Many high-performance technology teams are missing or not updating priorities related to human factors and individual team members. Focusing primarily on product and process oriented technical wisdom can lead to missing the mark when it comes to employee engagement & work satisfaction. This post presents some observations of suffering in the workplace as a brief overview and how mindfulness can have utility in this line of thinking. The later sections describe how our service models have been changed to consider a more compassionate perspective.
The Need for Combining Compassion and Wisdom in the Workplace
Technology companies have entire workflows for channeling wisdom into products and delivery strategies. There may be no shortage of wise employees for technical domains. So why consider applying the combination of Compassion and Wisdom? Well, every team I work with ‘be suffering’ … (cue the meme music)!
Seriously I’ve been traveling for the last few years working with a cross-section of engineering, technology, research, and other electrical/mechanical testing teams. Since the pandemic I’ve noticed that teams I’ve interacted with are trying to do more with less resources (versus before pandemic levels), struggling with hybrid work environments or not sustaining engaged individual communications, and largely dealing with some form of suffering related to skills advancement barriers or other wider team member development challenges. There have been outlier power teams breaking this observed theme; however, virtually every team I’ve worked with in recent years has shown signs of periodic suffering in one or more of these areas if you look closely enough.
Work-From-Home Team Up-Sides & More Context Needed
As one discussion area, the increased usage of more flexible work or work-from-home modes have shown positive benefits for teams and individuals. You don’t have to go far on social media to notice that many professionals have unlocked a new life perk thanks to this remote work freedom. From my survey of recent research on remote work effects there seems to be a bias towards either productivity measures across teams and organizations focusing mainly on positive benefits for teams and not individuals. Here’s one study that found new communication technologies for remote work are helping to better organize our distributed work; however, these additional remote modes may lead to (individual) workers feeling more isolated (Zoonen & Sivunen 2021). Again, big up sides broadly, but looking closer there may be signs of individuals suffering from this seemingly benign work mode due to secondary effects.
From my experience in recent years, I’ve seen first-hand that remote teams can work efficiently and that individuals may have unlocked new domains of work-life related benefits. These successful remote teams also often have an unusually high enthusiasm for remote work, tend to over-communicate, and tend to be comprised of more extroverted personalities. I’m a believer that remote work can absolutely work well if it’s given enough support and team members actively engage it proactively. My concern is that we are being sold on up-side productivity and project related gains without fully considering real individual factors or select team downsides. It will be interesting to learn more as research unfolds; however, it’s clear (to me in 2023) that technology teams need both technical help and more personalized or cultural-specific help.
Thinking About Applications of Mindfulness
So how can we look closer, and help be more compassionate in the workplace? I’ve considered variations of this question as part of mindfulness self-work since the start of the pandemic. Putting aside that some organizations and teams will be easier to help (and others with cultural resistance) for a moment, I’d offer that we need to consider a generalized approach to anchor how we work towards less suffering. Also the approach needs to be accessible at and during work.
I’ve been doing a deep dive discovering and refreshing concepts of mindfulness with the help of the Waking Up app. This app claims to be ‘A New Operating System for Your Mind’. I used to think these types of bold marketing frames were way over the top. After struggling for years with fully latching on to formal meditation practices this app has created a regular and accessible set of tools for me to refine guided self-work in mindfulness and related studies. Many of the themes in this app involve applications of compassion and wisdom. I’m fascinated how applying compassion and wisdom can be used to directly help individuals and teams.
Brief Survey on Using Compassion + Wisdom
It is fairly challenging to 'fully' survey the numerous works on applying compassion-related behaviors to reach consensus on work-related impacts and not just study interconnected social behaviors. One recent opinion paper discussed the connections of developing compassionate organizations as a means to gain more resiliency for countering some pandemic related challenges (Chatterjee, Chakraborty, et. al. 2021). Another very interesting study showed positive benefits of compassionate behavior in public service-oriented work teams as a way to increase coping mechanism of employees (Eldor, 2017).
Language Model Output (ChatGPT)
Outside of academic research materials you may find self-help styled books with vague or biased guidance. It's clear that compassion in the workplace is a popular topic just based on the shear volume of self-help styled books. Since considering how to add compassion in the workplace is such a broadly framed question, for a fun shortcut, I asked the ‘new to 2023’ language model ChatGPT the following question input:
“How can compassion and wisdom be combined in the modern workplace to provide deeper help?”
This is the output:
“Combining compassion and wisdom in the modern workplace can be an effective way to provide deeper help to colleagues and employees. Here are some ways to do so:
Cultivate empathy: Start by understanding the perspectives of your colleagues and employees. Listen actively to their concerns, acknowledge their feelings, and try to see the situation from their point of view. This can help you develop a deeper understanding of their needs and motivations.
Practice mindfulness: Mindfulness can help you cultivate greater self-awareness, empathy, and compassion. It can also help you manage stress and enhance your ability to focus and make clear decisions. Consider incorporating mindfulness practices, such as meditation or deep breathing, into your daily routine.
