Trust
implies vulnerability.
Expectation
demands certainty.
To lose trust
because of our violated
expectations
is to forget what it means
to trust.
Or to realize
that from the start,
there was no trust,
just unmanaged
expectations.
Tag: Teamwork
Autonomy without Support
Giving autonomy
to someone who lacks support
can be quite similar
to abandoning them.
Challenge of Compassion
We feel compassion
when we feel concern
for another person’s suffering
and desire
to enhance their welfare.
While sounding
virtuous,
compassion becomes
dangerous
when we have difficulty
realizing empathy
with the
concerns
and desires
of our own
or others,
leaving us unable
or unwilling
to manage our impulses
to hastily act,
in the name of “help,”
often feeling surprised
even resentful
of the other person’s response,
as we judge them
ungrateful,
resistant,
or stupid.
Will you be there?
At first,
the question
may seem like
“Do you share
my interests?”
But later,
a question just as important
may be
“Will you be there
to support me
when I fall?”
The Feeling of Support
While we may think
that we’re providing autonomy
for the employees’ benefit,
our employees
can actually feel
left alone
without support.
While we may think
that we’re expressing our concern
for the company’s benefit
our employers
can actually feel
uncared for
without support.
…
Support
is an event.
Just
as the confidence of an engineer
does not guarantee
whether the structure they built
is supportive,
our intention to support
does not guarantee
that support
happens.
Receiving and Giving vs Being and Creating
May we ask
whether we desire
being
and creating with someone
or giving to
and receiving from them.
The more we want to give to,
or receive from someone,
the harder it can become
to be
or to create with them.
Being
or creating with someone
requires being present,
without expectation,
suspending our need
to fulfill a need,
and instead
letting emergence guide us
through uncertainty.
Empathic Humor
“I want to kill him,”
she said,
her heads down,
referring to her co-founder.
“Tell me how you’d do it.”
I asked,
“What?”
she looked up
puzzled.
“I want to hear your plan.”
I responded.
“Ha ha ha!”
she laughed out loud.
I smiled,
noticing her shoulders relax
and tension release.
Leaning vs Falling
When someone leans on us
we sometimes mistake them
for falling,
which inspires us
to rescue them.
But all they really need
is for us
to support them
while they lean.
p.s: My gratitude goes out to Pinky Parsons for inspiring this post.
Behavior vs Experience
Sometimes
we run workshops on empathy,
focused on behaviors
without much focus
on the experience
of empathizing,
inadvertently teaching
manipulation.
As the computer software
“ELIZA,”
has shown,
you can enact
all the “right” behaviors
associated with empathy
without ever actually
empathizing.
Not About Me
When someone does something
we dislike
we tend to become
self-absorbed.
They hurt
“me.”
They disrespected
“me.”
They don’t appreciate
“me.”
Me.
Me.
Me.
When we realize empathy,
we often see
that the behavior we considered
to be about
“me”
had less to do with
“me”
and more to do with
them
feeling unsupported.