Ep.70- Heart Centered Leadership: Compassion at work with Dr. Bruno Cignacco

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00]

Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re gonna be talking about compassion in the workplace, can we work more humanely.

And our guest today is Dr. Bruno Rocky, Cigna, who is an international business consultant, TEDx speaker and researcher for over 30 years, he has advised and trained hundreds of companies on international trade activities and international marketing.

He also trains companies on topics related to compassionate business and human oriented leadership. He’s a university professor and a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the uk. He’s also author of the Business and Personal Development books published in various languages. The second edition of his [00:01:00] new book, the Art of Compassionate Business, is available now

 Please join me in welcoming Bruno. Hi Bruno.

Hello Gissele. How are you?

Gissele: I’m good about yourself. All the way from the uk. It must be late over there, right?

It’s

Bruno: a bit late. Thank you very much for your invite. I feel very honored to be here. Thank you.

Gissele: Yes, thank you. I’m so excited to chat. Because the state of the economy and the state of business, I feel is a little bit in disarray. Before we get started on that, can you tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work?

Bruno: Yeah. Thank you for the question. Yes. I started with this work more than three decades ago. I started as a consultant as an accountant at the beginning, and then as a consultant on international marketing and advise companies on, for example, international negotiation, international marketing strategy, international partnerships and international logistics.

And I have done this for a few decades, and [00:02:00] then I started over the last five, six years, I started working on a specific topic that is a non-traditional topic in business that is compassionate business. I started advising and training companies on how to become much more human oriented. This mean caring for different stakeholders such as employee, customer, community, member supplies, but also.

Being more profitable. So this mean that being profitable is not incompatible with being human oriented. And this gave me a lot of satisfaction because I observe that companies switch from a traditional model of being profit oriented to a much more much wider model, which include not only profit, but include people and the planet.

Gissele: Yeah, I love that you said that because people think it has to be a zero sum game, like one or the other. Right. Profit over people or people over profits. What you’re proposing is that you can do both. Right. So what did you observe that made you think that [00:03:00] compassion was the way.

Bruno: I started researching on this, and at the beginning I read an article that intrigued me a lot and was an article about the human moment at work that, uh, this article talk about, not about the strategies or tactics in business, but they talk about the importance of building a strong relationship with different stakeholders, for example, in the workplace.

Among colleagues, but also with other stakeholders, but also connecting to others in a much deeper way. This mean developing a much more uh, profound connection with others, which include mental and emotional aspect and try to build rapport with them. And this is important for business. And when I start researching on this for a few years, I observed that there is a lot of scientific papers, uh, scientific studies on the importance of being kind, the importance of being supportive in the workplace and with a lot of concrete benefits.

It’s not only been nice [00:04:00] to colleagues, being nice to customer, but for example, I remember that I saw a paper that then I included in my book, the Compassionate Piece that was about how to develop a much kinder and loving workplace. And according to this research study that was conducted and many companies were interviewed.

When companies are kind, when they develop a kinder workplace, what they call a psychologically safe workplace, these company tend to have higher employee satisfaction, higher customer satisfaction. Why? Because employees that feel supported, they feel taken care of, tend to serve customer in a much more effective way, but also lower stress levels and lower absenteeism and lower turnover, which impact positively on the bottom line.

So this mean that being kind to people, developing strong bonds with others, developing what we call mutually beneficial [00:05:00] relationship with others, long-term relationship, sustainable relationship with others. These bring about concrete economic benefit It’s not only that people relate to one another in a much better way, but also this bring about.

Higher profit, higher market share, high productivity, high creativity, less stress, less turnover, less absentism, more employee commitment, more employee at faction. So countless benefit that I can cite now, but this is only an example of one of the studies I mentioned in my book. And so, and this bring about a lot of hope because what I observe that the majority of the companies act in the opposite way.

In a counterintuitive way. Why? Because they think no, what is important in business is about profit. We are here to get profit and that’s it. We’re not here to be kind to people, but we have to understand that businesses rely on people. The most important [00:06:00] factor in business is not funds, it’s not technology, it’s not artificial intelligence, but it’s people because they are the bigger resource, the higher resource.

It’s a resource that generate other resources, resource that generate. Business models, new product, new services, new technology, if we don’t care for people. No business will survive. So we are relying on people. Business is a business because it relying on people is cannot succeed without people up to now at least.

Gissele: so you raised some really, really important things that I, I wanted to point out the first one. You know, as a former director of hr, I used to have a number of departments and HR was one of them. The amount of turnover and stress and having to hire or gap or have to pay for people’s leaves was a huge financial drain.

Absolutely huge. So what you’re talking about is important for [00:07:00] businesses. The second thing that I think is probably more important and more fundamental is the myth of the self-made man. We have this myth in North America, in all of these sort of like capitalistic countries that believe that a person is sort of self-made or look at this particular business person.

What they’re not counting on is the fact that all businesses rely on people to run them. Without the people, you have nothing. You have no one like you, you can’t have businesses, and so people burn their staff out. There’s a flip side to that, Bruno, which is people choose to stay in those workplaces out of fear.

I was one of them. I had an experience at work, which was fairly, fairly bad, and people would leave, right, left or center because it was so horrible. But I didn’t wanna leave the job because I was afraid that I wouldn’t get something better, or maybe that’s what I thought I [00:08:00] was worthy. How can people start to understand their own value as well?

Kind of shift away from that whole concept of the self-made man.

Bruno: Very interesting. First off, I want to address the topic of fear because it’s a very important topic, and then we will go to the topic of interdependence. Fear. When we assist company, when we’re advising companies and consulting with companies and providing with some training or advisory services, the first thing that we try to detect in those companies.

Are there any pockets of fear in that company because they’re different type of fear. For example, most of the employees in companies, traditional company, will have one of these type of fears, fear of being fired, fear of making mistakes, fear of being outpaced by colleagues, fear of rocking the boat, for example, make non-traditional, uh, offers or proposal or ideas, so against the group, think so, and this fear it, it pervade most of the workplaces in, not only in the UK and the us, but worldwide [00:09:00] and will be upset according to a certain, when people are fearful, they cannot be productive because they’re in a defensive mode.

They cannot be creative. Why? Because they try to survive. They try to protect themselves from others. So this mean that fear temporarily impair the most important resource in a company. Employees, eh? This is impairing the, the mental skills, the, the mental capabilities. And so this mean that this employee that is fear would tend to be less productive, less effective, less efficient.

So it is, uh, counterproductive for the company to have fearful employees. But fear is utilized many companies as a form of control. This mean that, okay, they keep you fearful because they tell you, if you don’t do this, you will be penalized. Or if you don’t meet the deadline, you will penalize or you will be fired.

Fear is a form of control, but many employees they have enough from fear and so they try to look for other job opportunities. So this is a thing that I wanted to mention, but the, going to the next point [00:10:00] and then I will connect with fear is interdependency or interdependency is the most important principle in business and in life.

No company can rely on themselves. Even the, the biggest, the most, uh, thriving company cannot rely because in practice there are areas of specialism. There are different specialists in different areas. They’re also different organization. For example, supply that might be specialized in raw material or the transport company specialize in delivery of goods.

So companies belong to a network outside the company of different partners, suppliers, retailer, and so on. The, the company have to rely on, these are what we call external stakeholder. And within the company you have different areas we call the partner or sections. That they have different areas of specialism.

So this mean that within the company that is interdependent and outside the company center dependence. So if we’re dependent on people, wouldn’t it be nice to have all these people externally and [00:11:00] internally on our side? You cannot force them to be on your side, but you can persuade them in a much better way.

When you build a strong, long lasting relationship with this stakeholder and this stakeholder, when you treat them well because of a very basic principle of social psychology, that is the principle of reciprocity. When you treat them well, they tend to treat you alike. When you, when you support them, they tend to support you.

In return when you care for employees and you are grateful with employees, they tend to go the extra mile. Work in a much more unconditional way. Instead, when you penalize employee, when you exploit employees and you pay pennies for, uh, unlimited work, what you expect that this employee will contribute unconditionally, not this employee will feel dismissed and will look for other job opportunities.

But also, there is another point that we want to introduce here. That is the topic of reputation company that treat [00:12:00] stakeholders in a very dismissive way and uncaring way has the worst, they have the worst reputation in the marketplace. Employees will write their reviews on Glassdoor platform and saying the worst thing about this company, pushing potential talented employees to enter this company.

This company appear in the media with some scandals in some cases. For example, polluting the environment or taking advantage of supply. And this will push high quality investor. Away from investing on in these companies and also in think in some cases when the company have, they’re stock. In the stock chain market, you see the shares going down.

It’s not a mystery. There is no mystery because the company has such bad reputation that the share naturally will go down. And this is o obviously harming the company itself, investor and all the other stakeholder. So this mean that companies that are not caring, they’re not [00:13:00] supportive with the stakeholder, they’re shooting on their foot because their reputation will suffer.

Eh, they will have more absenteeism, they will have much more medical bills because of stress levels that are higher. They will have less creative human resources. Less productive human resources because employees that are fearful tend to be less productive, less creative. They will try not to rock the boat, not propose new ideas.

And this company, sooner or later, a matter of time will be out of the market. So it’s very important that you mentioned this because fear is an instrument of control, but this, uh, double sided because can be used for control in a manipulative way by many companies, but also bring about a load of, uh, low productivity, low creativity, low efficiency.

Yeah. And this affect the company’s result. Mm-hmm.

Gissele: Yeah. Completely agree. Um. I wanted to share a thought with you just because I kind of had to reflect on my [00:14:00] own participation in terms of the current market. And what I mean by that is, you know, I really had to reflect like, why do certain companies pay people so cheaply?

 like they move their companies out in in particular places. And the perspective is one of lack. But then I had to ask myself, am I willing to pay for living wages? Am I willing to pay a higher price? And that’s when I noticed how we have all sort of led to this world that we have now. My own lack, my desire to pay as cheaply as possible because I wanted my dollar to go further or I didn’t think I had enough, led me to seek out places that then paid their workers less moved operations somewhere else.

Try to find as cheap as possible. And that actually is interesting. It’s sort of like you were talking about interdependence that’s sort of comes back to you, right? ’cause my husband has his own company. I remember sometimes he would get clients who just wanted to pay like pitance the lowest of the low.

And I’m like, oh, these people, they don’t wanna [00:15:00] pay like what we’re worth and full price. And then I was like, wait a minute. I wanted to get the most out of my buck and not willing to pay what people are worth. But here and here I am. We are attracting people that feel the same way.

That’s sort of like that interdependence. I was just curious as your thoughts in terms of how yes, yes, we have contributed to a world where we don’t no longer value people.

Bruno: Very important, and this is what you told me, can be considered as an example to the extreme of dehumanization of employees. When you try to pay employees the minimum possible, trying to exploit them.

This mean that you are focusing not on the human orientation of this, but you’re focusing only on economic aspect. This is a very limited, uh, approach on business. Why? Because you focus on what we call the quantitative aspect of business. What can be measured precisely like a profit market, share, productivity, sales.

But this is, if you only focus on this, you might [00:16:00] go to the extreme means, exploiting employees, polluting environment, cutting down costs, and fighting, uh, loads of employees deceiving suppliers. And this is create a negative cycle, as you mentioned, of scarcity. However, company that have a, what I call a prosperity mindset or an abundance mindset, uh, bring about.

Two more layers. Not only profit that are important on the quantity aspect, but they’re also what we call qualitative aspect. Caring for people, bringing about a safer workplace psychologically safe workplace, a kind of workplace bringing about long-term relations with supplies, not transactional approaches, but long-term relationship with supply, but with any other stakeholders, supporting communities supporting the environment and why this is so important because these two other factor people on the planet bring about a an equilibrium is we’re not biased toward the economic, because if were biased toward economic, we try to get the best, the [00:17:00] best of of the profit, the best of the market share.

We don’t care about people. People are considered as a means to an end. We dehumanize people. So this mean that the employee is not an employee that is a flesh and bond human being with a family. Fears expectation, health problem, health issue. But we use them as a means to an end. This mean this employee is an instrument, a piece of the organizational machinery that will help us bring about profit.

Customer are not human beings. They are figures in our database numbers that we can see, and we try to sell the most expensive product, the one that we get the highest commission. We don’t care about what they want. We try to push and we try to manipulate. We try to catch over them, tantalize them, and we don’t care for anyone.

And so this mean that. Then sooner or later this will come back in a big, big counter effect. Why? Because. Customer will leave negative reviews, very negative reviews. When they feel deceive, when they feel utilized, employee that they [00:18:00] feel used, they feel exploited. Well, they might remain out of fear in that company for a while, but sooner or later they will leave and they will leave.

Not very happy with lots of negative reviews in platform, for example, like glass door. And the same happened with other suppliers. So you see some companies, when you see some, uh, Trustpilot reviews or other type of platform for reviews that they have one star review and then you check. These companies are, uh, with this type of review because most customer complaining that have been exploited by this company, manipulated by this company, deceived by this company, the company promised and didn’t deliver.

And this company said will be affected by this negative review from customer, from supplier, from employees and so on. And this will shrink the sales shrink the market share. This will bring about a negative effect. So this mean that company in the current era cannot get away with this negative behavior, maybe in the past, before social [00:19:00] media, before internet, but not any longer because everything is made public.

And most of the news are sensationalistic they will focus on the negative. If there is any company with any scandal, they’ll pick, this company will put all over the place. Mm-hmm. And the company negotiate the, the reputation and negotiation with supplies in a negative way.

Mm-hmm.

Gissele: Yeah. And I think you’re so spot on.

It’s the, the social media aspect has really brought to the surface some of the, human rights abuses, the lack of caring that happens. And it’s really, really interesting. I don’t think that companies that continue to use that same approach are gonna survive.

And you see it, you see now people are voting with their wallets, right? Like they realize they have more power. What you were talking about in terms of clients being just dollar signs made me think a lot about how marketing companies would go out of their way. Since you, since you focus on marketing [00:20:00] to create needs that weren’t there, if you know what I’m saying?

Yes. To create customers out of people rather than reminding them. How abundant they are and how beautiful they are. There’s constantly this creating of need of you’re not good enough, you’re not worthy buy our product, and then you will be better. And so inadvertently they’re hurting the clients that they want to have because they’re helping with a lower self-esteem.

 but it’s that drive to want to sell and sell more. Yes. Do you see the future as us having the same level of consumerism? Yes. Or do you see a new way of marketing to people that is more humane?

Bruno: Very good question. In the book I included and appended that is titled Marketing and Manipulation, and I mentioned many example of how companies manipulate customer.

You mentioned few. For example portraying the ideal woman or the ideal man to aspire. [00:21:00] The perfect body, the perfect house, the perfect job, and these idealistic images that are portrayed by the media, especially advertising. Create an image that for most customers, it’s unachievable and create a lot of anxiety.

Create also prompt customer to buy product. For example, uh, the man with the perfect body will buy product like vitamin, I mean supplement in some cases plastic surgery. They push them beyond their basic needs, and we bring about a cycle of consumerism, as you mentioned, that is obviously never ending and continual dissatisfaction because customer continually purchasing the new thrill, they will never get satisfied.

But, uh, in many cases, customers that are becoming more conscious realize this negative cycle of continually buying the new thrill, the new model, the new iPhone. And in practice, they stop and reflect on this. There is a very small number of companies that are much more aware and about the, the trend [00:22:00] for consumerism, and they try to act in an opposite way.

For example, I remember an advert of Patagonia that is a, an outside company that, eh, in one of these adverts said. Don’t buy this jacket. Do not buy this jacket. This mean that, do not buy this jacket if you don’t need an additional jacket. Why? Because they try to, uh, reduce the amount of goods, the article of clothing that customer buy in some cases needlessly.

