Student. Teacher. Leader. Follower. CEO. Receptionist. Parent. Change Champion. Compassion Architect. Host. Elder. Human.
When you read the list of roles above what comes to mind?
Perhaps you recall a memory of a favorite teacher or imagine a polished professional standing in a large corner office. Maybe you relate to a hurried father trying to get to work, or see a small child protesting climate change. Regardless of what the words evoke, it's likely you attach meaning and a way of being to each of the entities above.
What do all of these titles have in common?
While seemingly different, all of these titles represent a few of the many different roles humans can take.
Roles are one of the most important tools that leaders can utilize to create compassion competence in their organizations. Roles, along with routines, networks, and culture, are pillars of the social architecture framework developed by Monica Worline and Jane Dutton in their groundbreaking book “Awakening Compassion at Work.” They define roles as, “Structural patterns of shared expectations that go along with particular social positions, offering flexible definitions of zones of responsibilities.”
When we can examine the difference between the role itself, and the different lived experiences of those embodying the role, there is magic to be found.
A kindergartner and a PhD candidate are both students, yet their roles are very different. And, while CEOs and receptionists do very different things during the day, they both have the power to influence and shape an organization’s compassionate culture. Worline and Dutton remind us that “We can architect for compassion by re-envisioning and re-describing the patterns of expectations and responsibilities central to any and all roles.”
Worline and Dutton also help us explore opportunities to increase the flow of compassion by teasing apart role-making and role-taking. Role-taking is, “A process of internalizing, enacting, and receiving social feedback related to the collectively held expectations, about the zone of responsibility that corresponds to location in a particular social space…”
This is what a role is before someone inhabits it – think of this as a job description or what the organization may need to be successful. At this stage, we can design what’s required so they intentionally are structured to notice the challenges of others and provide opportunities to respond to those needs. Some roles are easier to offer compassion than others: Counselor, Encourager, Host, Teacher are all examples of roles that feel somewhat easy to infuse with compassion.
Other roles may be harder to design with compassion: Disciplinarian, HR Exit Officer (i.e. the one who fires people), or Budget Director. At times, roles call for those who are there to set up boundaries and stop people from doing things. Yet, in this tension is the invitation to be aware of the nature of the role. Compassion can exist in spaces where clear boundaries and high standards help others thrive.
As leaders, if you’re looking to infuse more compassion through the lens of role-taking in your organization, Monica Worline has suggested we reflect on these questions:
How much is our organization …
Recruiting for roles with compassion visible and essential in the description?
Interviewing or selecting with compassion fully visible in the process?
Upholding role models who demonstrate compassion as part of the responsibilities that are important to those who are seeking new roles?
Creating onboarding materials and experiences that foreground compassion from the first day?
Supporting people to gain greater role clarity when they are confused or unclear?
Providing resources for those encountering role conflict or incompatible demands?
Helping people see how compassion is their responsibility through formal and informal feedback on the first few days, weeks, months years of a new role?
What do your answers reveal?
While the job description may be set, there comes an organic opportunity very much dependent on who takes the role. Role-making is a personal embodied experience. There may be six teachers in a row, all with the same job description, but how those teachers make their own roles allows the individual to infuse their own personal styles differently.
Worline and Dutton define role-making as, “A process of crafting a unique contribution by expanding on or improvising within the collectively held pattern of expectations about the responsibilities that correspond to a particular social space.” This often reveals the opportunity to infuse compassion into whatever role the organization is needing.
Going back to the examples above, all of us, regardless of position, have the choice to move the boundaries of our jobs incrementally so that the role itself continues to be more compassion oriented. Regardless of whether you’re an individual contributor or the Chairman of the Board, role-making helps us engage as individuals with compassion and kindness in all aspects of the role that we have.
As leaders within organizations, we invite you to explore how you can partner with your teams to create spaces in roles where compassion can be expanded. In their article “Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work,”, Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton offer three areas to start:
Task crafting – what tasks are required? How can you add more meaning to these tasks? And how can you change the way you complete these tasks to be more compassionate?
Relational crafting – How can you shift or change the way this role interacts with others? How often, with whom, and how can you add opportunities for others to use their strengths?
Cognitive crafting – how does this role tell a part of the bigger picture you are trying to share? Does the title need to change? And how can you wrap your hands around the impact that this role may have on others?
In a recent leadership cohort, we asked our students to come up with some creative roles that allow compassion to flourish at work. This is their list:
Coach / encourager
Arbitrator / Peacemaker / Conflict resolver
Project manager
Referee with a penalty flag
Decision maker
Visionary
Clarifier
Storyteller
Historian
Mentor
Communicator
Problem solver / troubleshooter
Shock absorber
Advocate
Yes, some of these roles are more formal titles. Many, however, reflect the skills we need as leaders for this changing world of work. What would you add to the list?
As you think about the roles in your organization, what do you want to craft? And where can you utilize strengths that are already present to allow for exciting role-making that invites everyone to use more compassion at work?
For deeper reading on this topic:
Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power That Elevates People and Organizations
by Monica Worline and Jane E. Dutton. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2017.
“Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work.”
by Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane E. Dutton. Academy of Management Review, vol. 26, no. 2, Apr. 2001, pp. 179–201
“Job crafting and meaningful work.”
by Justin M. Berg, Jane E. Dutton, and Amy Wrzesniewski in Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace., pp. 81–104