"...how to engage and connect...recognising our shared values was crucial.  These laid important foundations for our dialogue. In an organisation that emphasises rules and targets, compassion and empathy for others has been lost. Restoring this to our workplace conversation has been empowering, and opened up the possibilities of change." Jane Lanley - a changemaker in pursuit of greater equality in her workplace

In my last post, I posed the question: “What gifts can compassion bring to us when we are engaging with social challenge, change and collaboration?”  Well, this past week I got an inspiring answer to that question, courtesy of one of my clients - Jane Lanley (not her real name). 

I wrote about this woman in Engagement - What's is it? She has bravely raised the issue of gender discrimination/inequality in her workplace. Here is our story. We were at a meeting together where one of the speakers talked about the importance of promoting gender equality. I commented that in doing so we often focus on numbers, i.e., how many women in senior roles in a workplace, and engage very little with the crux of the matter: values, beliefs, behaviours and culture change. Jane came up to me afterwards and said she wanted to know more. I sent her the Runnymede Trust report, Snowy Peaks. She read it and told me that she valued how it affirmed her perceptions of what was going on in her workplace. I sensed that the story in the report helped her to feel less isolated and more confident in her conclusions. This is important because, when she raised the issue with colleagues, some were more than ready to respond with:  'Oh, you women are being too sensitive.'   

After a meeting where the Chief Executive in her organisation announced a new member to Executive Board, she spoke out about the need for change – asking if the new Board member was ‘another White male.’ She subsequently drew upon the findings of recent research from the organisation's equality team and wrote a letter setting out her concerns about gender equality.  They weren't her concerns alone. Amidst bullying and sniggers, she got over a hundred signatures from other staff members before sending a letter to the Chief Executive. 

I saw Jane two weeks ago. She mentioned that she was scheduled to have a meeting this week with the Chief Executive to discuss her letter. She was clearly nervous about it and I offered to help her prepare. On Tuesday last week, we had an hour-long coaching session. Jane started out the conversation in what I would call typical activist positioning. She was focused on the power and status gap between her and the Executive, on his lack of 'enlightened' understanding of the situation, and on the likelihood that the meeting would start off with him reeling off a list of all that he has tried to do for gender equality to date. She also kept reminding herself of how invisible she would be to the Chief Executive - to the Oxbridge man in a suit.

 "I felt invisible, and [I came] to realize how I could be visible without being aggressive." 

By the end of the conversation, Jane was in a different position. Firstly, she came to recognise that she can control her visibility in the meeting - and this need not require her to be aggressive, loud or adversarial. Secondly, she saw the Chief Executive in a different light. For example, she supposed he could be equally as frustrated as her by the situation. After all, he seemed to genuinely feel he had taken a lot of positive steps to address the issue. Yet, he had been publicly exposed as having made little progress on the matter. She speculated that he might be struggling with the organisational culture himself – like her he is likely to be surrounded by supporters and aggressors alike. She considered that he didn’t lack a serious interest in the issue, but lacked a full understanding of it. 

She also, by the end of the session, had thoughts about what they might have in common, e.g. a desire to uphold the values of their organisation and a passion for social justice (she learned he was once an energetic political activist). She became determined to go into the meeting in the spirit of pursuing common interests and collaboration. And she realised that the very skills which made her good at her job could also be useful in managing the meeting effectively: the ability to be a an active listener and to engage people with the tasks they tend to resist the most.

Jane went into the meeting nervous, but confident and looking forward to making a connection with the Chief Executive based on shared values. We haven’t done the full debrief on the meeting, but she has reported via email that it went exceptionally well. He made good eye contact, asked questions, listened to her observations and acknowledged he needed help finding the answers. They not only found common ground but he committed to taking personal responsibility for delivering an improvement in the situation.

What does this have to do with compassion? Compassion is about understanding, non-judgment and forgiveness. Expressing compassion can mean putting away the labels, asking the ‘why’ when it comes to someone’s behavior and remembering our common vulnerabilities. It seems to me that this is what Jane did. As a result she connected with her Chief Executive in a way that laid a foundation for frank discussion and a commitment to collaboration.   As a result, she took a significant step in her journey to create change - and brought the Chief Executive with her.

Last night, I gave a talk at an All Ears event on my personal journey with compassion. Seven years ago, even three years ago, I never really thought about compassion - or at least not with that word. Despite working for the last fifteen years in social change, human rights and equal opportunities, 'compassion' has not been a word much used in my vocabulary - neither by friends nor by colleagues. A reference that stands out in my mind is David Cameron’s 'compassionate conservatism' which I associate with his 'hug a hoody' comment in 2006. When I think of compassion in that context, it makes me think it refers to middle and upper class people having pity for 'poor' and 'disadvantaged' people. As the story of my personal journey illustrates, I now believe that compassion is not about 'pity', but is about human connection, understanding, forgiveness, non-judgment. Compassion, if not synonymous with, is at least an essential element of love or loving-kindess. I concluded my talk by saying that I've spent the last year or so integrating compassion into my work. This means I try to embed it into how I interact with people and address social change. And now, today, I've been wondering:  “What gifts can compassion bring to us when we are engaging with social challenge, change and collaboration?”

As the speakers (Fight for Peace) who followed me last night affirmed, one quality compassion brings is a particular lens through which to see people. Conventionally, policymakers and perhaps society more widely tend to see low-income communities through a lens of lack and deficiency. We are repeatedly shown images of violence and told about lack of education, lack of 'family values', lack of social responsibility. Infrequently, do we hear the stories of people abundant with love, creativity, strength, and wisdom doing the best they can in the circumstances that surround them - often sadly constrained by the attitudes of others, structural barriers, and sometimes their own narrow sense of self-worth.  Compassion guides us to see everyone for their worth, not their lack. A compassionate assumption is: every single human being has worth, value and a positive contribution to make to those around them. Compassion also guides us to see our selves and others through a lens of kindness and understanding.  Every single human being is vulnerable to doubt, making mistakes, getting lost, becoming confused. Yet, we sometimes find it hard to accept and forgive human frailty.

Too many of us connect with our selves and others through stories of blame, guilt, regret, criticism, and judgment. Such stories usually guide us to move through the world with anger, frustration, resentment, sadness, low self-esteem, low confidence, a sense of isolation and distrust of one another. Compassion has the power to unleash us from these stories. Guided by compassion we are more able and more likely to ask: 'What are our dreams, what do we value in ourselves and how can we work together so that we can all shine?"

Some questions about compassion alive for me today are:

"What does it look like when we formulate social policy and create public services based on belief in the worth and value of every human being and recognising that everyone has a gift to share?"

"How do we grow more leaders who nurture compassionate human connection and sow seeds for creativity and collaboration?"

"What happens if we address challenging social issues, e.g., workplace discrimination, using the lens of compassion? How would our conversations and collaborative efforts differ from what we often experience when trying to be changemakers?"

I volunteer with Common Ground, an East London community mediation service. I came into mediation as a result of my social policy work, which was increasingly giving me the feeling that we are stifling our individual and collective creativity - the primary cause being poor communication (see 'Why See & Connect'?).  In 2007, I came to the conclusion that mediation skills would be a valuable asset in my future policy-making and advocacy work. I didn't intend, when I trained, to practice formal dispute resolution. But it turned out that formal mediation is something I love doing. Also the art of mediation has provided me with skills that are proving very useful across all my professional activities and in my personal life - and it is all about communication.

This morning I witnessed the power of good communication while I co-mediated, with my colleague Kweku, a dispute between neighbours. Kweku and I both thoroughly enjoyed the experience, agreeing that it was a quintessential example of our capacity to forge connections with each other - even with the people we see as our adversaries or 'enemies'. When we take the risk - and it often does feel like a risk - to see and connect with each other in different ways, we open up possibilities we previously did not believe could exist. 

Wow. When I started to type this post, I thought I was simply going to describe this wonderful mediation we experienced. Now, having written the above paragraph, I am choosing to focus on one aspect of it: risk and vulnerability. And I thank Kweku for this, because in the course of the mediation it was he that openly articulated to all of us the risks the parties had been taking - and commended them for it - too right; they were courageous. Let me explain.

