Stepping into someone else's shoes - the importance of empathy

Nearly everyone we work with wants their lives to be meaningful and fulfilling. My own research indicates that meaning is something that can be accurately predicted and defined. And one of the things that predicts it best is the idea of a transcendent purpose - an objective beyond your own interests. This does not have to be 'good' or 'worthy', but is more akin to Steve Jobs' idea of 'denting the universe'.

It's interesting to note that a transcendent purpose is something you can choose. It is not a trait, or even a state. It's more like a goal or a vision, but is also enduring like a value.

What a transcendent purpose leads to is an attitude of openness and curiosity about the world. And one of the key attributes that this outlook teaches over time, is empathy.

Empathy is an idea whose time has come. Introspection is essential, and indeed Bloom uses psychology primarily to enhance self awareness which allows people to communicate better and to make better decisions. But self awareness is only ever part 1. Part 2 of any life change must necessarily involve thinking about the world - your purpose or mission. And this in turn involves empathy. What cause is worthy of your talent and energy?

The brilliant Roman Krznaric at the School of Life argues that if the 20th century was the age of introspection, the 21st century must be the age of outrospection. And to examine this further, he's just started a fasincating blog.

What type of snake is this?

Look, I just really want to know what type of snake we saw near the Great Ocean Road in Australia. Can anyone help?

How does personality fit with the communication we need at work?

Remote working, or employees working away from the traditional, fixed workplace has seen a sudden boom in recent years. Due to a range of sociological, economical and technological advances, it is continuing to rise and in fact, 74% of UK small and medium sized business are already using remote workforces.

Psychological research has already looked at the outcome of employee engagement, productivity and well-being in remote workers, however there is a gap in looking at the link between personality and the types of communication they prefer.

This is a crucial area of research because as the distance between remote workers increases, the importance of employee-organization fit is being neglected. Also, there is no 'one-size-fits-all' approach to communication.

How does our personality fit the the communication we need at work?

I am currently conducting research exploring this and in particular looking at employees who work for an organization either remotely or in an structured office environment.

If you fit these criteria, and would be happy to complete a 10-15 minute survey, then please have a look at the link below:
http://www.fahs.surrey.ac.uk/survey/work/

Whats more, if you leave your email address as the end of the survey then I will send you the results of the research which will answer some of the questions above...

Many thanks in advance, and please forward to anyone else who may be interested.

Tom

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Conference, Melbourne

I attended the recent ACT Workshop in Melbourne led by Kirk Strosahl, co-founder of ACT. It was brilliant and came at a good time for Bloom.

We're just completing our first ever e-brochure listing the services we offer to organisations, and in this we outline how Bloom is pioneering the use of ACT in organisational settings.

Unlike other therapeutic interventions, ACT comes with first-class empirical evidence for its effectiveness in dealing with depression, anxiety, chronic management and even complex disorders like schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder.

But the beauty of ACT is that it is applicable to anyone. It is a revolutionary way of seeing the world and gives people the skills to increase their psychological flexibility. My former supervisor Professor Frank Bond has shown that it delivers extraordinary results pretty much anywhere in the workplace. By using it in organisations, Bloom will be training people to deal with anxiety, stress, doubt, indecision, lack of confidence and lack of self esteem and to move in the direction that they most value.

More - much more - on ACT to come but for anyone interested in finding out more go to our website. I'd also recommend The Happiness Trap by Dr Russ Harris as a great introduction.

Why would anyone live in London?

Sydney and Melbourne are so fabulous that it's hard to remember, when you return to the Piccadilly Line on a dark Monday afternoon, why you would ever choose to live in London.

It's a seductive illusion to imagine that moving to somewhere warmer, cleaner, safer and with more space will bring greater happiness. (In fact as I type I'm aware that there's part of me trying to remind myself that that's indeed the case...)

But it's to do with values. Would being warmer, cleaner, safer and with a higher quality of life actually make me happier? The answer for me right now is no. Unless a move would bring me greater freedom at work, access to interesting work and people, more meaning, more challenges and more opportunities then it would not work.

The place that brings all of these things at the moment is London.

It's an illusion that I can avoid the unpleasant bits that come with living my values. So here I shall stay, in the dark and gloom of a November afternoon, knowing that my valued direction never promised to be easy.

Holiday

Have just got back from Australia - 3 weeks of work, conferencing and holidaying. It was fabulous.

Bloom Blog Wordle

What do we talk about on this blog?

Curious, I thought I'd create a Wordle for the last two years, and this is what it looks like: