time. And, and that's, that is within the nature of the practice of compassion. It does come in small steps.
- [44:17]
A
You've also, you also have the compassionate leadership teacher training. So that, that's sort of a nice segue like we're wanting I guess to also see can we bring people who can facilitate the program and sort of also spread it that way. So what's that program about and who's that designed for?
- [44:38]
C
Yeah, we're so excited. Get people out in the world teaching this program and bringing more compassion forward. We started our first cohort last February with a three day retreat in London. We have about 24 people from a variety of countries and, and different sectors. Some of them work within organizations and are going to bring the, the training inside. A number of them are coaches or consultants or facilitators who will be bringing this to a variety of organizations that they work with. And you know, we're almost at the point it's a nine month program, so we're almost through all the, the nuts and bolts in the teaching parts and then we're getting ready to send them out and do their first practicum so they can really practice with a group of friends and family and see how, how they themselves are embodying and integrating the curriculum and the work. And this was a huge leap for us as a small nonprofit and it is really the next step that we feel is needed to help bring this work into more organizations around the globe.
- [46:06]
A
Yeah, that's, that's an amazing sounding program. Nine months. It's very, very comprehensive and intensive learning and includes the, the practical kind of pieces as well. And training in London. I mean, that's sounds fun. How come you, how come you decided London?
- [46:27]
C
We had been at a wonderful retreat center that's owned by Unilever called four Acres in London the previous May. We thought it was a beautiful environment. We felt very held and supported there to do the work because it's, it's challenging work. We had a number of people, probably about 25% of the teacher training cohort is from the UK and then another group from Central Europe. We have a woman from Singapore and then a group from the States and from Canada. And we have yet to get our first Australian teacher training. Yeah, we're working that for 2025, but I think London was a good central point for us to get going.
- [47:22]
B
Yeah, there's a, the participation in the teacher training program as a prerequisite of the, of our eight week program or our 1212 hour program. So when we looked at the community of those who we thought would be most interested, London was a really, really good place. And we hope that our next one will be in the, in the United States probably to, to but, but we have probably eight or eight or nine from the U. S and Canada of the 24. Yes.
- [47:59]
A
Okay. Yeah, no, that's, and of course I'll, I'll put all the links to these various programs in, in the description notes and so on and, and people should definitely go and check all of that out. It's actually very nicely described in the website. So there's a lot of Good information there. So who are some historical or modern leaders that you kind of feel exemplify maybe some of this compassionate leadership? And why might you choose these examples?
- [48:37]
C
Why don't you go.
- [48:38]
B
Okay, well, I, I'm from a. From a historic point of view. I think the really clear ones from recent history include Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. In the United States, and Nelson Mandela. They were all leaders who were willing to confront systems in ways that were powerful and strong, but were not, not violent. And they each had an incredible impact. And they also, to varying degrees, paid significant prices as well. But, but those would be the, the first three names that immediately come to mind.
- [49:34]
A
I, I really appreciate. Appreciate the strong and powerful, but not violent. That, that really rings true. You know, that there's. It. How does, how do we do that? You know, as leaders, we still want that strength and power and courage, and there can be sacrifice, but without the violence. Sorry, Laura, you. You were going to say.
- [49:57]
C
I was going to say I have to throw some women into the ring, right?
- [50:00]
A
Oh, yes.
- [50:05]
C
So I would nominate. Did you ask us who we'd have lunch with or dinner with or.
- [50:10]
A
That was my next question. So, yes. Who would you. Who might you have. Who might you have dinner with, if you could? Yes.
- [50:23]
C
There'S a scholar and author and environmental activist here in the States named Joanna Macy. I don't know if that's a familiar name to you. She talks about active hope. She's 95 now and has been really fighting the good fight for decades and decades, but really embodies a compassionate approach. And, and her whole idea behind active, active hope is how we really step up and take action and not get overwhelmed by all the chaos and crisis in the world. The other person who comes to mind for me is Malala. Slowly. Say her last name. Yusuf. Psy.
- [51:14]
B
Okay.