So in practice, uh, you observe company that tend to be much more conscious, uh, with their approaches on advertising. Try for example, to avoid stereotyping. You have some company like Dove the, the brand of cosmetic product that include, for example, when you see the, you see women of all shapes or ages and all races.

This mean that they have an inclusive, approach on advertising. And this mean that there is not an ideal type of woman. All womens are ideal. [00:23:00] In their own nature. So this mean that, but these are deception. What I observed, that I’m specialized in international marketing, that marketing is still in most cases, have a manipulative approach because they try to obviously get the customer by something that.

In many cases they don’t need, but companies in a small scale, they can use what I call a service approach. Because here we’re not to sell products to customer. I want to demystify this. Most companies believe that they’re in the marketplace to sell product and service. And you say, but Bruno, this is obvious.

No, they’re there to serve customer. That is not the same. So this mean that. It’s a very important point, the attitude of selling. When the company adopt an attitude of selling, they’re focusing on themselves. They try to get as much profit as possible, increase the sale as much as possible, and if the customer want this or not, we don’t care because we want to force, in many cases, this customer to buy the product.

[00:24:00] The attitude of service is a completely different approach, its opposite to the attitude of serving, uh, selling and attitude of serving implies that you try to focus on the customers, you try to identify their needs, but not only identify their needs, try to meet their needs and if possible, exceeding their needs.

I give you an example. I’m half Italian, and here in London I want to, uh, different coffee shop. I used to drink cappuccino and I went to one of these big chain and I was there, uh, waiting for the cappuccino. I say, can you please bring to the table? Yes, no problem. 20 minutes later, they brought the cappuccino to the table, the, the waiter and, uh, okay, a bit late because 20 minutes for the cappuccino is a bit a long time.

It was long out. I didn’t say, I didn’t say anything. I tested the cappuccino. And the cappuccino was cold. I didn’t say anything. I left the place. I went to the competitor’s place the following day for the cappuccino [00:25:00] and the waiter say, oh, we go to the table and we bring the cappuccino. One minute later they brought the cappuccino very promptly.

I tried the cappuccino and this was nice, was hot, very savory. But also I observed that the for forgot on the table, a, a tray with biscuit. I said, sorry, there is a mistake. I didn’t order this biscuit. Sorry. Maybe this is for other customers. No, there is no mistake. This is a gift for you, for you to enjoy the cappuccino.

So look at this two approaches. The first one. They take customer for granted. They brought the cappuccino late called, I paid already a big amount of money because they’re quite expensive. Here are these cappuccinos and they didn’t even meet the basic needs to have a cappuccino, the right temperature.

The second provide me with an additional incentive, a gift. They exceeded my needs. I didn’t ask for this. They surprised me in a positive way. Mm-hmm. They were thinking [00:26:00] about me. They were not taking for granted. And for them, probably this biscuit costed, uh, cost a probably a peace or cents very, very cheap for them.

But for me it represented a very big value. So this mean that companies should always focus on giving more than the customer expect. This means what I, I call an approach of generosity. Companies in many cases are very stingy. Oh, I will give this product, but uh, if I give more, this will represent higher cost.

No, it is the opposite. If you give more, you are generating a positive cycle of abundance. This customer will be excited, will be thrilled. We call certified or delighted. And this customer will bring about positive reviews, recommend your company to other customer, bring more customer, and generate the positive cycle of word of mouth.

So this is the attitude of service. How can I serve this customer? And it’s in case you don’t have the right product for this customer or the right service. [00:27:00] Well, you won’t manipulate this customer, you’ll recommend this customer to another company, can provide them with a service. This is an attitude of honesty.

And when you do so, when the customer really need a product from your company, they will come back spontaneously.

Gissele: Oh, you said so many great things. Number one, Bruno. That cannot be an appendix. You need a whole book on marketing compassionately, so you get to work on that. The other thing is the challenge is also the product shelf life.

Like when I was growing up, a fridge would last you like 20 years, 15 years. Nowadays you buy a new thing, like within five years it breaks, the pieces fall apart. Like it’s like clothing as well. Like my mom used to buy signature pieces that would last her a lifetime and shoes and it’s like, that fast throwaway fashion that also makes it sort of like [00:28:00] increase that consumerism.

How can compassionate companies get away from that and move towards greater quality? I.

Bruno: Yes. I don’t want to give any name of companies, but there are many companies, especially in the mobile sector, that use what we call in marketing plan obsolete. Planned obsolescence mean that they planned in advance that this product will last less, that the average life span for this product.

This mean that they’re purposefully making the product last less. Than the product natural, life, span. So these companies are not acting in an innocent way. They’re acting in a manipulative way. Um, they we’re talking about big brands that I don’t want to mention here, and the idea is that they want, they want the next model of, of mobile phone.

They want the next model with the, probably a little difference that or little icon that is a different color. But the mobile, the previous [00:29:00] mobile model is completely right if you want to use it, but won’t last because it made so weak and with the weak type of materials that the, it probably won’t last. .

Companies. What they’re doing is, in many cases, they’re focusing much more on quality. They make enduring products. Why? Because they know that the product endure a lot over time is long lasting. This product is more prone to have a positive image in the customer mind and also try in some cases, the company also try to also encourage customer to recycle.

This happened with some companies that in, uh, encourage, for example, cartridge and printer companies like HP encourage customer to recycle the cartridges so that they can get a benefit of getting this cartridges recycled and so on, and bring about into the lifecycle of new products in practice. The control is over the, the hands of the company.

This mean manufacturing [00:30:00] better quality good, but also in the hands of customer being more selective with the quality of the product that they select when buying, because you mentioned this, the, the voting with the wallet or customer voting with a Wallet. Well, this is so true because at the end, who has the power in the marketplace?

It’s the power is in the hands of customers. Company can offer product that are low quality, show the product, but the customer won’t buy this product. Uh, well, this company will, uh, will, won’t offer keep on offering this product because we look for higher quality. And also this can create a positive cycle of higher quality.

When one company start offering higher quality, another company start imitating this company and so on. Some company get away because customer, in some cases, they want to save money, but they don’t understand that this product, with the saving of the money, this product might last very little time and they, at the end, will end up being more money than a high quality product.

So customer and companies should act in very [00:31:00] specific way, customer be more conscious of the quality. Is the product really certify my needs? Will it last? What is an average, lifespan or is a shoddy product? If so, well look for other product that are, uh, much higher quality. The same with company.

Companies shouldn’t be focusing on short material because at the end this will affect that image. If the product is defective, it’s breaking down very easily. Breaking up very easily. This will leave, uh, this will be live in marketing, the customer reviews. So customer reviews will comment about the low quality, low packaging weak packaging, weak materials.

Customer are very attentive to this and they’re very talkative about this in on social media, on for platform like Amazon, they leave a lot of detailed comments about the reviews. Incentives include picture when the product is affected, include picture of the product breaking down. This doesn’t look, look good in the eyes of other customer and in the eyes of the company.

Mm-hmm.

Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. I [00:32:00] would like to emphasize what you said about there is a level of customer responsibility. We are responsible for making sure the products we buy have good carbon environmental footprints, and that requires research, and that requires us taking an active role in what we’re doing.

Part of the reason why we are where we are is because we have given our way, our power to these companies because they’re easy and they’re fast and they’re cheap. But then we are reaping what we sow environmentally in terms of human wages, in terms of our, our, our, our spending power. Right. Wages have an increased relative to the cost of living.

The cost of living is been. Atrocious now, right? Compared to what the wages are. And we hadn’t noticed, have you heard of this concept called shrink inflammation? Okay, so it’s this where companies like, for example, let’s say you could buy like a big container of [00:33:00] Tide, like right? And you bought like, I don’t know, let’s say, I don’t know, like 200 grams or whatever for a specific price.

