Sara Sheehan’s guest in this episode is Dr. Bruno R. Cignacco, an international business consultant, TEDx speaker, and best-selling author. For over thirty years Dr. Cignacco has advised and trained hundreds of companies on trade activities and social marketing. His latest book, “The Art of Compassionate Business” examines the long-held assumption that employees are and should be treated like commodities and customers perceived as difficult. Bruno instead explores the need for humanity and healthy relationships not just with employees but with customers and shareholders as well.
Businesses frequently resort to operating only on the quantitative outputs of a company, which can be measured, instead of qualitative values such as compassion, generosity, and engagement. Dr. Cignacco challenges the assumption that humanistic love has no place in business. He asserts the many benefits of humane and compassionate dealings with the people who comprise the workplace. The benefits become quantitative when they turn the workplace into a supportive environment that fosters a sense of safety and innovation where employees and customers feel valued, and when the fear of losing jobs, money, or status can be pushed aside.
Sara Sheehan and Dr. Bruno Cignacco discuss how organizations have stepped away from operating with any degree of love or care for the people who create and sustain their success, why the need to embrace seeing people as humans deserving of empathy and support is so great, and the overall benefits to the paradigm shift that’s needed. Bruno shares what is required to change the cold approach of businesses and how to embrace a more compassionate engagement with people. There is room for humanistic love in business, and it can help an organization flourish.
About Dr. Bruno Cignacco:
Dr Bruno Roque Cignacco (PhD) is an international business consultant, TEDx speaker, lecturer, and best-selling author. For over 30 years, he has advised and trained hundreds of companies on international trade activities and social marketing. He is a university professor at different institutions in the UK. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA – UK). He is also the author of business and personal development books published in different languages. His new best-selling book is titled “THE ART OF COMPASSIONATE BUSINESS. MAIN PRINCIPLES FOR THE HUMAN-ORIENTED ENTERPRISE” (Routledge). His TEDx talk titled “The art of compassionate business” at Bonn Square Salon (Oxford, UK) has been viewed thousands of times.
This specialist has delivered countless talks and training at a myriad of organisations, such as YPO (Mexico), Hult University, NCC Education in Manchester (UK), HKU SPACE (Hong Kong), University of Wollongong (Australia), Karachi Institute of Economics & Technology (Pakistan), Federation of Small Businesses UK, Jaipur Rugs (India), University of London, Guizhou University of Finance and Economics (China), Centre for Sustainable Action, Edinburgh Napier University, University of Bahrein, The University of Law (UK), Bicol University (The Philippines), Kamara Youths, DUAL Group (Howden Group Holdings), ASM Institute of professional studies (India), Deloitte (Denmark), and Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution (UK), among hundreds of other institutions worldwide.
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Resources discussed in this episode:
- “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey
- “The art of compassionate business with Bruno Cignacco” TEDX BonnSquareSalon
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Contact Sara Sheehan | Sara Sheehan Consulting:
Contact Bruno Cignacco:
- Website: BrunoCignacco.com
- Book: “The Art of Compassionate Business: Main Principles for the Human-Oriented Enterprise” by Dr. Bruno R. Cignacco
Transcript
Sara Sheehan: [00:00:02] Hi there, I’m Sara Sheehan and welcome to my podcast Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan. Does love make business better? Yes, it certainly does. Not sentimental love, but humanistic love and compassion can aid in employee health and well-being, nurture collaboration with competitors, develop better relationships with investors and suppliers, and increase efficiency, productivity and the bottom line. Today, I’m speaking with Dr. Bruno Cignacco, a pioneer in compassionate business practices. Bruno is an esteemed international business consultant, TEDx speaker, lecturer and best-selling author with over 30 years of experience. In today’s episode, we delve into Bruno’s latest book, The Art of Compassionate Business: Main Principles for the Human-Oriented Enterprise. This book challenges long held assumptions about business dynamics and offers a refreshing perspective on how companies can operate more humanely and with humanistic love. Bruno shares insights on how to view employees as individuals, embrace competitors as collaborators, and foster creativity within a compassionate business framework. Get ready for an enlightening conversation that could transform the way you think about business.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:01:42] Thank you very much.
Sara Sheehan: [00:01:43] Thank you so much for joining me here today, Bruno.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:01:49] Thank you Sara. Thank you. I feel very honored to be here.
Sara Sheehan: [00:01:52] I am so glad to be engaging in this conversation. Compassion and business is a topic that literally no one is talking about, so I am super intrigued with what you’re doing and I want to amplify your message. So tell me, Bruno, is there a way to perform business activities in a more humane way?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:02:24] Yes, there is, of course. Thank you for the question. We can first define compassion because many people might think about compassion in different ways. Compassion can be defined very simply as an attitude toward other people, where you understand how they think, you understand how they feel, and you try to support them, especially when they face challenges. This concept of compassion can be applied to business because you will be related to colleagues in the workplace, you will be related to customers and other stakeholders like suppliers, community members, business partners. And being compassionate, according to research, brings about a lot of benefits that then we will enumerate much more in detail. But what I observed is that many companies tend to focus only on what I call the quantitative aspect of business. What can be measured? What can be precisely counted? For example, market share, productivity, profitability, these are what we call the economic parameters of business. What makes a company successful, economically speaking, in the market place. And they’re very important. But they in many cases dismiss what I call the qualitative aspect of business what cannot be measured precisely what cannot be counted. For example, compassion, camaraderie, commitment, engagement, generosity, gratitude, and this qualitative aspect of business, what cannot be measured cannot be counted precisely. Build strong, long lasting relationships with different stakeholders and why it’s so important because we can mention Stephen Covey, a very important thinker in management, that he observed that a very important principle in life and in business is interdependence.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:04:15] No company can succeed without stakeholders. No company can succeed without customers, without employees, without community members, without suppliers. So when you build a strong relationship with these stakeholders, this economic indicator profitability, productivity, efficiency, market share tend to be achieved naturally. Instead, when you focus only on these economic indicators, in many cases you tend to achieve these indicators and you try to achieve this indicator by all means, in some cases in a very unethical way. For example, exploiting employees, polluting the environment, deceiving customers, developing win lose agreements with suppliers. And obviously, when you behave in this unethical way and this unkind way, how do you expect this stakeholder to support your company. No, they will withdraw. They won’t cooperate. In some cases, supply will look for other companies. Employees might work for competing organizations. Customers might leave negative reviews, so this means that being compassionate implies building a strong, long lasting relationship with these stakeholders and creating a balance between the qualitative aspects of business that cannot be measured precisely. Camaraderie, compassion, generosity and quantity the aspect of what can be measured precisely.
Sara Sheehan: [00:05:38] Thank you very, very much for that. I know that fear is a very powerful emotion, and it can derail many people right in the middle of being in productive flow. Why does fear in business prevent people from being kind?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:06:03] Very interesting. First of all, we want to define fear. Fear is a contracted emotional state. When people feel fearful, they feel fear, they tend to act in a defensive way in a very non proactive way. Why? Because they look for threats in the environment and they tend to adopt what the psychologists call flight or fight mode, which implies that we are looking for something to defend from, something that could be threatening. The types of fear that are in the workplace are, for example, fear of being fired, fear of making mistakes, fear of, for example, being outpaced by colleagues, fear of acting in an innovative way. So this means that when you have fear in the workplace, the workplace tends to be psychologically unsafe. People cannot be themselves. They cannot cooperate. In workplaces where there is a lot of fear, they are not trust based workplaces and people act in a very defensive way. This means that they don’t like to share resources with others. In some cases, they are competing with each other and this creates a lot of inefficiency. And why? Because the cost goes up in a way that people don’t share resources.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:07:30] In some cases, they want to put everything in writing. Imagine you don’t trust your supply. You might write a very detailed contract. You might contract lawyers to check that all the conditions are very clear. Why? Because you don’t trust, you are fearful of this supplier deceiving you. Well, when there is fear, not only do people not cooperate, but they tend to withdraw. And when people are fearful, they cannot be compassionate because they are in incompatible states. And when they are fearful, they cannot be innovative. Why? Because there is a lot of research on innovation and creativity. People tend to be innovative and creative when they have much more expansive emotions. For example, joy, when they have more contracted emotion like fear. Why? Because when you are fearful, your reasoning skills are temporarily impaired. You think about the threat. You focus on the threat, and you don’t think about how to become more productive because it’s not relevant at that moment. You don’t think about how to become much more innovative because you try to defend yourself.
