Compassion deficit on the internet . . . 

I listened to a TED talk this morning by Monica Lewisnski – yes “that woman”.  It is a powerful, eloquent and well rehearsed talk, just what you might expect on one level.  Beyond that though there was something that struck me, a phrase that seemed real, heart felt and resonated

“There is a compassion deficit on the internet”

This statement is not just true in many parts of the internet but also many parts of business as well.  I am not talking about the wooly, warm fuzzy feelings of a liberal do good-er – I mean the robust compassion that is able to hold people to account without destroying them.  The kind of compassion that sees a dying terrorist and rushes to his side to steam the flow over blood; that sees beyond the shouting about a missed deadline and drys the tears of a mother who misses her son.

Brené Brown talks about the fact that “Shame can not survive empathy” and sometimes that is all that the compassion we need to show.  We need to understand that we made mistakes on our journey to the top (or bottom) of our careers, we also did things we are not proud of and we every now and then would like to turn back the clock and do something differently.

Sat at a keyboard with grumpy head on it is all too easy to fire off an email challenging someones comments.  It is all too easy to reply with a one liner that doesn’t reflect who we would like to be.

There is a time and it might even be now for us to start looking at how we resolve internet conflict.  Where and how will we mediate, find compassion and ultimately peace on the internet?  It is definitely time to stop shaming people on the internet.  Time to think before we tweet, text or type.  It is time to as Monica also said

“Walk a mile in their headline”

I have not had a good week of doing this – apologies to those who didn’t get compassion from me this week.  I will try to do better next week, maybe you could join me and we could start a peaceful, compassion revolution.