No Compassion, No Innovation

Experiment more! Dare to fail! Continuous learning!

These words are certainly everywhere – on our intranets, in our PowerPoints, in the CEO's Christmas speech, and in various leadership development programs. Pressured and inspired by digitalization, we have understood that this is a necessity to be able to innovate at the level and speed required to maintain competitiveness.

The pressure falls on employees and leaders. They should dare more. Do more. Test and explore, without knowing how it will end. Someone decides: jump! Do a somersault you've never done before! Some try, others don't even dare to look over the edge.

We need to talk more about compassion. Compassion is the mindset and behavior needed – in all of us – for ourselves and the people around us to dare to jump. And to ensure that the person who jumps is caught and lands safely and softly. That they, regardless of how the somersault went, learn something and climb back up again. And again.

Compassion is connected to psychological safety, something all organizations strive for today. We know that safe teams perform best of all (Google's Project Aristotle). Fresh brain studies reinforce the picture: that humans' fundamental social needs of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness must be rewarded for us to be engaged, creative, and have full access to our whole brain (the SCARF model by the NeuroLeadership Institute). And Susan Wheelan (RIP) shows through her research how groups that constructively handle the needs in Stage 2 – Opposition and conflict (Integrated Model of Group Development) deepen trust in each other, which is required to become a high-performing team.

So what is compassion? It is the ability to feel with someone else. To be able to identify with what another person feels and experiences, without necessarily "agreeing" or fully understanding. Compassion gives another person a space to simply be. To be in uncertainty and vulnerability. In shame for not keeping up. In guilt for getting it wrong. In fear of the future. In grief over what used to exist but no longer does. Even if YOU don't feel guilt/shame/fear/grief for the very thing your colleague is experiencing, you make the effort to relate to the feeling. You show compassion and with that you allow all feelings to exist. Your action can unlock blockages in your colleague's brain and give them access to their full cognitive capacity again. Through your action, you create less risk of fight-or-flight responses that can generate negative effects.

Because we all experience these feelings when we work together on innovation. It is an unavoidable side of testing, experimenting, continuous learning, and extremely rapid development. And it is unavoidable when we collaborate and co-create, which is required for us to solve complex problems.

When compassion and trust exist, we dare to be open and show vulnerability. We dare to jump, because we know we are surrounded by colleagues and leaders who will catch us, regardless of the outcome.

More compassion – for ourselves and for our colleagues and managers. The pressure to deliver is immense. Instead of turning a blind eye to it, open your eyes, sharpen your ears, close your mouth, and meet each other as fellow human beings.

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Anna Gullstrand

Faculty & Program Leader, Stellar Capacity

Chief People and Culture Officer, Mentimeter

Want to learn more about what enables successful and effective leadership in a digital world? Explore Stellar Capacity's programs or contact us. We also offer deep dives, workshops, and tailor-made training programs for organizations looking to develop more compassionate and future-oriented leadership.