Compassion in a Competitively Individualistic World

A recent paper investigating perfectionism over the past three decades have revealed some alarming trends. The study published in the American Psychological Association highlighted that perfectionism in all its forms (self-oriented, other oriented and socially prescribed) has increased progressively for each generation with the largest relative increase being in socially prescribed perfectionism, or that driven by a society that is perceived as increasingly more critical and judging. The findings suggest that each subsequent generation has become not only tougher on themselves and others, but perceives society to be generally tougher on them than previous generations.

I encounter perfectionism frequently when working with executives. It shows up as unreasonably striving to attain perfection, a deep rooted fear of failure, blaming and criticising others and more generally perceiving the expectations of others to be excessively high and unfair. The downstream consequences in an organisational context show up in the quality of relationships and the inability of individuals or teams to perform at their full potential.

The authors of the paper suggest that some of the trends in perfectionism are due to a society that increasingly promotes competitive individualism whilst downplaying compassion based values.

Professor Paul Gilbert, author of the book "The Compassionate Mind", describes compassion as "a sensitivity to the suffering of self and others with a deep commitment to try to relieve and prevent it."

He describes two different psychologies at play in compassion:

1. To approach, understand and engage with suffering

2. To work to alleviate and prevent suffering

At the Empathy and Compassion in Society Conference in 2012, he delivered a speech outlining steps towards a compassionate society. He highlighted the importance of choosing what we cultivate in ourselves, personal relationships, schools, businesses, entertainment and ways of governing ourselves.

Whilst compassion is focused on the alleviation of suffering he pointed out that in order to do so we need to be focused on cultivating the joy of helping others in society. Working together to help and in doing so fostering a sense of "We-ness rather than Me-ness". Building bottom-up practices where individuals can work together to improve the conditions of humanity.

He highlighted that whilst opportunities for people to do the inner work required are needed, there is great benefit that can be attained from the creation of motivated visions, and bottom-up engagement, building groups and communities to take on the problems we face for the benefit of others.

So I am left with a question for all business leaders that want to make a difference and have a real impact.

‍How do we work together to build organisational cultures, systems and processes that nurture compassion in a modern world that increasingly rewards competitive individualism?

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