What is it about?
Informed by its Buddhist roots, compassion is regarded as a supreme virtue in Bhutan. Representations of compassion are ubiquitous in public spaces such as administrative centres, monasteries, and temples. Interestingly, though the virtue of compassion is not taken for granted. Recognising its complexity, compassion is frequently depicted alongside representations of wisdom and power. The implication is that without wisdom, compassion is overly sentimental; and without power, compassion remains non-responsive. The implication is that compassion must be cultivated together with wisdom and power.
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Why is it important?
The cultivation of compassion together with wisdom and power resolves important compassion paradoxes that have historically lead to the rejection of compassion - including within the management and organizational context. Depending on the perspective compassion can be viewed as both sentimental and rational, weak and courageous, undermining dignity and respecting dignity, unfair and fair, promoting hopelessness and hope etc. Recognising these tensions, in Bhutan compassion is advocated along with supplementary virtues of wisdom and courage to ensure the best outcomes from compassion practices. Over the past 15 years, compassion towards co-workers has been recognised as fundamental to daily organizational functioning. Organizational scholars have found that workplace compassion promotes all kinds of employee, work team and broader organizational benefits. This study from Bhutan suggests that while we should be enthusiastic about cultivating compassion, we should also be conscious of its tensions and paradoxes which need to be transcended to realise the full benefits of compassion. We need to be careful to practice wise compassion, courageously.
Perspectives
I had the opportunity to visit Bhutan in 2012 and as a researcher of organizational compassion, I was curious about what I might learn. I didn't have to wait long. Shortly after arriving at the airport in Paro I visited a monastery-fortress on the way to Imphal the capital. What struck me on a bridge leading up to the monastery, in the entrance way, and within the building itself was how compassion was almost always represented along with wisdom and power. Over the course of the following two weeks, this finding was replicated over and again. I am grateful to my co-author Marco Berti who worked with me to tease out the broader organizational implications.
Dr Ace Volkmann Simpson
Brunel University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Transcending Organizational Compassion Paradoxes by Enacting Wise Compassion Courageously, Journal of Management Inquiry, January 2019, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1056492618821188.
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