Foster a culture of kindness: Encourage kindness and compassion within your team or organization. Recognize and celebrate acts of kindness, and encourage team members to support and encourage one another.
Lead by example: As a leader, you can set the tone for your team or organization. Lead by example, demonstrating compassion and wisdom in your interactions with others. This can help create a positive and supportive workplace culture.
Seek opportunities to learn: Seek out opportunities to learn about the perspectives and experiences of others. This can include attending workshops or training sessions focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or simply taking the time to engage in meaningful conversations with colleagues.
Use wisdom to guide decisions: Wisdom involves the ability to make sound judgments based on experience and understanding. Use your wisdom to guide decisions that support the well-being and growth of your team or organization, taking into account the perspectives and needs of all stakeholders.
By combining compassion and wisdom in the modern workplace, you can create a supportive and productive environment that enables colleagues and employees to thrive both personally and professionally.”
I’d love to see a set of sources this output is pulling from. Granted this output is essentially aggregating language patterns with some trained reasoning (or natural language processing / transformations) and may not have calibrated accuracy in these domains, in this case it seems to frame a very interesting applied overlap for compassion and wisdom. The concepts of creating engaged interactions by listening and fostering compassion seem right on point. This is some wild technology in deed.
I’m eager to better humanize work in technology teams by intentionally adding elements of compassion and wisdom into all of our services and interactions. While this is a great high-level goal and fun sharing the lead up to these new drives, I’ve only just started to integrate this into concrete service implementations. In short, pausing and listening to the human perspective before working with leveraging existing wisdom is the expanded context needed to start to offer help that is compassionate wisdom. The following items are the first aspects that seemed most pressing application areas.
The Need for Connecting & Sharing Our ‘Work Suffering’
Using the practices of intentionally prioritizing listening to individuals and team-level problems before jumping to technical ‘problem solving’ work is one of the best ways to make an engaged connection. We all have various degrees and types of suffering in the workplace. Why not take a compassionate pause and share perspectives before shifting into problem-solving wisdom.
As one example, I often get to see the learning arcs of students in week long training sessions. Often times the students that share either the broad challenges with the technology in question or even their individual suffering / blocker(s) are the ones that progress to learn faster in my observation. It's wild how even brief discussions on shared suffering, like 'this concept is hard', can help build up discussions towards learning in a cooperative fashion much faster than any self-study.
The Need for Transparent Work Engagements & On-Demand Help
I've been on many technology development teams that were lacking the skills to quickly close deliverables within a prescribed or external project milestone delivery date. There are so many hurdles to asking for and obtaining outside work help especially within larger organizations. Getting a technical, cost-schedule, program, & purchasing all aligned can be a whole project in itself.
I’ve changed all the short-term work engagements of up to 9 months to have transparent pricing and clearly defined support scope. The services are also organized as tiers to help guide support scope for sustaining or progressive work modules. These services are accessible and for purchase online. Initial discovery meetings are paid services for short lead-time bookings and respect for our time up-front.
The Need for Participatory Learning
Technology fields are moving targets requiring continuous career-long learning. Even embedded systems teams require learning literally ‘new targets’ and updating programming languages on a continuing basis. And although there is value in self-directed and online remote learning tools, the need for optimizing or hacking training for optimal learning can be increasingly considered a derived project requirement.
I recent conducted a multi-day online training for a data-acquisition scoped class. Even with remotely accessible hardware/software environments, web cameras, and group chats the level of engagement was lower than required to easily learn the desired intermediate/advanced scope of materials. At several points I used polling the audience chat for ‘emoji feedback’ as a last resort for participation as most fell into lurker modes. I attribute this to the remote learning environment and complex topics; however, this online approach is fundamentally not an easy participatory learning mode.
For these reasons I’ve clarified some of our services towards exclusive in-person support. While the one-on-one coaching format may work well with web meetings, the need for live on-site customized technical training is clear. Join us in helping to better establish the balance for when remote support and in person support make sense. In either mode we’re ready to include compassion and wisdom as a new foundational perspective for our support.
Closing Thoughts
Here’s to adding compassion and wisdom into all of our collaborative work such that we can not only achieve great tech, but also better connect with our fellow suffers. Too many technology teams are falling into the trap of only focusing on the technology; however, to reach higher states of creativity and innovation we can remember to connect and engage our fellow human team members compassionately. Pausing and considering other perspectives can be an excellent exercise to not only reaching a deeper understanding of our team it can also lead towards helping to removing barriers such that your team can flourish.
Lastly, we’re here to help using this perspective as a guide for your Career, Strategy, Technology project work for hire. We use paid discovery meetings as a means to screen most services for serious customers and to support overhead for new work engagements. Coaching services are offered at a discount if your individual circumstances are dire financially. For example, layoffs in technology and related fields have been considerable in the last year and we offer coaching discounts by contacting us directly. If your project work supports objectives like technology education outreach or limited-profit entities for ‘do good for all' or true 'open source' technologies, we can likely offer a discount. Contact us for more information.
Disclaimer:
This is an opinion piece to engage discussions and shouldn't be mistaken for academic research or expert advise on these topics included.