Sara Sheehan: [00:08:30] We were just talking about fear and about how fear keeps people from being kind. Moving forward, what kinds of fears do you see in the workplace?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:08:46] As I mentioned, there are different types of fear in the workplace. People are fearful of being fired. People are fearful of making mistakes or fearful of being outpaced by other colleagues. And also, in some cases, people are fearful of not abiding by the consensus in this organization what we call groupthink. They are fearful of dissenting with others. And this fear brings about a lower productivity, lower creativity, lower trust. And this brings about a negative impact on the economic results. Because when people are fearful, they cannot be proactive, they cannot be proactive and they cannot be innovative.
Sara Sheehan: [00:09:32] This is a great conversation. When I think about fear in the workplace I often think about situations where employees are fearful of layoffs, or they’re fearful of retribution from a certain situation, something that comes back to harm them. And when I think about situations where either I’ve had fear or I’ve seen fear in others, it’s always been an unproductive situation. It’s a very powerful thing to make sure that leaders are cluing into how people are feeling, and trying to get them on the positive side of the equation. That’s very powerful because it will help your people be more productive. It’s a great point. Moving forward, what would you say are economic impacts from being more human oriented in business?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:10:50] There are some research studies that observe that when you have a loving workplace, and here we are talking about love in a humanistic way. Which includes some byproducts such as compassion, empathy, support, care. When you have a loving workplace, employee satisfaction goes up. Customer satisfaction also goes up. Why? Because employees that are satisfied, employees that are happy, they are content, they are fulfilled, tend to serve customers in a much more effective way. They look for the happiness of this customer, but also in this workplace that are supportive, they are kind. They are trust based. There is lower absenteeism, lower stress levels, lower turnover and all this factor impact positively on the bottom line, which means profits. Companies also reduce the medical bills. Why? Because people get less stress.
Sara Sheehan: [00:11:48] They’re healthier.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:11:49] They’re healthier and like to go to work. They don’t go only for the salary because they go also because they feel that they are making a meaningful contribution to this company and to a stakeholder in general.
Sara Sheehan: [00:12:01] That is a powerful message. Love is good for business. Caring for your people is going to pay dividends in your business. So powerful. Let’s transition to talk a little bit about manipulation and how that impacts the environment at work. There is so much, there is a huge proliferation of manipulation in the business world. Why do you think that is?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:12:40] Well, manipulation implies generally acting without integrity. So this means that every time that a company adopts a manipulative strategy, this company is more prone to act without integrity, and integrity implies acting with transparency. Acting with kindness. Acting with supportiveness. And manipulation is the opposite. Some examples that you see of manipulation is when companies consider customers not as human beings with legitimate needs that need to be acknowledged and need to be addressed and satisfied whenever possible, but they consider these customers as specific figures in the database of this company that will make this company profits. So they don’t care so much about the customer needs, but they care about the profit that they can obtain from this customer and customers feel used, utilized. And these companies, some cases when they act in a manipulative way, they use deceptive strategies. They try to force customers into buying certain products that they don’t need, or in some cases, they are not transparent with the terms and conditions. They have a very nice fine print that is hidden in the contracts to deceive customer when they have problems. In some cases, the companies are grateful when the customer buy from them, but then they leave these customers to their own devices. When they have problems with the product, they don’t sort out these problems at all. But also, employees can be manipulated. They can be considered as cogs in the company’s machinery. This means that when they are faulty as parts of this machinery, this employee needs to be replaced. They are not considered as human beings that they have some challenges, problems. They have emotions too. They have emotional needs. They have social needs, mental needs besides economic needs. In some cases, employees are considered only as resources and resources can be used and can be used in excess.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:14:51] Instead, employees are human beings, and they are the most important resource that the company can resort to. Why? Because employees are meta resources. They are resources that help the company generate other resources. Employees can help the company generate new products, innovative services, new business models, new processes, systems. So employees should be taken care of. Because when you take care of employees, these employees will take care of customers. So most companies get profit from customers. But also another point to highlight is that many companies consider employees like costs. Costs that need to be reduced. So we’re affected by the recession, we need to cut off the cost. What are the ones suffering from this cost cutting? Employees. And employees don’t feel appreciated. In some cases, the company take for granted these employees. And micromanage these employees. This means that they treat these employees as little children, not the children that need to be educated, that need to be supervised continually. I don’t give this employee the autonomy. A very important thing for every employee to decide is the best way to act in every situation. So these employees are feeling manipulated and unappreciated. And this employee, when they find better job opportunities, even job opportunities that they will have lower salary. They will look for this opportunity because in other company they might have not only the economic mismatch, but they will have emotional needs met. They might feel appreciated, they might feel supported, they might feel valued. And they will also have social needs. Meaning connecting to others, have been meeting with colleagues inside work and outside the workplace. So these employees are not resources to be used and abused, but they are human beings with legitimate needs.