The issue at hand, at face value, was that a couple was feeling threatened by their next door neighbor's behaviour. This is not the place for the details, but suffice to say the session began with the two parties in different rooms.  The plan was for Kweku and I to shuttle between the two.  Thankfully, very quickly, everyone agreed to meet and talk directly to each other.

In the course of the dialogue, emotions went up and they went down. Most importantly, honest questions were asked - and honest answers were given. Thus, the question 'Why did you do x, that just does not seem normal?' was met with reflection and the answer 'I'm not sure, but I agree it is not right.' To ask direct questions - questions that can make the person doing the asking and the person being asked uncomfortable, is brave. Answering them by being thoughtful and not defensive or judgmental is also brave. The three people sitting across from each other at the table took risks in being forthright - they allowed themselves to be vulnerable to being disbelieved, to being judged for what they were saying/asking, to a defensive or angry response, to the process not giving them what they wanted.   

We ended up with a list of five agreements - practical steps to sustain an on-going amicable relationship between the neighbours. Kweku and I watched as tense shoulders lowered, as looks of puzzlement, frustration and confusion turned into smiles and we even had an occasional laugh shared by all. We heard sincere apologies and conclusive 'we agree to disagree' statements.  We saw how supposedly opposing sides had a lot in common in what was important to them, e.g., freedom in their personal space, friendliness among neighbours, a respect for personal property, direct and honest communication. 

I confidently assert that we all have way more in common than we often think. We have shared values. However, when we feel these values are being undermined and ignored, we understandably become angry and defensive. In turn, our creative possibilities for changing the situation become stifled; we become suffocated by our focus on everything different between 'us' and 'them' and all that is wrong about the current situation. How do we move beyond this? By being prepared to take off our masks - and accept the risk that comes with honesty, openness, and self-reflection. This applies equally to disputing neighbours, co-workers in the office,  government officials and politicians designing policy, and the campaigners/advocates trying to influence them - just to name a few situations.

Of course, getting to the point of risk-taking is a journey. The people involved need to feel safe and in this mediation we had to build up to a face to face meeting. The people holding the space for others need to be fully present and prepared to ask expansive and challenging questions, to listen carefully for what is alive in everyone in the room and to reflect back what they are seeing/hearing. Today I had the honour, with Kweku, of holding a safe space for three people who were willing to journey and take risks. They and we reaped the benefits of it. What a gift. 

Engagement is one of those words that can potentially be off-putting because it is used so often, yet with so little clarity on what it means. When I use the word 'engagement' - in the context of See & Connect - I am referring to involvement and commitment. Thus, stronger 'engagement' means involvement and commitment with deeper roots and greater effectiveness in delivering desired outcomes. Take culture change. Engagement is an essential part of driving culture change. Culture change without engagement tends to be a process of compliance rather than commitment.  

I could write a lot on this, but for the purposes of this post, I'll focus on one point: developing strong and effective engagement is a journey. Engagement begins with assessing where people are with the issue/matter at hand.  What's currently alive for them? What ethical values, social values, beliefs and roles are guiding their responses and behaviors to the issue/matter?  My ideal starting point in an engagement process is to get to know people and what's important to them. Where we go from there will unfold depending on what's alive in people and how they need to travel to get to a point where it feels right for them and/or they are inspired to become actively and positively engaged with the issue/matter at hand.  

Yet, when driving culture change, changemakers often try to engage people by telling them the following:

•   We have a problem.

•   We need to do something about this problem because...

•   This means you have to start doing X, Y, Z.

How does this feel to you? To me, it feels like I'm telling someone something and assuming the 'facts' alone will result in them doing what they are told to do - I'm instructing someone rather than asking them to join me in working through what's going on and how we can together create change. I'm also ignoring their experiences and perspectives, including their fears and concerns. Here are some reasons why the above method seldom delivers transformative change:

•   People do not accept there is a problem.

•   People accept there is a problem, but do not think they have a role in creating/perpetuating it nor in addressing it.

