Communication Creates Compassion to Catalyze Change

People, organizations and the communities they serve are constantly evolving; as professional communicators, we’re called upon to support major transformation in organizations. Rarely is it a smooth journey. We often find resistance, fear and mistrust — all surefire contributors to poor mental wellbeing.

I believe that communication creates compassion to counter resistance, catalyze change and foster healthy environments. Why? Because I’ve experienced it firsthand in myriad ways.

For example, a change project along with a series of virtual and live events, publications, a major channel overhaul and a video production had my team clocking long hours over a six-week period. Each week brought heightened levels of activity and we were juggling multiple balls at once.

In the mix was a fairly new senior team member, another who was brand-new and one who was soon to head out on parental leave. One afternoon we discovered that a major task had slipped through the cracks. Some terse words were exchanged, and the team was thrown into disarray. I listened to the blame-filled angry rants and then asked, “What if we looked at this through the lens of compassion?”

Just then, body language changed and air seemed to infuse the room. The conversation shifted. As we talked, a new door was opened, one that allowed the team to band together and work toward a solution.

The word compassion is derived from the Latin “com” and “pati,” meaning “to bear, suffer.” It can be defined as an emotional response to the struggles of others, combined with a real, authentic desire to help lessen their suffering. 

I wasn’t always a proponent of compassion in the hardnosed world of fast-moving consumer goods. In my mind, compassion seemed biblical, antithetical to driving for performance and hitting the numbers. It was, in my eyes, the easy way out. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Tara Brach, a famed teacher of mindfulness and meditation, speaks about courage in the context of compassion. She defines radical compassion as, “having the courage to love ourselves, each other and our world. Radical compassion is rooted in mindful, embodied presence and it’s expressed actively through caring that includes all beings.”

The need to extend compassion to the workplace has been on an upward swing in recent years. Research findings published in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) link compassion to higher job satisfaction, loyalty and trust in the organization, higher retention rates and improvements in performance and motivation. Compassion helps increase connections, promote trust and belonging, and reduces job-related stress and anxiety.

Nurturing Compassion

As my career has evolved as a senior communication professional, I have also evolved as a change navigator, moving and adjusting to life in different countries. Along with this, my attitude toward compassion has changed.

The most important leg of this evolutionary journey started with me, examining my own thoughts and beliefs towards myself, cultivating awareness of my own suffering, coming to acceptance and giving myself the level of nurturing required.

After all, in the words of Jack Kornfield, American writer, mindfulness teacher and Buddhist Monk, “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

The path to practicing greater compassion is often not a linear process — we must revisit and refine along the way. Whatever stage you’re at, you might find the following questions useful for reflection:

• How do you practice self-compassion, and how does this influence your capacity for compassion toward others?
• When was the last time you felt a strong sense of empathy toward someone else’s suffering?
• Can you recall a situation where you could have been more compassionate, but you weren't? Explore the reasons why not.
• How do you usually react when someone close to you is going through a difficult time?
• What are your thoughts on the power of communication to create compassion in the workplace?
• Are there any personal biases or judgments that might hinder your ability to be compassionate?

I believe that as a professional communicator we must create for ourselves what we wish to create for others. Only then can we courageously and lovingly support change in teams, across organizations and throughout entire communities.

Arlene Amitirigala led an interactive workshop, “Communication Creates the Compassion to Catalyze Change,” at the IABC World Conference, 23-26 June 2024 in Chicago.