Compassion starts with 'we'

As Inclusion Weeks begins I’ve been reflecting on everything I’ve learned over the last few years, the things I’ve witnessed, how I’ve challenged myself in terms of beliefs and morals and started talking to friends in our team about making a company pledge that we could launch as part of Inclusion Week, one that would make a real difference, one that would have a positive impact on people, but then I realised something – that pledge? It starts with me.

I attended a great event last week hosted by the NeuroLeadership Institute which was all around inclusion and diversity and based on their research. I came away having learned a great deal and am still reflecting on some of the tools that I brought away with me and how I can use them. I was surprised, (and frankly slightly appalled) at some of the areas of unconscious biased behaviours that I display. Here’s what I learned and what I am going to change – my pledge moving forward:

1.      I pledge to really listen and to not talk over anyone – we’ve all done it right? You’re having a heated discussion, or a strong exchange of views and the most natural thing in the world is to try to talk over someone to be heard. I am fully aware that I am a strong character, with strong views, I try to listen but my passion for a subject can still get the better of me and I am guilty of talking over others.

Truly listening to someone and what they have to say is a real skill, staying in the moment and focused on that conversation means you are really listening. In planning on what I wanted to write for this blog, it got me thinking about all the times I have spoken over someone, what did I miss? How did that make them feel? It’s clearly a habit I need to break!

2.      I pledge to help try and lift people up in whatever way works best for them – this one is very personal to me and goes back to when I lost my other half. I remember having to send emails out to people asking them, months after he’d died to please not ask me how I was. I couldn’t talk about it and typing my emotions from behind a screen locked away was the only way I could talk about what I needed at that time.

Supporting people, helping them to feel empowered and proud of what they’ve achieved is really important to me and my second pledge is to continue to try to do so. However, I also want to work on being more sensitive to things people are going through and understanding where/how I can best support them. This could be a daily text if it’s too hard to talk, or grabbing a coffee during lunch or a glass of wine in the evening. Or it may simply be a weekly email or text.

3.      I pledge to constantly challenge my filters – now this is the tough one as we all have our own filters and diverse life experiences, which drives our unconscious bias and attracts us towards friends and colleagues who are similar to us, to employing people we are comfortable with as supposed to looking at the skills someone has. 

I’d like to form a habit of challenging myself on my filters and my behaviours and asking myself a couple of important questions based on two different scenarios. Firstly, when I’m in a crowd or out networking and I’ve spoken to a few people, I will ask myself who wouldn’t I normally go and talk to and why? Then, I’m going to talk to them!

Secondly, when I’m in a conversation and (hopefully avoiding talking over someone!) being consciously mindful of what does this person want to get out of the conversation and how does what I am saying, land with them?

None of the above amounts to earth-shattering paradigms of change – but what it does do is change two to three small things, which over time, I hope will make a real difference. A lot of the above is around compassion – compassion is all around “we” – and “we” means we are all working towards a more inclusive and understanding society.

I’ll let you know how I get on and I’ll leave you with this final take away. A few years ago, I worked for a small animal charity who took their animals to hospitals and hospices. The charity was run by a wonderful lady who devoted her life to the cause and lived in a caravan on the farm to ensure every penny was spent on the animals and their wellbeing, who in turn, could help others.

One Saturday morning, we hosted an open morning and as a volunteer, I welcomed a number of guests which included a lady in a wheelchair who was suffering from MS. At the end of the morning, she said what a pleasant morning she'd had talking with me and how nice it was to have a proper conversation with someone. The Winnie the Pooh image I have used comes from the Autism awareness campaign and resonates with this story I have just shared, “the things that make me different, are the things that make me.”

Every one of us has feelings, filters, life experiences that are different to others and during the course of this week, I hope many of us will learn something about how we can think differently, do something different – and make one small change.