Companies are now giving you less amount for the same price, but they’re saying it’s more, or they’re not putting the full amount. So when people were going home and weighing it, it wasn’t the full amount. That’s what they call shrink inflammation. And we didn’t notice. We didn’t notice that this was happening.

We didn’t notice. We were kind of sleepwalking in our lives about what’s happening until it got bad. And then you’re like, wait a minute, what am I doing with my money? where am I putting my power? Where am I voting? And so I love that you said there’s a twofold, there’s a customer responsibility and there’s a company responsibility.

Bruno: Shrinkflation rhymes with a manipulation. It’s a form of manipulation. And also have to be aware that there is a new type of customer, an increasing, uh, group of customer that we call conscious customer. [00:34:00] Yes. This conscious customer are very important because especially the new generation, generation X, millennial.

They are part of this, conscious, consumption, which implies that customer won’t look only for a product that satisfy their needs, but they will look also for a product that have a positive social impact and a positive environmentally impact. For example, let’s go back to Patagonia. A Patagonia is a company that offer, uh, outdoor entire products, uh, article of clothing.

And this company in one of these, uh, statement on their website says, our main shareholder, our main stakeholder is the planet. So this means that this company’s focusing on environmentally friendly projects. This mean that trying to support green project project that care for the environment, the sea water, the air, the the forest, and.

Customer. Many of these customer buying the product from this company know that they’re not only buying high [00:35:00] quality product with good design, but also they’re buying products that are made of organic cotton. This mean that cotton that is not using pesticide or chemical products or any artificial ingredients.

So this mean that our products that are environmentally friendly, but also they know that every dollar or pound that they spend on this product, part of this dollar will be used to support environmentally friendly project. So this mean that customer know that they are contributing to their certain extent to make a better world, to make it positive than on the world.

And this is, this is the future of consumption. This means not only buying product to satisfy your own needs, what will be only a selfish approach, but also much more selfless approach, which imply I’m satisfy my own needs. Through the product and service that I buy. But at the same time, I’m providing a organization like nonprofit organizations supporting the forest and the environment with [00:36:00] some funds.

And my money is not only going to pay the salaries of the company or the CEO and, uh, generate more profit, but also is, um, spilling over, over different organization in the community to bring about better environment, better communities, um, better ecology in general.

Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. this kind of new conscious purchaser, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

You see it a lot on TikTok. They’re talking about consumerism and how to decrease that, how to use what you have. And I think that’s really important to help us create a more compassionate and, better world for the earth and for everyone. so I think that’s definitely very important.

I wanted to shift gears a little bit and talk about, something you had mentioned earlier, which is, you know punishment at work. And I just wanted to know your thoughts on forgiveness in the workplace and how can we shift away from a punishment culture to one that is more compassionate?

Bruno: [00:37:00] Yes. Let’s define compassion first. Uh, mm. There are many definition of compassion, but the one that I use in, in my book and many other book I saw similar definition is understanding how people think, understanding how people feel connecting to other mental level and emotional level, but also trying to help them, especially when they.

Challenging circumstances, and this is connected to the concept of forgiveness because compassion and forgiveness can be including a broad category of being kind to people. So when you are kind to people, you are supportive, you are compassionate, you are forgiving. Why is so important? Let’s give an example, a real example.

I cannot mention the name of the company because of confidentiality. Yeah, of course. But let’s imagine, let’s imagine that a company, a real company here in the uk was buying from suppliers. And this supplier delivered the, the goods that they have to deliver according to the, their contract. They deliver this two week late.

So, and [00:38:00] without notice anything, and this created a lot of inconveniences in the company buying from the supply. If we go from the strict business perspective, there is a contract. There is a contract that should be respected, and if the company act in a non-compassionate way. The company will be unforgiving and will the co.

Why will be unforgiving because we’ll apply the clause that says penalty. When this is not delivered on time and will penalize the supplier, the company will get away because my receive compensation from this supplier, but the relationship between this supplier and the company will break up or will be affecting negatively and this supply might feel resentful even the.

Contract condition. Contract.

Contract. Mm-hmm.

Bruno: But if the company end up a much more compassionate approach and is more forgiving in this case, the company will have a conversation. Instead of applying the clause of the penalty, the company will have a conversation one-to-one if [00:39:00] possibly in person with this, uh, representative of the supplier.

And first we’re try to listen to them about inconveniences that they face when they deliver this, uh, merchandise late, this input late. And so we try to listen to them, understand how they felt about this, but also understand the whole picture, how this affected the company dynamics and, and how this was in some cases inevitable.

And, and the company in that, that case, it’s acting in a compassionate way and in a forgiving way. Uh, this company will try to suggest some idea on how to avoid these delays in the future. So we’ll try to say, you know what? I know that you have this problem in the past. It will be very important not to be repeated in the future.

But why don’t you try to uh, schedule the batches in much more flexible time. We can, uh, go aside a bit from the contract, but I want you to keep your promise and so on. We can be more flexible. In this case, the [00:40:00] company will provide with an option, much more flexible option. I will try to preserve the relationship with the supply and we’ll try to more over.

They will

strengthen the relationship with the supply because we’ll show trust. We show confidence and will show some support to this supplier. Why so important? Forgiveness that is connected to compassion because in this case, the company did not apply the clause understood the, how the company, uh, was facing this challenge with the delivery, but also gave an opportunity for the company to redeem their behavior in the future, providing them with creative ideas.

This is quite important, the example that I mentioned there, because forgiveness is included within the concept of compassion and also implies that we all make mistakes. we all face challenges. And when a person is compassionate with others, understand that. They face challenges, but they themselves can also face challenges.

And we understand that we have a common humanity. This mean that this could, the challenge could happen to [00:41:00] anyone. Uh, what I observed, for example, uh, a very famous scandal, when they have some problems with the, cars that they have to recover some car, because in the past few decades ago,

 they have implanted in the car sand devices that were not, uh, giving measure that were specifically accurate. And what I saw, uh, this, I mentioned also this example in my book, what I saw that the CEO at that moment, the former CEO of the company was in the media apologizing to the public and to the audience, not indirectly, very directly.

Showing his face, being present and apologizing for these make mistakes, this scandal and promise to the audience and to customer as to all the stakeholder, that they will do their best to, do better in the future. I was impressed because it’s not the most common behavior that you observe in a company when the company’s humility important [00:42:00] in a scandal.

The next, uh, attitude that you see is being humble. Be a, adopting an attitude of humility or humbleness. On the contrary, they’re trying some cases to hide this facts or hide the scandal as much as possible, or use public relation, uh, tactics or gimmicks. so not to own responsibility. So this mean that when people made mistake, it’s important to own responsibility.

To take responsibility and to admit that there was a mistake. But also apologize for this. Offer compensation whenever possible, but also try to bring about a promise of, acting better in the future. So try not to, skew responsibility owning responsibility. Very important. And even there is a scandal when the companies acting in a way that act for forgiveness, apologize for their mistake, they’re more prone to recover part of their reputation that was [00:43:00] tarnished by the scandal.

So this is quite important, and most public relation especially will advise companies to face the facts and also apologize whenever possible because show that the company is more likely to recover instead of hiding or avoiding responsibility.

Gissele: And there’s actually a lot of research on medical mistakes and that people are less likely to sue if the doctors, admit that a mistake was made.

I wanted to go back to a point that you had made, which I think is really, really fundamental, which is the need for companies to be flexible, and it really goes to the part of equity versus equality. And so. the companies that I, I worked at and knew, they always focus on equality.

Everybody has to be treated the same. if we give to one person, then we’ll have to do that for everybody, which was never the case. It was just a fear. And, but what happens is that we pigeonhole all these people and try [00:44:00] to fit them into boxes rather than doing what you suggest, which is look at their circumstances, understand with curiosity and with, with kindness and with humanity, to see how you can troubleshoot further.

But it’s that, competition of like equality versus equity that I think people struggle with. What are your thoughts?

Bruno: Yeah. My thought is that when companies are not flexible, they’re prone to, uh, commit two main mistakes. First off, yeah. Micromanaging. And second lack of delegation. So you observe company that are the least flexible are the one that the control is so tight that employees to go to the toilet have to ask for permission.

I’m not exaggerating, I have no, you’re not supermarket. Supermarket here in the UK don’t want to give the name that employees to go to the bathroom have to ask for permission. This how employee can thrive. How can an employee be productive and efficient If they’re [00:45:00] continually controlled, they’re treated like, naughty children, that instead of other people that can be trusted.

This generated a negative cycle of distrust and the negative cycle of resentment that bring about the worst uh, workplace. And these are the company that you see in the media where employees are complaining, employee leaving the company in droves. Why? Because employee don’t wanna feel that they’re treated like children.

There is a basic human need for autonomy. And autonomy implies I know what I’m doing. Trust me, you can gimme general direction if you’re my manager, but trust me, because I, I can give my best. Well, not continually controlled Doesn’t mean that you don’t have to supervise people, but you give the general guidelines and then you trust them to do the best way possible.

And you obviously, you delegate this mean that you allow them to act fully without you interfering in their decision and [00:46:00] their thinking process. So this is quite important because if not, the companies rigid and anything that is rigid tend to break up. Companies that are more thriving over time tend to be flexible. They adapt the way that they approach the workplace, the way that they approach the customer, the technology that they use in this volatile business environment, you need to be flexible and lack of flexibility bring about a, a traditional business approach, lack of creativity, lack of innovation, employee that attracting a very bureaucratic way recently and nothing new can come from there.

No high productivity can come from there. So I feel that this is quite important. The concept of equality, I believe in the concept of inclusion and diversity. This mean that you have a workforce that is diverse and mm-hmm need to be included. And this imply that people will have different skills, different competencies, different for example, experiences, background knowledge, [00:47:00] and you have to, what is the common factor of all these people with different skill, different background, different race relation and so on, that you have to make them all thrive.

Companies should be, yeah, harnessing their natural skills and developing this, this skill even more. And providing with new skills because at the end. Even employees with good salary, if they don’t feel that they’re growing within their company, if they don’t feel that they’re thriving, they’re learning more, their mental needs won’t be met.

If they’re not feeling that they’re recognized and they can have a small achievements or a small wins, this employee is more likely to leave the company. So this mean that there is a myth that only employees with a good salary will remain in the company. This is a myth because employee with good salaries leave the company.

Why? Because they feel unrecognized. Unappreciated. They feel bored to death because they’re 24 7 doing the same work and once and again, and they cannot learn new skill. They cannot get into new [00:48:00] project, they cannot interact with other department. Hmm. But some companies are so rigid that they, they have a silo structure.

This mean a final department doesn’t communicate with the accounting department and doesn’t communicate with administrative. How can employees can thrive if they don’t get in contact with other areas of the same company where they can learn from? Yeah. Instead, company that are flexible, encourage job rotation, they allow employees to, for example, in some cases, work one week in the marketing department, one week in the human resource department.

They know a bit about the whole company, but also provide this employee with free training, continual uh, provision of workshop, seminar, keynote speaker that I invited, especially to this company. In some cases they have some, uh, for example, some retreats also where the employees can, uh, learn some, uh, health techniques and so on.

So these are the company that are investing in this employee. They’re not trying to demotivate employees because how is [00:49:00] the best way to demotivate employees? Always allocating the same task, and well on a continual basis without offering employees any novelty. Instead, when you provide with new skills, new tools, new training, and this employee feel that they’re growing, this employees more prone to remain in the company.

Gissele: the thing that you mentioned, which I think is fundamental, is the key word of trust, right? Yes. Usually micromanagers are full of fear. Yes, it’s a lack of trust probably of themselves to be able to manage the challenges, but then that’s that lack of self-trust is kind of projected onto their workers in a need to force them to act in a specific way, right?

Bruno: Very important. I added in the second edition of the Art of Compassionate Business, a full section on trust and trust in the workplace and trust in relation to stakeholders. And some people will say, oh, but why trust is so important? Because if you don’t bring about a trust based workplace, this increment the costs [00:50:00] within this workplace.

Yeah. Why? Because for example, people are less prone to share information or people would like everything in writing because they don’t trust the others words. Or people are less likely to work as a team. Why? Because they don’t trust other people to work together. And some project need to be work in a collective way.

Uh, and then simple ways to generate trust. For example, I mentioned according to research that some way to generate trust is to connect to others not only on a work level, but also on a much more emotional level. There is an interesting research study that observe that when an employee, for example, asks other how they feel.

But not out of formality, but how they feel, especially when they notice that someone is feeling a bit down. There is a study that observe when people ask, oh for example, they saw a colleague that is a bit down, a bit depressed, say, oh, how do you feel?

 So, so well, can you tell me more how you, uh, how you feel? This simple question [00:51:00] bring about trust between them, because shows some care, shows some compassion, so some, some support. So, but also very simple way to bring about trust, keep your promises. I see some company that, that in the opposite way, they oversize their promises and then deliver very little.

 the companies in many cases can generate trust in a very simple way. For example, minimizing their promise. And offering more in practice beyond what is promised. Uh, remember the case of the cappuccino. In this case, I was expecting a cappuccino and they deliver the cappuccino plus the biscuits.

So this mean that you have a minimal promise and then you surprise others in a positive way. Most company act in the opposite way. They exaggerate their promises and then deliver very little below their promises. This is a way of not generating trust. And trust is so important because as I mentioned, [00:52:00] when you don’t have trust, this bring about what we call a psychologically unsafe workplace.

People do not support one another. In some cases when they don not trust each other, they start competing with each other. So you have colleagues that are competing with you for the merit or for this new job opportunity. And what you need in the workplace and also even outside the workplace is cooperation.

This mean that we need to cooperate. Within the workplace, all colleagues cooperating with each other, but also the company cooperating with customer. When the company generate trust to our customer, this customer is more prone to become committed, to become loyal. When the company doesn’t show any, uh, attitude of trust to this customer, this customer is more prone to look for other organizations.

So, and the same apply with other stakeholders.

Gissele: Hmm. And that’s so true. especially when bosses promise you things and then they just keep delaying, whether it be like a, an income increase or position, that trust is broken. You really can’t [00:53:00] work in that same environment.

It makes it really, really difficult.

Bruno: Mm-hmm. There is a concept that is called psychological contract. Psychological contract in business is applied and it’s a very well known concept, which implies that this, uh. The psychological contract as compared with the legal contract is a set of expectation that the person and another person has has on each other.

So this mean that, for example, what the employee expect from the manager and, and vice versa. So why so important? Because when there is no trust is because people have broken before many times the psychological contract. This mean that,

yeah,

Bruno: people have not met the other’s expectation once and again. And when this happen on a regular basis, well, what you expect, you expect the, the, the most negative thing about the person.

If the person promised to deliver the this report on time, and this didn’t happen [00:54:00] many times, well you have a negative expectation about this person and this tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So this mean that trust is quite important and is the cement of all. Robust relationship. Uh, there is no relationship that can thrive without trust and, and trust cannot be, cannot be promised.

And when someone in business tell you, trust me, well, I will run away from this person because you cannot declare trust. You show this with the, with the facts, with the deeds, with your activity, your action, your how you put your promises into action.

Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. I love it. I have sort of an interesting question.

 traditional businesses are more hierarchical, like somebody at the top, and then you’ve got the, like the majority of the workers at the bottom. How do you feel about more flatter organizations? What are your thoughts? Yeah.

Bruno: Yes. Yeah. There are some company that work well, eh, with the flat organization with less levels in some [00:55:00] cases.

Obviously, these companies that are very traditional, have many years in the marketplace inherit this hierarchy, this traditional hierarchy. But what companies doing practice, they, they cannot flatten the structure within the company, but they flattened the communication, inputs and outputs between the levels.

So I put an example here is a company that have the traditional levels, low level, middle level, and top level, however. Any of the employees in the bottom level can send messages to the high level. This mean that they can skip the middle level and can, supposing that they have a very important idea or a request or something that is fundamental for the company’s performance, they can skip the level.

In some cases, the company have been structured in this um, rigid way for many years, and it’s difficult to disassemble this h hierarchy. However, on a communication level, it’s possible that the levels are interactive. Another way to [00:56:00] bypass this structure that is can be reached is when companies use what we call cross-functional meetings.

Cross-functional meeting or cross departmental meeting implies that companies try to go beyond the organizational structure. For example, there could be meeting which includes. Representative of the marketing department, representative of the human resources Department, representative of the customer service department, representative of the board of directors.

So this mean that you have different representative of the different area and they can discuss one-to-one as equals and everyone can propose ideas, especially this is very important in some Japanese manufacturing companies where the hierarchy key obviously is respected, but on the level of ideas, everyone can propose good ideas and in some cases the meetings that they have on a regular basis, for example, for the purpose of, uh, innovation, for example, or this new designs.

Include [00:57:00] employee all labors where they can discuss one-to-one as equals. And all ideas are valuable regardless that they come from the CEO or they come from the person in direct contact with the customer. So these are ways to bypass this hierarchy. In some cases that inherited, we call legacy structure, organizational structure that are difficult to disassemble because obviously there is a symbolic power of the one on the top and the one on the bottom and so on.

But on the level of practical terms, uh, is important to bring about much fluid communication. Some company, for example, adopt, um, what we call suggestion boxes, which imply that employee from any level can provide with ideas and any single idea. Regardless, it come from managers of the subordinates will be analyzed thorough by the team specialist team committee that will analyze idea and come bring some of this idea into fruition if they’re suitable for innovation and creativity.

Gissele: one of my old [00:58:00] workplaces our boss used to do that with the directors as well. anyone could offer suggestions and ideas on how to improve the organization. and so we really liked that. when I was managing so many different departments, I guess the previous person was the filter through all of them.

They never came together. They, they never sat all the departments together to talk about, to troubleshoot, to come do projects together. So that was one of the first things I did is like, okay, we have six or seven departments, so start having meetings as departments together to talk about. And they would have discussions and troubleshoot different things that they’d been wanting to address and come together to work on projects.

And I thought like, yeah, that’s how it should be. Like when a one person becomes sort of the filter, that’s when things kind of bottleneck and problems arise, right.

Bruno: Very important. And this is a good strategy for many reasons, because when you have people with different level of specialism, different background, different experiences, they can have a different perspective of reality.

We all have blind [00:59:00] spots and we have all our beliefs and our biases that are very well ingrained. Mm-hmm. And when you have people with different views, they might spot for us. Our own blind spots. So they might detect our own blind spots and might, might enlighten us in a way with new ideas, fresh approaches that we couldn’t have imagined from our own mind inside, because we are always inside us so we can, having an external view, a completely different view with different type of knowledge, different type of background, enlightened all people in this meeting.

And also the reality is so complex in business and the business environment is so complex, which include legal, economic, market factor and so on, that having a group of specialists bringing about their views, even it’s not the area related to them, can, bring about fresher ideas, fresher perspective, and can.

Help the company escape from group think because group think is the coffin of a company when [01:00:00] everyone think in the same way and the same yes. Way that they, they think is the wrong way. And they don’t want to change this way because nobody want to offer any decent to this, idea. This general idea that they share, well, many companies, go broke because of this concept of group thing.

So this cross-functional meeting across departmental meeting help companies escape group think and also bring about more innovative ideas, friction ideas, and in some cases idea that complement with one another. These sessions could be good to be used for brainstorming anyone suggests ideas without censoring each other and being open to be triggered by other ideas.

And also this bring about a much more complex set up, innovative ideas that couldn’t have happen. we were relying only one person.

Gissele: Mm. Yeah, absolutely. you know, it’s interesting you were talking about groupthink. here’s the challenge that I have seen.

So companies want to bring diversity in. [01:01:00] They wanna bring diversity of thought, diversity of like all the different types of diversity. They don’t prepare the company for the diversity coming in, which means everybody’s still with that group. Think everybody’s still in that kind of culture of like, we all do things this way.

And so you bring in this diversity of people and they don’t flourish because they’re still asked to think the same way, or they’re not encouraged to really work from that diversity They’re still trying to make them fit into that old paradigm.

And so that’s where diversity really kind of like goes. Just wondering what your experiences has been? Yeah.

Bruno: Yes, yes. in the book I included two examples of chapter that are on innovation and creativity and according to research diversity in the workplace, when well applied.

Will harness bring about more innovation and creativity, as I mentioned, because different type of mindset, different type [01:02:00] of perspective. Mm-hmm. Different type of qualification and experience when interact with others, bring about better ideas. What happened that companies are a bit reluctant in some cases to harness idea on a practical level.

Why? Because they are fearful of uncertainty. New ideas imply uncertainty. Will this work risk or not risk? Why? Why? Risk? Risk And say, why don’t we stick to what we know? Let’s not rock the boat. And in some cases say, no, we’re doing well. Why we change? Yeah, you are doing well, but you can do better. So it’s a concept of conformation means.

Okay, conformity. We, we, we stick to this. This mean that we don’t want to rock the boat. We don’t want to innovate, but there is a very famous title of a book that says, and I believe that is true. Innovation or die if you do not innovate. Yeah. If you’re not open to new ideas, it’s a matter of time to see your miss in business.

Mm-hmm. Why? Because in practice it’s all about continual [01:03:00] innovation with the fast pace, growth of technology and the environment that is so volatile, how you can be remaining the same for a long time. It’s a matter of flexibility, adaptiveness, and innovation. And if you don’t harness this diversity, that is a very important resource within the company with different views that will help you generate new ideas and innovative product and services and system, well, you will miss the boat of innovation and competitors will act in, in the best way.

This mean innovating, creating new products and so on. So it’s important to understand that there is solid research on. The correlation between diversity in the workplace and inclusion and creativity. So this mean that workplaces that are more homogeneous means where people are similar background, similar race, similar belief, and similar qualification.

Tend to have [01:04:00] less, fewer creative ideas as compared with the workplace that is more diverse, multicultural, different nation, multi-generational and so on. So it’s important for company to be aware of these facts.

Gissele: Mm. You made me think of the blockbuster example. Do you know Blockbuster video was told about streaming way before?

Yeah. They were told to invest in it, but they’re like, no, the video’s not going anywhere. And now they’re like, fine.

Bruno: Yeah. This is, this is an example I mentioned in the book I remember gonna Blockbuster When Was Big, when I was younger. And yeah, they were powerful, but they were a bit acting in an arrogant way because they believed that they’ll remain forever with this business model and, uh, they couldn’t see because of the rigidity.

We can also mention the case of Kodak the photography company. Yep. That were so rigid with this business model that they couldn’t see that being adaptive, being flexible, being open to innovation was the only way for their survival. And we’re talking about companies that were so big in the past [01:05:00] and so prominent, ah, and they now they, we don’t even have a shadow of this company.

So this mean that creativity fundamental is, and creativity come from human resources. You can say, oh, artificial intelligence can help me with creativity. Let rely on the most important resource that this not artificial intelligence, that is the human resource. Mm-hmm. We call the human capital within the company that will help us.

Generate better artificial intelligence, better business model, better product, better services, and harvesting in a, possibly in a collective way, in this brainstorming meeting, which include people from different section of different department, different areas where they can offer. There is a company here in the UK, in Birmingham, I mentioned in the book Acme Whistle, that is a company that manufacture whistle.

Whistle, for example, for the police force, for car and so on. Very famous have been for more than one century. This company, every time that manufacturing [01:06:00] new whistle, before launching the product into the market, the people from different departments, the Administrative department. The Accounting department. The production department, they meet together to give their verdict, their view on the new product, and they are open to offer ideas.

This company has been very successful and it’s a model to emulate by other companies, the first one in the sector, and is a unique company in this, uh, to this extent. And what they have done is been open internally, but also externally too. This company has a partnership with the University of Birmingham that.

Help the company complement with the University of Birmingham. Had the University of Birmingham here has labs where these products, new product can be tested on a scientific level. This mean that they tested the material, the endurance, so on. So they have a partnership with the complement with external stakeholder open to their view, scientific view, but also internally open to the view of different [01:07:00] department.

This is another example, and the company have been driving for decades. Competitor cannot catch up with this company because this company is always launching the new model of whistle going ahead. They try to copy their there, but this company is always one step beyond.

Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think the importance of that is the feedback, right?

The feedback from all the different areas. It made me think I was once working at a company, that shall not be named. And they wanted the staff feedback on the logo. Okay? So they gave us the logo, which was only one logo. So they had already picked it out and They gave us, like, it was specific shades of a color.

It was just gradients of that same color. So they had already picked the color and they had already picked the logo. So what are we, what were we being asked for? Like a shade. It just felt like it was just so for show that it just didn’t bode well. It, it didn’t feel like they wanted our feedback at all.

And it was just so like, what are we doing here? This is fake. Why [01:08:00] am I wasting my time? Why are you asking me for this?

Bruno: Sound like a micromanaging to me let’s give example of big companies that thrive on feedback, on constructive feedback. For example, you might have heard of, big company like Pixar, Pixar, the studio, the animation studio.

Yeah. What they do. This company must to make a movie. I mentioned also this in the book, to make a movie take probably a couple of years, two, three years on average to make a movie and employ a lot of, people working in this movie from different areas. There are two main areas that are very directly involved with the movie.

That is the technical area. And the artistic area technically is more related to production, and the artistic is related to the design of the character and so on. These two areas since the beginning of the process, they continually and they give feedback on each other. A very honest and candid way because don’t mistake by the end of the process give example.

[01:09:00] Technical area will give example about the character and will say, oh no, but this character look too big, or the color could be improved. They’re open to continually give continual feedback on each other area, this and other area also within the company, so that they can provide with a much better performance.

They try to support, they know that there are partners in this process. Mm-hmm. If one of the area fails, the other area will be affecting negatively because everything is interdependent. So this mean that, it’s a quite interesting example and they act from a position of humility. This mean that when an area such as this ideas, well they’re open to consider, they don’t, they don’t shut down to new ideas because they know that this is a creative process, that is a collective process.

So they, they have the notion of this. Interdependence and the importance of providing each other with support.

Gissele: They’re not taking it personally that it’s like personal criticism. It’s about the work. Right. I wanted to go back and ask you [01:10:00] about AI because there’s so much fear right now around AI and it taking jobs, and what does this mean?

And you mentioned a little bit about that, but do you feel like there’s any sort of basis in AI taking a whole bunch of jobs in, in, what would that might that mean?

Bruno: Yes. Yes. Well, ai, like any technology can be used for good purposes or negative purposes. Like, people are fearful of, new technology always.

Yes. This is a common fear. We have to understand that people are fearful of the uncertainty of the new when, when they don’t know the effect. This is in transition. we have seen AI for a very short time, relatively speaking in history, and so we have to understand that there is something that up to now we know that AI will never replace, and this is what employees, managers, and anyone working for a company or advisor should look for.

Yeah, ai, AI cannot replace, the human touch, can provide you with a nice [01:11:00] set of answers. They can provide, ate some idea from different sources in on the internet and make a little, like a mix, like a smoothie of ideas and then very easy to to access. But in practice, they want up to now. And I think that will never happen.

It can replace the human contact. The human touch. And what I observed that some companies are using a dual approach. This mean that they’re high technology, high tech, high touch. They keep the high tech, they try to use artificial intelligence, the tools and anything that is important. But they keep also a high touch approach.

This mean that, for example. So they have a company might have a chatbot that is coming when you enter the website and the chatbot is coming, and this is managed by ai. However, if you want to interact with this, it’s okay by customer are given the option to call the company with a real telephone number, with a real [01:12:00] person that will listen to this complaints or as request for clarification and will have a one-to-one conversation.

They have the option so they can use technology. Some customer will like to be more practical, quicker, or they will have a real interaction. What I don’t like when the companies are what we call fully click. Everything is impersonal. Mm-hmm. You can communicate only by chatbot email, no telephone number.

You don’t, you don’t connect to, yeah. It’s like you

Gissele: can’t find them. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bruno: So, so this mean that in this area of AI company that will thrive, I would differentiate from the rest are the company that. Very clearly ingrained the aspect of human touch. Human contact. Mm-hmm. Do we connect to others in person or for example, through a zoom or through telephone.

So that customer feel that they’re talking not to a robot, to a bot, but to [01:13:00] a real person and they can interact in a different way as compared with the bot. Because when you, I use this bot, and when you interact is so basic that the answer that they provide you, uh, they’re not clarifying any point. So if you have real doubts or you want clarification, you need to talk and you want to express your emotion to how you feel about the, for example, you might feel regret about having bought this product.

Talking to a bot is kind of senseless. Doesn’t make any any sense to be really frustrating

Gissele: too.

Bruno: Be frustrating. So this mean that co companies should bear in mind that should be qualifying their employees and training continually on this human contact. So this mean, for example,

Company like supple is a company that sell shoes online, another article online. And this company train employees to have unscripted conversation with customer. So this mean that they don’t have a script to [01:14:00] follow. Say, oh, hello what? What are your concern? No. They connect on a much more natural, spontaneous level and they can take the time that take the conversation to unfold.

For example, some company have a very limited time. Oh, it take five minutes with each customer. No, this company. There is one case of a conversation that went on for hours and customer felt very satisfied and they left a lot of positive reviews. And this enhanced the company image. And also this company doesn’t also try to outsource the customer, service department.

They use their own employees. So this mean that employees that are, they know the product owning the company’s value. Mm-hmm. They know their product and know the company value. They don’t outsourcing, uh, for example, a less developed country using cheap labor force, but they use their own employees.

So this mean that, this is the, the most important example of, uh, human touch connecting to others, giving them time to express. And with this use of technology can be giving you a quick answer, but might [01:15:00] not provide you with details about the specification, the how to use the product. In some cases, this.

Machines or bot cannot listen to your feelings and provide you with some empathy or, or, or feedback on your feelings.

Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, speaking of feelings, a couple of more questions. What is your definition of love or unconditional love?

Bruno: Well, yeah, the included different definition in the Book of Love, but, love is one of the important, principles that bridge differences.

So I included this as a definition of my own definition, love bridge differences, because at the end, people that are loving in many cases arent focusing on differences. Instead of focusing on the most important commonality that we have in any type of business activity, what is the most important commonality that we are all human beings with?

Fears, expectations, negative experiences, [01:16:00] positive experiences, aspirations, dreams, uh, objectives. And I see in business people continually focusing on the difference, different roles, different share of power, different function. I am the customer, you are the supplier, you are the supplier, I’m the buyer and I am the manager.

You are the customer service officer. And when you focus on the differences, I’m not saying that we have to ignore the differences, but when you focus exclusively on the differences, you create separation. Yeah. You create lack of connection. Mm-hmm. You create mm-hmm. A communication that have lower rapport and, and, and lower less profound.

When you focus on the roles, you forget the human being. Mm-hmm. And the human being was before the roles, the role is only tiny part of the human being. Mm-hmm. And what I observe, what is the, the most important sign of lack of love in an organization that I observe that is very easy to detect when people in this [01:17:00] organization.

Even during the break time, they talk about business. This is a sign of lack of love. Why? ’cause organizations that are loving, allow and empower employees to talk about business topics and non-business topics. Mm-hmm. Because non-business topics affect business topics. If you have a problem at home, a health problem, or you’re about to get divorced, this will affect how your performance on a board level.

And so in practice company that are very unloving, they’re sad. Why? Because employees talking, talking about only budget objective, that this is very important, but this is the only thing that you talk at work and especially during break times, this mean that you’re not acting as a human being. You’re acting as a, like a automaton.

Mm-hmm. That is trying to fulfill objectives and nothing else. And you left your human beingness outside work. Instead, company [01:18:00] that are loving what they do. The opposite, not only encourage employee, for example, that to talk about their, uh, issue. For example, some company consultants in company here in the uk, they have counseling services employees that feel unwell or they feel depress or they feel a bit mood or they have, they offer counseling service at work on site so that the employees can reveal their feeling in a safe space in a confidential way.

And this will help them, be more productive, and also have some catharsis about their problems and so on. But this company also, social events, outside work, what they do once a week, they meet, let’s say Friday, they meet for two hours out outside work to have a dinner where the CEO and the customer service officer.

Communicate as equals. They can connect to one another. They let their hair down, they can have fun, and they connect to one another on a personal level, and then they go to work back [01:19:00] on Monday revitalized. They knowing not only on the level of role, but they know the level of humanness. And so this is refreshing because they’re not seeing themselves as a little piece in the organizational machinery

They are flesh and bone human beings with family problem satisfactions, uh, and so on that are part of their life. Anyone life. So connecting on commonalities is the basis of love, and love is the most important principle in business and in the universe, but also is the product that generate. Very interesting sub products such as kindness, forgiveness, compassion.

This, I consider this sub product of love. Love not from the sentimental perspective, love. From the unconditional perspective, we want the best for you. We want the best as a person, we want to support you. And this bring about cycle of reciprocity.

Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. and if [01:20:00] you truly as a leader, love your staff, you have to be willing to invest in them enough to lose them, right?

Yes. If you really care about them enough, Yeah, I used to love to go for breakfast, with my team. I used to take them like on the major holidays and we’d all sit together in one table and then I was taking them for all the major holidays. And some of them would be like, no, you can’t pay all the time, so we’re, we’re all gonna pull our money.

And I’m like, I’m good. But they thought about me, they thought about like, oh, you know, how much is this costing you? Which is like, ’cause, so obviously I cared about them to take them out for breakfast and they cared about me and, and my wallet, which was amazing. Yeah. It also made me think about the whole concept of like, professionalism, right?

Like how professionalism really just means dehumanize because if I can’t feel my feelings at work, I’m certainly not gonna be able to hold space for your difficult feelings at work. and then that’s kind of the recipe for dehumanization. Yes.

Bruno: Very interesting point about emotion, because what I observed that the emotions have.[01:21:00]

Two main approaches that I observe at work, first of some emotion, especially The negative ones, I’m not sure that are negative emotion. The one that can be considered disruptive, like a suddenness of fear or anger are discouraged because they say that people can, uh, become less productive or less efficient and so on.

However, I think about this, we’re emotional being by nature. When you have this emotion, you can, repress and suppress, but the emotion is that is still there and might come out in very unexpected way if you are not emotional intelligent or you cannot manage this emotion correctly. So this mean that the myth of suppressing or repressing emotion or acting in an emotional way, like where like robots in the workplace doesn’t seem to work in most cases, but also some companies.

Also use a second approach on emotion. That is the concept of emotional labor. Emotional labor means we have to use our emotion as resources to [01:22:00] get on well with people. For example, this happen a lot in, in higher education sector. health sector or customer service, activities were regardless how you feel.

You have to show a happy face. There was an airline, I mentioned this example in the book, there were training her hostesses to smile and to smile. Even they fell that they were dying. How to put the right smile for enticing customers, uh, in this case passengers on, uh, on air. And so this sounds so artificial because in practice you like any person, you might feel someday that you are in a good mood.

Some, uh, sometime you are in a bad mood and doesn’t, not necessarily make you less than a person and less than an employee make you a human being. Mm-hmm. And in practice, companies that are so rigid to this bring about a lot of stress because this emotion that are suppressed or repressed bring about [01:23:00] some somatization in some cases and issues within the, the body or the mind that are.

 the result of this emotion, repress or suppress, but also bring about negative communication because when, even when it’s in a bad mood, and when repress the emotion, the emotion is still there. And this will show what’s passive aggressive or dismissive. Or uncaring. So this mean that this myth the important of emotion is harnessing this emotion.

If a person has some challenges with their mental health, having advisor in the workplace, in the workplace, not outside where they can resort to impossible, but also allowing some activity like, uh, you mentioned the holidays or retreats where employees can feel playful. I make sure I, I discuss a lot in my book about playfulness, the importance of playfulness.

Mm-hmm. And efficiency in the workplace. Some company take it so seriously that even during break times, they allow employees, they set up [01:24:00] in the workplace. For example, some pong. Uh, table tennis or pong tennis that allow employee to play sports during the break or allow this employee, for example, to play video games to have fun.

Why? Because it’s a way to bring about a better emotional atmosphere in the workplace, and not only creativity, negative, but more negativity or negative emotion.

Gissele: Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t know too many workplaces that would’ve sort of welcome play. Especially in the not-for-profits, like I could see in like certain corporations, you know, like places like Google and stuff like they, they want to do that because you need to be creative.

But in the not-for-profits, like there’s sometimes like very rigid, rigid thinking in terms of like, well, the government doesn’t pay us for this. The government doesn’t pay us to play. The government doesn’t pay us to be mindful, the government doesn’t pay us to practice [01:25:00] self. Like, it’s not that rigidity of like, it would look bad if somebody got news that we were doing this, but they don’t see the payoff in terms of like, like you said, employee mental health and play creativity, their wellbeing, relationships and all of that stuff.

Bruno: Playfulness, there is research on playfulness that bring, bring about more creativity because when people are playful, they’re not sticking with rigid rules, they’re letting their hair down, they’re more relaxed. And when people are more relaxed, less rigid, the, the, this insights that they’re incubated on an unconscious level tend to come out spontaneously.

Instead, when people are continually rigid focus on type deadlines and so on, they’re less prone to become creative. So, and also this playful activity bring about positive emotion and there is a lot of research that eh, show the correlation between positive emotion and creative insights. So when people are feeling positive emotion.[01:26:00]

For example, in a playful environment, uh, they’re more prone to generate non-traditional ideas. Instead, when they are in a negative mood, they tend to be much more defensive and they take to stick what is known. Some company here in the uk, uh, they’re organizing event, playful event for company. They’re providing playful event.

For example, hide and seek or the treasure hunt for companies to contact their services and organize, they’re setting up all the stage for these games outside the company and play. Can have, for example, once a month, a day of fun playing this game. A treasure hand, for example. I know one of the company that use this one and they have a lot of fun.

They love together and laughing together. Also, there is a lot of reserve when people love together in a, in a group. This creates stronger ties, a much better mood, more commit when people trust one another. So. Not to benefit, but what happen if the company’s only focus on the economic aspect? Oh, we can spend this, as you mentioned.

So for example, some no-profit organization. Uh, we’ll have a [01:27:00] very limited budget. Uh, we don’t have so much to do because it’s a limited view of seeing business. Well, how do you expect creative ideas to come out if you are always thinking in a inside the box and in a rigid way and, working, according to the procedure?

Well, instead of loosening up a bit, the way of acting and way of thinking, not continually, but once in a while and for example, once a week, we’ll help company become more creative, more innovative.

Gissele: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Great way to great way to conclude. So one more question. Where can people find you?

Where can people work with you? Oh,

Bruno: okay. Okay. Please share. Thank you very much. Well, uh, they can find me, uh, on LinkedIn or they can find my website is www.brunocignacco.com. This is one of my website, easy to find me there. And also they can find my book, the Art of Compassionate Business, the second edition that is a white cover, the first edition black cover, second edition, white covered more than 400 [01:28:00] pages and hundreds of cases of compassionate organization.

They can find this online, offline, any bookshop, uh, physical bookshop or online platform.

Gissele: Oh, thank you so much, Bruno, for your insights. This was an amazing conversation. Go out and get his book. It’s amazing.

And join us soon for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Bye.