Compassion in the workplace

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – Compassion in the workplace.

In this episode, Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to Nate Regier who is the CEO and founding owner of Next Element Consulting, a global leadership firm dedicated to bringing compassion into the workplace. Nate is a former practicing psychologist and expert in social-emotional intelligence, interpersonal communication, and leadership.

Nate is now based in Kansas but originally was from the mid west. His parents were famers but decided to become missionaries so in the early 70’s Nate was living in Africa.  He spent his early childhood Zaire which is now the Democratic Republic of Congo and went to high school in Botswana in the 1980s. Nate feels that by travelling around at such a young age he learned to adapt and became very used to different cultures which has given him a different perspective of what its like to live in America now. He also believes that Africa was where the seeds of compassion were sowed in him Nate struggles with the traditional stereotypes of compassion such as Gandhi and Mother Theresa. He feels compassion is more than empathy. The Latin meaning of compassion is to suffer with – to have active engagement not just empathy.

Nate feels that conflict is a natural product of diversity - because we are different there will be conflict. Conflict is the energy created from diversity and means we have choices and opportunities and enables us to thrive and innovate. The only question is how will we use the energy of conflict?  A lot of conflict energy is spent in drama. In the drama triangle there are three roles – persecutor, victim and rescuer. The three roles can be quite fluid, with people moving between them and when people play these roles they feed off each other which distracts energy from well laid plans.

Nate originally trained as a clinical psychologist but felt it did not really suit him. He preferred more dynamic things such as coaching, consultancy, training and writing so, with some partners, he set up Next Element in 2008. Their aim was to take what they had learned in the social sciences field and apply it to the corporate world through leadership and development training and coaching programmes.

Many consultants in this field tend to play rescuer role – they know what’s wrong and have the solutions but if it doesn’t work its not their fault – it failed because you didn't do what they advised.  They actually set you up for failure and dependence. Nate feels that the goal is capability, self-confidence and independence but that all coaching relationship have a natural life and the coach and coachee need to know either can walk away from the relationship. Nate feels many consultants work to become needed rather than effective which is why he has developed certification programmes to impart knowledge which allows the company to carry on without him.

Nate views leadership as the practice of managing diversity towards shared goals.  Diversity is necessary as it provides the perspective we need so leaders need to cultivate a skill set to manage diversity whilst working towards shared goals. Two of the most essential competences needed to achieve this are communication and conflict management skills. Not everyone can clearly see a path so leaders need to translate the plan so everyone can understand – leaders need to have vision and strategy but also the human capital to go forward.

Nate’s latest book is called Seeing People Through and is about personality differences and inclusion through the Process Communication Model, a behavioural communication model that teaches people how to assess, connect, motivate, and resolve conflict by understanding the personality types that make up a person’s whole self.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Nate here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available.

You can find out more about Nate here.

Trends in Organisational Development

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – Trends in Organisational Development

In this episode, Dr Russell Thackeray talks to Dr Jonathan Westover who is based in Utah and describes himself as a scholar/practioner. He has been an Associate Professor at Utah Valley University for 11 years and leads the Organisational Leadership Department which focuses on organisational development and change, human resource management, organisational behaviour and leadership. He also undertakes research on global comparisons in worker engagement and satisfaction, and the drivers of worker motivation across the world. Through his consultancy, Human Capital Innovations, Dr Westover helps organisational leaders better manage their people, improve leadership their skills and ultimately have high functioning organisations and teams that maximise the potential of their people.

There seems to have been a trend in the academic world over the last 20 years or so to stretch boundaries and come with new and interesting ideas to push forward organisational design and leadership. There have been academic and practioner fronts but academia has always tried to push the edge of knowledge. Although there have been major advancements in statistical methodologies that provide more insight into the theoretical world, the major principles and theories of organisational behaviour have been in place for decades. There have been tweaks and relabeling but no major advancements.

Dr Westover feels that this is because when organisational behaviour emerged as a stand-alone discipline originally it was an amalgamation of different social sciences and their take on organisations. Over time it became one discipline and it started to uncover the drivers for organisational human behaviour, group behaviour and effective leadership. These are in the main very down-to-earth, common sense ideas that sometimes get lost when fire fighting or in the day-to day grind. There is an ongoing need to remind people of the basic principles so they can be effective and drive innovative cultures but the major aspects have always been in place.

As a leading expert in global comparative studies as it relates to organisations, Dr Westover has studied the complexity of global systems as they influence organisational dynamics and the motivation of employees. One of the major things to come out of this is the recognition that a theory cannot be applied in the same way to every country and context throughout the world. Their needs to be a contextulisation of theories and their applications because they do not work in the same way in every country so generalised models break down.

Many countries still default to the west for ideas and best practice but although the principles can be similar there can be major differences. These need to be taken into any models or false conclusions about human capital, the workforce and skills emerge.  Ideas then emerge that there are problems with the workforce whilst the issue has more to do with the management structure, organisational style and work allocation.

Whilst leaders like predictability and consistency and would like to see generic policies and procedures across all their sites, if you’re a multinational based in 50 different countries it simply will not work.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Dr Westover here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available. a

You can get in touch with Dr Westover at innovativehumancapital.com