Sara Sheehan: [00:16:39] Yes, absolutely. I love the detail that you went into there. It’s super helpful. One of the questions that comes to mind as we talk about people and how they are impacted by manipulation, and how if your employees are happy, they are going to also make sure that your customers are happy. They’re going to go the extra mile. When I think about these concepts, it immediately makes me think about having a strong and productive sales function. And so I’d love to hear from you about what the human centered approach is for building an amazing sales function.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:17:28] Very interesting, very interesting. Well, we have to change the paradigm because most of the companies have a sales paradigm, and in my research I use a different paradigm, a completely different way of seeing business and seeing the relationship with the customer. I call this service paradigm. This means serving customer. Instead of trying to sell products to customer, you try to serve customer. And being of service doesn’t mean servitude. This means that you look for the best, for this stakeholder, for the customer. You try to be less self-centered and try to focus on the customer needs. This means that you try to find out what the customer needs are first, and try, if possible, to meet these needs and if possible, to exceed this need. This means you try to delight customers. This means giving them more that they need.
Sara Sheehan: [00:18:25] Surprise and delight.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:18:27] Surprise and delight. Try to engage them in a positive relationship, in a long term relationship. You don’t adopt a transactional approach, it means a one off sale, but you try to bring a long term relationship and try to assist customers not only before sales, during the sale process and post sales. And also customers that are responding to this approach where the company tries to delight them, feel that the company care for them, and this customer tend to respond very positively. There is a lot of research on delight and customer service, and they observe that when customers are delighted, they are more prone to become loyal to this company and they are more prone to leave positive reviews. They are more prone also to recommend these companies products to other customer, and they might become silent or overt ambassadors of this company’s product, recommended silently or in close circles to friends, but recommending this product overtly, for example, using social media to other potential customers.
Sara Sheehan: [00:19:34] Absolutely, become an influencer. Absolutely. I just want to double click on one of the terms that you use, just to make sure that it’s really clear. Is it a service principal? Is that what you were mentioning?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:19:48] The attitude of service or attitude of serving customers.
Sara Sheehan: [00:19:51] Yes. I couldn’t agree more with that. Why are generosity and gratitude not part of business anymore?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:20:08] Because people are focused on the urgent. This means that first off, they are not focused on building strong relationships with stakeholders. Why? Because they have, in many cases in the workplace, they have tight deadlines. They have multiple projects that are complex and in some cases with very urgent delivery of this project. But in practice, in many cases, people believe that being generous is giving only tangible things to others. For example, if the company is generous with employees, they might believe that it is only paying bonuses according to the employees performance. But a company can, for example, a boss in the workplace can be generous with their subordinates in different ways. For example, giving them intangible things. For example, if the manager sees that the employee is worried, concerned, this manager can give an ear and listen to this employee’s concerns to see if they have family problems or health problems or some issues at home in order that they can provide with some support. For example, flexible time or some days off and so on. They can give some coaching, they can give some mentoring, they can give technical advice. They can provide this employee with valuable information, information about training or workshop or seminars so this means they can give thanks to this employee for their contribution. So generosity and gratitude are very connected.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:21:40] And in practice, most companies are focusing on obtaining. Obtaining market share. I want more profit as a company, I want more customers. And there should be a balance between obtaining and giving. Most companies are focusing on themselves, on obtaining, on getting wealthier, bigger, more productive. But as anything in life, there should be a balance between being self-centered and being centered on others. So when you are generous, you are focusing on the well-being of others, and this helps generate a positive cycle of generosity. And about gratitude, we can comment about some study that when people are thankful to others, these people are feeling more engaged in the workplace. They feel connected. Why? Because they feel that their contribution counts. They feel valuable as employees and they feel that they are making a positive difference to the company’s mission and to the world in general. To different stakeholders, bringing about more well-being to different stakeholders, customers and other employees, and so on. So when people are acting in an ungenerous way, they tend to be much more self-centered. What is in it for me, and this is not the right question. When you are generous is how can I help others? How can I support others? And this helps. Being generous builds strong, long lasting relationships. Also, when people witness act of generosity, they tend to be infected by this act in a positive way. They tend to become much more generous. So this means that generosity begets more generosity.