- [51:17]
C
You know who under. And if. If you're not familiar with her, of course, a Pakistani educational activist for women and the youngest Nobel Prize Prize laureate. And, you know, she has just overcome incredible suffering, both of herself after being shot and for the people in her country, especially the young women, and has created a movement and a language that embodies compassion. She embodies compassion as she goes about her work in the world. It's very inspiring.
- [52:00]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:02]
A
No, that, that was. That's why I kind of asked about historical or modern figures or people you might like to have dinner with, because it does. It provides sort of inspiration for the rest of us. I mean, you also made the point that you don't necessarily have to be great and Famous and making kind of ultimate sacrifices with this stuff. It can be the day to day compassion with and compassion for. You know, that there's all of us can make our own little contributions to gradually spread the word and cultivate a more compassionate culture at work, but also just culture in the world I suppose.
- [52:42]
C
And, and my hope is that we don't have to really noodle hard about who was that one compassionate person that we remember because again this is still the exception. You can look at leaders around the world today and you'd be hard pressed to find one that you would feel comfortable assigning the compassionate leader label too. You know, it's a very. I am hopeful that in my lifetime we see a real shift and change in the way people lead and that we could have this conversation 10 years from now and compassionate leaders are just.
- [53:25]
A
Falling out of the coming, coming to mind left, right and center. Yeah, well, just to, just to sort of, you know, kind of speak up for my little corner of the world or at least our, our close neighbors in New Zealand. Jacinta Ardern, of course is someone who more recently seemed to well did really embodies some of these aspects of compassion and kindness and, and, and strength and, and so on.
- [53:53]
B
No, she was very effective in noticing and recognizing the suffering, naming it and then acting in very decisive, very strong ways to try to address it. And, and, and the unfortunate thing is that many people benefit typically in a material way from the suffering of others. And so as we go to relieve people suffering, sometimes there are people who are afraid and threatened by the benefits that they've had. And this is why the courage comes about is that, that the, the historic leaders that I named, Malala for that matter, each threatened the status quo of the time that was generating enormous amounts of suffering and people did not want to let go of that. And, and we see this in our, our training. Again we've, we've named these questions before, but how can I be compassionate and hold people accountable? How can I be compassionate? Won't people take advantage of me if I'm compassionate in my leadership? Will people think I'm weak? What we have got to do is help people recognize that our human flourishing, our human well being benefits when we're all compassionate towards each other. We're, I mean as, as our, as our community has gone from the, you know, hunter gatherers micro community to where we are now, which is a truly global village. We are all connected and what happens to someone halfway around the globe does have impacts on me and compassion will help contribute to the well being of everyone. And, but, but, but we see in the world right now people who don't want to let go of the privilege that they have or the benefit that they receive from the existing structures.
- [56:10]
A
Yes, beautifully. You said compassion will, will benefit everyone. So if people are interested in kind of being in touch or, or getting a sense of your work, how can they find you?
- [56:24]
C
Or our website is www.cfcl.org center for Compassionate Leadership.org but they can just use the cfcl.org you can find us a lot on social channels. We share tons of research and articles and developments in the field on a daily basis on LinkedIn. There's a very vibrant group there. We're on, no longer on Twitter, but on Instagram and Facebook. And we have a newsletter that if people are interested in compassionate leadership, I, I would highly recommend it comes out every other week. And we again share articles and research and news about different events that are coming up.
- [57:22]
B
And for people who have events or research that they think would be of interest, we would love to see them. You can, you can reach us again through the website because there's a lot of good work out there.
- [57:39]
A
Yeah, excellent. Well, Laura Berland and Evan Harrell from. Com, from the center of Compassionate Leadership, thank you very much for coming on Compassion in a T shirt.
- [57:53]
C
Thank you. My T shirt. You didn't ask about my T shirt. Very good. Let me see yours.
- [58:01]
A
This is my, ah, definition of compassion T shirt.
- [58:09]
C
Lovely. Lovely.
- [58:11]
A
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much.
- [58:14]
B
Thank you for having us.
- [58:16]
C
Pleasure. Keep on with the good work. Thank you.