Employment law attorney Micheal Maslanka reviews Michael Carroll’s book Awake at Work: 35 Practical Buddhist Principles for Discovering Clarity and Balance in the Midst of Work’s Chaos. Maslanka offers a solution from a Harvard Business Review blog post for the problem of idiot compassion that Carroll identifies in the book.
Carroll calls it “idiot compassion.” He writes that avoiding idiot compassion means pausing “to consider what is truly needed when helping others ― rather than jumping to solutions or rushing to the rescue, we can be discerning and deliberate in our efforts.”
How to do that? I read a blog post on Harvard Business Review by Peter Bregman titled “Don’t Be Nice, Be Helpful.” He gives three tips for avoiding idiot compassion and embracing educated compassion:
- Ask permission. Questions are powerful. So start with a simple one, “Can I share some feedback with you?” This often piques a person’s interest and opens up communication in a nonthreatening way.
- Do not hedge. It’s only natural to want to sandwich criticism between two compliments. Don’t do it. If you do, the message is lost. You see it in relationships as well: “You are such a nice person. I don’t want to see you anymore. That was a great article you wrote.” (Disclaimer: This example isn’t from personal experience.)
- Do it often. Companies should create what I call a culture of candor. When you follow Rules 1 and 2, and do it often, feedback becomes the norm, not the outlier ― something that’s welcomed, not shunned. Compassion is useful, effective, and good business. But embrace thoughtful compassion, and eschew idiot compassion.
Michael Maslanka is a partner in the Dallas, Texas, office of Constangy, Brooks & Smith, LLP. He has 30 years of experience in litigation and trial of employment law cases. He is the editor of Texas Employment Law Letter, and he also authors the “Work Matters” blog for Texas Lawyer.