Sara Sheehan: [00:23:15] Yes, I’ve noticed that.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:23:17] When people are not generous, they tend to become, or people around tend to follow this example. Being stingy or self-centered.
Sara Sheehan: [00:23:25] Absolutely. When you’re giving and you’re willing to share with others, they are going to be willing to pay it forward. I’ve seen quite a bit of that in my career, and I feel like it is so very powerful to be generous and kind to others. And I want to see that repeating cycle where it repeats in the future.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:23:59] Very interesting. I want to comment about a very little experience. I’m half Italian and I used to drink a lot of cappuccino, and here in London there are many coffee shops that are very famous big chains. And I went once to a coffee shop, and I talked to the waiter and the waiter told me, we will bring the coffee to your table. Don’t worry, there will be a couple of minutes. 15, 20 minutes later they came with a coffee and the coffee was cold, delivered late. I went to the competing company two days later, and the same. Similar type of cappuccino, told me go to the table, we will bring the cappuccino to your table. And when they left the cappuccino on the table, the waiter, two minutes later, only a very short time, they brought a tray with a biscuit and I said, sorry, you forgot the tray with the biscuit. I didn’t order this. No, no, this is not a mistake. This is for you. It’s a gift from the house to enjoy your cappuccino. Look at the difference. The first company couldn’t even meet the basic need. Bringing a cappuccino on time and hot. The second company, look at the detail. Small details count. How much these biscuits cost this company? Probably a few cents, but in practice make a lot of difference. Why? Because the company tries to focus on my satisfaction. They were acting in a non-manipulative way. They were trying to exceed my needs. And I enjoy this biscuit because they were the perfect match with the cappuccino. And which company do you think that I still go and have a cappuccino?
Sara Sheehan: [00:25:38] I think you go to the latter.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:25:40] Yes, exactly. So this means that generosity makes a lot of difference.
Sara Sheehan: [00:25:44] That is a wonderful example. Truly, I very much appreciate that. Talk with me, Bruno, about what big goals and aspirations you’re currently working on right now.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:25:58] Well, we are training companies on compassionate business. And also I’m working on my new book that I cannot reveal the topic because of confidentiality. And also we are training companies on compassionate business and international marketing. I continually research on business topics, and also I’m teaching at various universities here in the UK, and my goal is to disseminate these ideas as much as possible. And also maybe in 20 years time we will talk again and all companies will be compassionate and this topic will be completely outdated. But a dream would have come true and hopefully this will come.
Sara Sheehan: [00:26:44] Absolutely. Well, I know you’re going to make a difference, because you’re going to help people to understand that when they stay in a negative mindset, they’re only hurting themselves, and they really need to think about how their people feel around them and doing things so that you’re creating an environment that’s motivating and engaging. If you care about your people, your business will take care of itself.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:27:18] So true, so true. I completely agree. It doesn’t take a lot of time to be compassionate. There is a very interesting piece of research that observed that it takes a very short time to engage in a compassionate conversation with others. For example, in the health sector, there is a case of doctors that were to go through a very serious operation with some patients that were very critical. And these doctors engaged in a one minute conversation with this patient before the operation, because the patient was very anxious, very stressed. When they went through the operation, they noticed that this patient needed less anesthesia as compared with the patient that didn’t have this one minute conversation, soothing conversation. And also the recovery time was shorter for this patient, that they have only a one minute compassionate conversation with the doctor. Why? Because they felt more supported. This is very incredible. So this means that compassion is not only supporting but has very tangible effects. Mental and emotional.