•   People are not persuaded that anything can be done about the problem - 'it's the way things are...'

•   People agree there is a problem, but believe it does not impact on them and see no point in getting involved - they want to know 'What's in it for me?'

•   People feel angry because they have a sense they are being accused and blamed for wrong-doing.

•   People agree there is a problem, but do not the like the solutions being given to them.

This is not to say that setting out the problem, its significance and possible solutions is a wasted effort - not at all. Only today, someone who read my Runnymede Trust report Snowy Peaks told me it was a relief to read because it affirmed her experience of her organisation - she feels less alone and more empowered to take action.

What will be important for this woman, and is important in any engagement effort, is to be ready to embark on a journey rather than focus solely on identifying a problem and preparing a list of demands.  In a journey with this woman and her not-very-convinced-there-is-an-issue colleagues, the aim is to generate mutual understanding and find common ground - for the people involved to see and connect with themselves, each other and the issue in new ways. If we want to create more equitable, responsible, nourishing workplaces, schools, public institutions and communities at home and across the world, we need more cultures where people are engaged with a progressive vision - rather than ticking boxes to be compliant with seemingly necessary rules. Compliance cultures usually exist to deliver minimum standards.  Minimum standards will rarely bring about human flourishing. I don’t know about you, but I want to aim for flourishing – not basic survival. And if we are going to aim high, we need more connective forms of engagement.

When I was a senior policy advisor in the British Government, I saw first-hand how poor communication was a key barrier to development and implementation of transformative social policy (as opposed to policies that just kept resulting in the same old outcomes). People would be in meetings with their own agendas - or at least an agenda; a lot of frustration - sometimes to do with the subject at or hand and/or with all the happenings from their office; a defensive posture, and more often than not, a sense of exasperation - 'Why are people always asking me to do things that I can't do and getting mad at me for something that isn't in my control?'  Perhaps, needless to say, meetings with such participants can easily become exercises in futility. This experience played a significant role in my deciding to turn my professional focus on engagement and leadership, asking questions such as 'How can we engage with each other more collaboratively and creatively?' and  'How do leaders nourish more positive connections between people and encourage us all to see situations differently in order to create a different future?'

It would be false to suggest that my time in government began this shift. I started out my career as a projects director in a think tank, then I moved to a national advocacy organization where I set up a Human Rights Programme.  As someone who tended to play the role of 'Bridge', I was struck early on by how entrenched people could be in their positions. And how 'us' and 'them' didn't always mean 'Government' and 'Campaigner.'  Some of my biggest challenges in delivering success were with other social justice activists. Over time, I would see how in all spaces people were adopting roles, postures, and reflexive - rather than reflective - approaches to their work. From early on, I began developing a sense that some critical fundamentals in our working relationships were askew.

A key lesson, which grew and grew for me over the years, is that people have reasons for the roles they play and the stances they adopt. If you want them to alter their role or stance, understand their reasons for it. This being the case, when we are in situations where the task at hand is to work together – amidst differences – to find solutions to social challenges, we will all benefit by pausing, reflecting and taking time to consider the issues at hand from multiple-perspectives. That is to say, it is worth taking the effort to understand the ‘why’ underneath the ‘what’ of people’s roles and postures.

However, asking ‘why’ is not something we are often encouraged to do, or know how to do – particularly in sensitive situations. We are also often discouraged from stepping out of our ‘understood’ roles – we might be told we would be ‘traitors to the cause’ or even just ‘foolish.’  Or we fear a loss of status and credibility. Well, my journey to date has led me to believe firmly that we need to create more spaces for asking ‘why’ – asking that both of ourselves and each other. We need to be prepared to let go of the familiar beliefs and roles holding us back.

The aim is to see and connect with each other and the challenges at hand differently. This is essential if we are to collaborate and create in new ways – leading to substantive and sustainable change.  Albert Einstein once said: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Entrenched beliefs and roles are locking our thinking into narrow parameters. They are often unwittingly generating behaviours which undermine our shared values and our shared potential. If we avoid questioning ourselves and each other, then our thinking and behaviours are unlikely to change and we'll continue to make the same mistakes.