The Ethics of Compassion

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:57:58 GMT

The Five Principles

In January 2008 the “Ethics Guy” Bruce Weinstein, Ph. D, started writing abut his “Five Principles” of ethics in Business Week magazine. His principles are these:

• Do no harm

• Make things better

• Respect others

• Be fair

• Be compassionate

Weinstein says, “These principles reveal the secret to living a rich, satisfying, and happy life, and we have known about them for more than 5,000 years. Every religious tradition in the world teaches them, as do parents in every country.”

Why don’t we do them?

He is right; of course, these are principles we have all been taught for generations. But if we all know about them, why don’t we practice them?

Our primitive brain takes over our rational thinking when we feel threatened in any way, that’s why. Our sense of threat can come from both irrational and logical sources, but the list of potential threats is endless. And, what is threatening to one person may not be in the least threatening to another.

Our primitive brain

It is only by understanding how our primitive brain works that we can begin to practice compassion and the other principles Weinstein talks about. Having respect for others is impossible if we feel badly about ourselves. Being “fair” is impossible if we are fearful of the other person. Making the commitment to “do no harm” is impossible if we don’t recognize that we are all doing the best we can and we will make mistakes. We can’t focus on “making things better” when we feel badly about ourselves and we are fearful for our safety or well-being.

Practicing Compassion

To make the leap into the ethics of the practice of compassion requires courage and determination. Compassion is not just a word to pacify religious scholars. Compassion is a daily practice that requires first being able to be compassionate with ourselves. Taking the leap means being willing to feel the fear of doing things differently than our primitive survival brains tell us we “have” to do them.

Having compassion for our partner’s hurt feelings when we know we didn’t do anything wrong takes courage. Having compassion for our co-worker when they are acting like a jerk takes courage. It takes courage because our instinct is to respond defensively. When we can learn to respond with compassion instead, it changes everything.

What do you think?

Are you able to let down your defenses when you feel attacked? Does that seem like a crazy thing to do. Tell me about it!

Conflict in the Workplace

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:38:36 GMT

Zowie, workplace conflict is costly!

Dealing with conflict in the workplace takes up to 60% of human resource managers time, according to an article by Rachel Zupek on Careerbulder.com. And, the number of incidents of employee violence has been increasing.

Her article encourages a sensible approach to dealing with conflict, she gives a list of well researched, common sense ways to deal with conflict. Check them out at cnn.com/living

The article really just skimmed the surface of the issue, of course. But if you really want to fully understand what is happening during workplace conflicts, you need to understand how the Cycle of Egocentrism works.

Conflict Resolution

One of her sources, Gus Stieber, national director of sales for Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, a professional services company says; “Avoid retreating to the safety of withdrawal, avoidance or the simplistic view that your co-worker is a "bad person." Zupek goes on to say “These are defense mechanisms that prevent the resolution of conflict.”

The Cycle of Egocentrism

Here, Stieber is talking about the Cycle of Egocentrism. It’s easy to think we are avoiding this kid of “defense mechanism” but most of the time we do it so automatically we don’t even realize it’s happening. And avoidance is only one of the ways the Cycle of Egocentrism works.

Getting a full understanding of how the Cycle of Egocentrism works is key to managing workplace conflict, and well, any other kind of conflict. When we understand how our brain tricks us into believing our survival is at stake in conflicts we can discover new ways to respond. The Cycle of Egocentrism locks us into believing that there is a good guy, a bad guy and a rescuer in every situation. This old game helped us manage to survive in our old primitive world, but it no longer serves us so well. Most of the time we are not in those kinds of dire circumstances, but our brain fools us into thinking we are. Then we get stuck in certain ways of responding that keep us trapped in conflictual and painful relationships.

Learning how to apply the Cycle of Compassion, the opposite of the Cycle of Egocentrism allows us to have deeper, more meaningful relationships with ourselves and others. It changes everything.

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This is Great Sex! - Workplace Conflict

The Ethics of Compassion

Conflict in the Workplace