More than 50 reasons why compassion makes a lot of business sense

“Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that Caring Makes a Difference” is book about compassion. A book about the business case for compassion. Recommended by Tom Peter in “Excellence Now”.

A healthy place to work

I blame John Ryan, the CEO of Healthy Place to Work, for all of this. Ever since he mentioned “Dying for a paycheck”, I have never been the same. People’s health will become the next organizational priority. It is the logical step after digital transformation. Companies will not survive if staff are not fully engaged. Also read “Everyone matters”.

Compassionomics

Compassionomics take health care as the lens to look at compassion, but the lessons are universal. Compassion is the emotional response to another’s pain or suffering, involving an authentic desire to help. It’s different from empathy (i.e., detecting and mirroring another’s emotions and experiencing their feelings). When a person experiences empathy — the feeling component — the pain centres in the brain light up. When a person is focused on compassion — the distinctly different area of the brain, a “reward” pathway associated with affiliation and positive emotion lights up. Taking action to alleviate another’s suffering is a rewarding, positive experience. You can think of it like this: empathy hurts, but compassion heals.

Compassion is good for you