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Can Compassion Contribute To Success?

This article is more than 8 years old.

Compassion. It is a word we often hear talked about when it comes to religion, but it is not a word used often enough when it comes to discussing what makes a business successful. Yet compassion can directly affect the bottom line. The Dalai Lama expressed it best when he said, “Compassion is not religious business, it is human business.” Indeed, compassion helps leaders be successful, it helps employees become successful, and ultimately it contributes to making companies a success.

Multiple studies have shown that shows of compassion, as well as acts of kindness and generosity, create a ripple effect that stems from those who do the act, to those who observe the act, and the ripple continues expanding, impacting numerous others who are all benefited as a result of just one single show of compassion. At the conclusion of one particular study performed by James Fowler of UC San Diego and Nicolas Christakis of Harvard they shared, “The results suggest that each additional contribution a subject makes to the public good in the first period is tripled over the course of the experiment by other subjects who are directly or indirectly influenced to contribute more as a consequence. These results show experimentally that cooperative behavior cascades in human social networks.” They go on to say that “as a result, each person in a network can influence dozens or even hundreds of people, some of whom he or she does not know and has not met.”

If one single show of compassion can have that far reaching of an impact, just imagine the enormous impact an entire company of people showing compassion can have. All it takes is one person to be willing to take the lead.

When a Leader creates a “ripple” it has the power to effect the greatest number of people in their organization. “Research performed at Stanford University has revealed that our relationship with a direct manager is probably the primary influence on the quality of our workplace experience, yet many managers still overlook the centrality of compassion to their role.” In a recent article, Emma Seppala, associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University shared:

“Managers may shy away from compassion for fear of appearing weak. Yet history is filed with leaders who were highly compassionate and very powerful—Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu, to name a few. They were such strong and inspiring leaders that people would drop everything to follow them. Wouldn’t any manager wish for that kind of loyalty and commitment?” Simply put, a leader who desires to succeed cannot afford to overlook the importance of showing compassion, nor can they discount the impact their example will be on the entire organization of people they lead.

Showing compassion doesn’t have to be a burden. It simply entails showing sympathy and mercy for another. It’s about trying to understand other people’s needs and helping them in the ways you are able. Let me share a personal experience I had that taught me how simple it can be for a leader to influence the level of compassion in a company:

During my time as CEO of my past company I noticed over the holidays that we always had some employees who seemed to be doing quite well in life and others who were going through tougher times. As I pondered ways I could be of help, I realized that as the leader I had the ability to get the employees focused on helping each other over the holidays by launching what we called our company “Santa Store”. We decided that each year during the holiday season we would ask employees to go through their belongings at home to see if they had anything that they no longer needed. They were asked to bring those items in to work and contribute them to the company Santa Store. Employees donated any items they no longer needed and then every employee could also take any items from the store that they did need. Employees got the chance to both give and receive!

We had employees donating everything from kids clothing to adult clothing, to toys, DVDs, video games, winter coats, gloves, computers, bicycles, televisions, DVD players, furniture, books, games…you name it, we had it donated. All of these items were setup on tables in a room and then the room was left open for employees to go through and take anything they needed for their families. We set no limit on what an employee could take from the Store. We only asked that they limit what they took to the things they needed for themselves or their own families so we could make sure that our employees families were taken care of first. Then once employees had time to take everything they needed for themselves we made all the left over items available for employees to take and give to anyone else they knew who was in need that year. The Santa Store became a huge benefit to the employees, but it didn’t stop there…

As employees were involved in this showing and receiving of compassion from one another, the entire morale of the company began to improve. People were happier at work, they were kinder to one another, and then suddenly that ripple effect began spreading beyond the walls of our company. As employees were on the phones talking to customers they were showing an increased level of care and concern for the clients. Their efforts to understand the needs of the customer became more personal to them and they became more dedicated toward doing whatever they could to help that customer feel happy. Personal handwritten notes of thanks began being sent from employees to clients and employees seemed happy to go the extra mile to take care of them.

As you can imagine, the clients were thrilled by this level of compassion being extended to them. And over time we saw these clients begin to go the extra mile for us as well. They began referring more business to us, both from their own organizations as well as from other organizations. As a result, our company began to grow and flourish in ways we couldn’t have imagined and the impact to our bottom line was amazing.

“Change your focus, from making money to serving more people. Serving more people makes the money come in.” –Robert Kiyosaki

Indeed, serving each other inside the organization with an increased showing of compassion led to serving clients outside the organization with increased showings of compassion and that ripple effect bounced off of them and came rippling right back onto us tenfold.

We’ve all heard Winston Churchill’s quote, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” But I would also submit to you that what we give by showing compassion not only makes our lives better, it can make our livings better as well. And that is what I call a success.

~Amy Rees Anderson (follow my daily blog at www.amyreesanderson.com/blog )