Preparing for my talk this morning I was reminded of an incident that happened a few years back with a girl we know very well. She called one day and said that she was at Khar or Bandra station in Bombay and said that she was looking at a young girl about 10 or 11 years, who seemed to be lost on the platform. The child didn't seem to belong on the platform; she seemed lost, didn't have on a shirt and our friend was wondering what to do. My wife told her to bring her over and then we would see what could be done. So our friend went out and bought a shirt for the child, dressed her in it and then brought her to our home. My wife felt that the child seemed to be a little challenged while our friend gave her a bath and tried to comb out her matted hair.
We looked at different options and decided that we first had to report it to the police and then look for places that would take her in. The police station sent out a bulletin on their radio. It was picked up by the station at Ghatkopar, who realized that there was an FIR filed three days earlier about a missing girl. So they contacted the family who came and recognized the child as their daughter. They came home and there was such a wonderful reunion between the child and her parents. It was so wonderful to see. I'll never forget it because it brought home to us the fact that this little girl had been lost; thousands of people just passed her by. Nobody cared until one person who had compassion, stopped and said, "I've got to do something." What a wonderful decision that turned out to be for this little girl and her family!
Last week we talked about kindness and how it was slowly beginning to enter the corporate corridors and that higher achievements at work were produced when kindness was at play. I was so encouraged during the week, to hear responses from a few of you about how that has helped you change your thinking about the workplace.
I was listening to Karen Armstrong talking on TED on 'Let's Revive The Golden Rule', which is – Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you. Listening to her, I thought that there's so much room for compassion in today's workforce. There is so much pressure, yet it always boils down to intent. Are we going to take the trouble to be compassionate? Is it worth it? Can I do that in the environs of the corporate world? Is that permissible? Is that good for me? Is it advisable for a corporate culture? I would like to throw this out to you – I think, increasingly, in the market place, more and more people are beginning to find out that, to get higher productivity, there needs to be compassion.
Bronwyn Fryer wrote just last week an article in HBR entitled 'The Rise of Compassionate Management (Finally).' She talks about how more and more companies all across the world, are beginning to find that there is value is having compassion, not only in looking at outside things through CSR but looking within the company and say, "Can we look with compassionate eyes at the people around us."
The offshoot of Karen Armstrong's talk on TED was that it led to the Charter for Compassion that was signed by over a 100,000 people who wanted to get into this. In fact, there is a conference that has been going on for the past four years called Wisdom 2.0. It started out in 2009 with about 325 people and has grown to over 1800 people at the last event in 2013. I think there's one coming up in February 2014 for which the registrations are already open. They talk about compassion and how important it is in the workplace; their goal and challenge for the age is to not only live connected to one another through technology, but to do so in ways that are beneficial to our own well-being, effective in our work and useful to the world. They have an amazing array of speakers who talk about various issues that all center around compassion.
I was listening to Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn on YouTube where he's talking about 'The Art of Conscious Leadership.' He says, "I've learnt over the years that for me, the first principle of management is managing compassion." He talks of a time when he was watching a colleague on his team taking down someone else. After some time, he walked up to this person and said, "The next time you want to do that, look in the mirror and talk to yourself." He felt that it was detrimental to progress.
More and more, compassion is beginning to play an important part in our lives, our workspaces. I think the time of looking at managing people through power and authority and being obnoxious to a point, is slowing moving away. There's more care and concern that is coming on. More and more people are beginning to realize that the well being of people contributes to the well being of a company. For the well being of people to be looked into, we need to be able to look at people around us with eyes of compassion.
I am so reminded of our Holy Book where Jesus talks about a man who was lying on the road. He had been badly beaten up and robbed and had nothing left. A couple of people walked by, people that he thought would have stopped, but they didn't. They were more focused on the work that they were doing. Then a man stopped and took care of him, took him to a place where he would get treatment. The moral of that story that Jesus gave was that we need to be able to be neighbors to people around us, good neighbors, care for people around us. We need to look beyond things that are visible, beyond the façades of smiles and "Yeah, I'm fine." Maybe today, we need to be a good neighbor, to just look at the person in the next cubicle. Really look, not for what work that needs to be taken out of them or what work they are doing, but to say, "I wonder if everything is okay with this person. I wonder if beyond being empathetic with this person, I can be compassionate." Compassion always leads to action. It goes beyond pity.
I feel so strongly this morning that if you and I begin to look at people with compassion, we will find that there are deep needs to be met. Maybe today we can be an agent of change or a balm, giving a word of kindness to people who desperately need it. So my prayer for us today is that in the midst of our work, we would be able to look around and see our colleagues through the eyes that God can give us – the eyes of compassion.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God, thank you that You look with compassion upon us, that You constantly look to see how You can help each one of us, that Your hand is always reaching out to us. Today, Lord God, we ask that You would allow us to be Your hands in reaching out to other people. We pray that You would touch our eyes so that we would see beyond the things that are visible and that You would touch our wills so that we can be intent about reaching out and doing something. We ask for Your wisdom, Your understanding, Your love and Your kindness and compassion to be with us today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
• Karen Armstrong, "Let's revive the Golden Rule." http://www.ted.com/talks/karen_armstrong_let_s_revive_the_golden_rule.html?,
• Bronwyn Fryer, "The Rise of Compassionate Management (Finally)." http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/09/the-rise-of-compassionate-management-finally/
• "The Art of Conscious Leadership with Jeff Weiner, CEO, Linkedin, Wisdom 2.0 2013 YouTube" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x0fOLqj2Zw
• Paraphrased story of Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37
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