Leading by Adventure - 009 - About building Empathy

Investigate & celebrate the diversity that is around you – Invite your people to introduce more of themselves: their richness, their uniqueness, & their journey. Discovering Diversity - exploring difference

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Why take this challenge?

Embrace and celebrate diversity in all its forms – make it a natural part of your team’s processes

Build relationships and insight that embraces people through cultural boundaries and backgrounds

Stimulate the creativity that can be found in simply bring more of ourselves to the workplace

Graphic image reflecting different pathways to take the adventure

We all grow up with stories, with traditions and experiences. Some are common, but many are unique. They become OUR stories. And together they create a bigger story: Our own individual narrative of who we are and why.

Our stories may be actual stories, words and pictures conjured out of a book, perhaps read to us by someone we loved. Or they may be memories, wise counsel, fragments of conversation that reflect what is important to those around us. They may be rituals, pet phrases, recipes, gestures, things that you remember as ‘belonging’ to your family or community. We all have them. And they are important.

And they are all different. The stories of others may have familiar elements to them, particularly where our ‘origins’ are similar. But they will always have something different also.

And where our ‘origins’ are dissimilar, we may find more new elements. But we will find familiar elements also. We will find connection and resonance in their meanings that may well surprise us.

Sharing elements of our story is a good way to build those connections and resonance, but it does more than that.

It helps us to become more aware of our common humanity. It highlights for us elements of our own story that we may have forgotten or lost sight of. It offers insight which helps build empathy, trust and teamwork. It stimulates creativity.

And it helps build understanding that the similarities and differences we have transcend issues of ethnicity, colour, orientation, and religion. That there are more reasons to hold together than to separate. And that there is an wonderful richness in everyone if only we open our eyes, ears and minds to appreciate it.

+ Green track - taking it in your stride

Celebrate your difference

So the green track this week is to share a little bit of your own story with (at least part of) your team. If you can associate it with something tangible – a picture, or object, or sounds of some kind, so much the better.

To introduce it to the team, explain that you want to do something to compensate for the lack of human contact at present. And that you would like to do something to increase the connections between us. Explain that, to start, you are going to share a short story about yourself to start the meeting. Then simply do that. It is important to try to keep it to under 5 minutes.

At the end, see how it went (you should be able to tell from people’s reactions). If it went well, use the opportunity to share the blue track with them: Get them to take turns at the beginning of subsequent meetings.

+ Blue track - a bit of a workout (click to open)

Celebrate everyone’s difference

So the blue track this week is to start a pattern of sharing stories.

Ask your team to find or prepare something that means something to them individually. Ideally, something that the bulk of the team do not know. Something that is part of their story, and reflects something they treasure. It might be a picture, an object, a memory, a piece of music, a piece of prose, or (when the pandemic is over) a taste or smell.

Explain why you are asking them to prepare this. That it is about appreciating our diversity. Say that at the start of each subsequent meeting, one person will share for 5 minutes, and the rest of us will each share a sentence of something we appreciate from it.

And then, at the beginning of each of your meetings, give one member of your team the floor. Hear the sentences of appreciation. Thank everybody, and move on with the agenda.

+ Red track - stepping up to bat (click to open)

Embrace Diversity

Embracing diversity is clearly so much bigger than sharing stories. But at least sharing stories is a good start.

We are all diverse. We all have things that make us different. For some of us that difference is more obvious than others. And for some of those, that simple distinction has been used against them by those who are insecure in various ways to achieve a sense of power over them.

For all of us, we have some diversities that are less obvious. We could make them obvious, but we have all experienced patterns of inclusion and exclusion as a result of difference, and so anxieties over ‘standing out’ rather than ‘fitting in’ can cause us to suppress certain aspects of who we are – particularly where we are part of a culture where who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ can influence (sometimes unconsciously) how you are treated.

The red track is to begin a dialogue with your team around this issue. As a conversation starter, we have included a number of links in the pack that you may find helpful – particularly the TED talks.

You may also find the ‘Valuing Diversity and Justice’ thread of the meetings maturity model helpful (replicated below). This can help your team position what is currently appearing to happen. And to agree how they want it to be different in the future.

A basic explanation of the maturity model can be found here. There you will find a link to the more comprehensive model (from which the above is an excerpt).

You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop

To catch up on past adventures you may have missed, feel free to browse our Adventures Library

Let us know how you get on.
Share your experience, your insights and your observation using the comments section at the bottom of the Linkedin post.

Please help us to extend and develop our community by sharing what you are doing. Click on the links below where you are most active, and then like or share the article to your network. Thank you for helping.

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Useful links:

Introduction to Leading by Adventure  |  What we mean by spirituality?  |  Why Adventure
Adventures to date   |  I did it, but it didn’t work very well   |  How do I know if it is working
Bringing this thinking into your meetings   |  Adventure & Mental Health
Leading by Adventure community   |  Explore Strategic Support options

Why take this challenge?

+ Green track - taking it in your stride

+ Blue track - a bit of a workout (click to open)

+ Red track - stepping up to bat (click to open)

Useful links:

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