Sara Sheehan: [00:28:29] It has physical, medical benefits that will help you recover faster in an operative situation. My goodness, that is just phenomenal. I know I’ve always preferred to work with doctors that are better on the bedside manner side, and maybe that’s a window into why I’ve always been motivated in that way. That is truly fascinating. Well, now I would like to ask you, Bruno, what does being a transformational thinker mean to you?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:29:14] Being a transformational thinker means to me that, well, I have some good examples of transformational thinkers such as Stephen Covey and also Peter Drucker. Transformational thinker implies making a difference in the world. Small or big difference, doesn’t matter. Why? Because the propagation of this idea brings about small ripple effects. But this ripple effect compounds and I strongly believe that anyone can be compassionate in organization regardless of their role. Doesn’t matter if you are the CEO or you are the janitor cleaning the toilet, you can always bring about positive influence and bring about positive role model that will allow others to emulate this model and also bring about wider effects in this organization. So this means that the transformational leader brings about a ripple effect that brings about, at the end, a bigger impact on organization, but also on the organization environment. The cases that I mentioned in the book about companies that are compassionate, they are not only bringing about a better workplace, but also they are bringing about a better world, a better relationship, a better relationship with suppliers, a better relationship with the community members, a better relationship with customers, and so on. So this means that they bring about what the experts call win, win, win, win agreements. Everyone wins. Nobody wins at the expense of others.
Sara Sheehan: [00:30:47] Yes. Having mutually beneficial situations across the board, that is a very powerful way to engage with others. When everyone wins, it makes everyone excited to engage and that is a very positive energy. It just makes me smile and light up when I’m thinking about it. I want to work with people that want win win situations. And additionally, I want to help people win, too.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:31:28] So true. Because imagine if there is a win lose agreement. The relationship won’t prosper. Won’t thrive. Why? Because nobody wants to be in a relationship, business relationship or non business. Where one wins at the expense of other. And they might feel manipulated. Instead, when people are center of developing this agreement that are mutually beneficial, the relationship not only prospers, but tends to become stronger over time. Much more solid. Much more robust.
Sara Sheehan: [00:31:59] Yes. We’ve had a fascinating conversation today, is there anything that’s coming to mind that you would like to share?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:32:10] Yes, I want to share a couple of self-reflection questions for the listeners. To implement this in a very practical way. I feel that any of the listeners could ask themselves this question on a regular basis. Doesn’t matter if they are the CEO or working as an employee in this organization in any level. How can I be more compassionate with different stakeholders? How can I be more compassionate with my colleagues? How can I be more compassionate with customers and with any other stakeholder that I’m related to? But also, how can I support them when they face difficulties? How can I be more generous, and how can I be more grateful to them for their contribution? And also, this is a very important point to think about this, because any of the listeners can make positive impact on the internal environment of the company, the workplace and the external environment, too.
Sara Sheehan: [00:33:10] That’s a wonderful thought to end on. I love the thought provoking nature of just reflecting on, how can I be more generous? How can I do more for others from a truly authentic place in my heart? That is a very powerful reflection. I thank you so very much for that. Can you tell me how our listeners can find you?
Bruno Cignacco: [00:33:48] They can find me on LinkedIn, or they can find me, for example, they can check one of my website, http://www.brunocignacco.com, with double C. Or they can find my books. For example, the Art of Compassionate Business can be found online or offline. The second edition is with a white cover and include hundreds of examples of compassionate organizations from different sectors and sizes.
Sara Sheehan: [00:34:14] Fantastic. I thank you so much for your time today.
Bruno Cignacco: [00:34:18] Thank you very much.
Sara Sheehan: [00:34:20] Thank you so much for joining this wonderful conversation today with Dr. Bruno Cignacco. We dove deep into the art of compassionate business, where Bruno shares invaluable insights on how compassion can revolutionize the workplace and drive success. The three big takeaways from today’s conversation: First, embrace compassion alongside productivity. Dr. Cignacco emphasizes the importance of integrating qualitative aspects like compassion, camaraderie, and engagement with quantitative ones such as productivity and profitability for a thriving business. Second, foster a loving workplace by cultivating compassion, empathy, and support. Companies can boost employee satisfaction, reduce absenteeism and turnover, and create a ripple effect that positively impacts customers and profits. Third, practice generosity and gratitude. Generosity in the workplace goes beyond tangible rewards. Intangible acts like listening, mentoring, and providing support can create a positive cycle that builds strong and lasting relationships with employees and customers alike. This conversation is absolutely groundbreaking. No one is talking about compassion and business, and I would love to create a ripple effect of not only people talking about being compassionate in the workplace, but the actual manifestation of more compassion at work, where people are actually caring about their employees, and their businesses thrive at a much higher level. As always, subscribe to Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan and never miss an episode.
