Can we unlock human compassion in business innovation?
According to evolutionary theory, compassion is vital to survival and helping others is at the core of human nature...
Our capacity for empathy enables us to walk in the shoes of others and perceive how they feel - but it’s compassion that motivates the desire to act, often selflessly. With this being the case, we ask: why is it that so many business leaders today still focus purely on profits... rather than providing value that truly helps people?
When you compare human nature vs the biggest businesses of growth today and how organisations layout their strategic plans, there is a stark contrast. Crisis precipitates change and COVID-19 has given us the ability to re-learn what is important, for the many not just the few. Pushing morally correct views into the board room and re-directing the paths of business innovation, are the next major steps. As-is changing how leaders consider compassion, from entropic to strategic, customer-led and impactful.
“There are two things I think that great leaders need to have, empathy and perspective, and I think these things are very often forgotten. Leaders are so often so concerned about their status or position in an organisation that they actually forget their real job. The real job of a leader is not about being in charge – it's about taking care of those in our charge... and I don’t think people realise this, or train for this. We have to start by practicing empathy and relate to what others may be going through, and it will profoundly change the decision we make, and it will profoundly change the way we see the world.”
- Source: Simon Sinek, Empathy speech
Of course, we all need commerce to grow, but by creating value for others and helping those who really need it, businesses can build longer term value that solves real-life problems. The upcoming recession will, in turn, hit so many and create so many of these problems. But if businesses can create innovate ways to help, then these challenges can become real opportunities.
One example is that of the systematic problems surrounding junior talent in FinTech. Outsourcing of large projects by banks to overseas consultancy firms, adjoined with uncompetitive EU salaries has resulted in an un-compassionate environment for juniors. Financial technology has become a less attractive career to pursue, opportunities are far less – leading to reductions in available talent, diversity, and specialist skills, stunting the FinTech markets further development.
Responding to this example - Caspian One in collaboration with the our clients and selected partners, are now working to change how FinTech’s engage juniors. We believe the next-gen of talent will be hit the hardest from Covid and the recession. We have a fantastic network of Subject matter experts, who are crying out to help and share knowledge. This new ‘future talent model’ directly competes with typical consultancy pools but gives so much more. Longer-term commercial exposure, direct supervision with mentors, SME practical training from the best-of-the-best along with incentives that covert juniors to permanent staff.
We’ve taken an agile approach when developing this model, tailoring and evolving the solution as new insights, perspectives and viewpoints are obtained. One partner for example, stated that in general terms, the biggest gaps for hiring were threefold:
A need to make measurable progress to address talent diversity in a capacity constrained environment, where a ‘1 in, 1 out’ policy can lead to impacts on timelines, costs and experience loss.
Overcoming legacy ways of creating and defining roles that attract fresh thinking, avoiding the temptation to replace like-for-like.
Changing the reputation of graduates so Managers become emotionally invested in their success.
Ultimately, we are trying to show compassion for FinTech juniors and the companies stunted by a lack of available talent – listening to their needs, comprehending their challenges and working with them to craft a viable solution. In response to this articles title question, “Can we unlock human compassion in business innovation?” the answer is yes, if businesses are willing to act with empathetic insight.
"In other research by Emory University neuroscientists James Rilling and Gregory Berns, participants were given the chance to help someone else while their brain activity was recorded. Helping others triggered activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience pleasure. This is a rather remarkable finding: helping others brings the same pleasure we get from the gratification of personal desire.” - Source
We are keen to hear about the positive things people are doing to tackle real change in society. If your business is in the process of embedding empathetic behaviours, if you’re completing SWOTs in innovation and strategy planning or are otherwise working to add real value, we want to learn.
